|
on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Heise, Arne |
| Abstract: | Keynes's Principle of Effective Demand is widely recognized not only as a major theoretical innovation but also as one of the core concepts uniting various post-Keynesian strands. However, Keynes's own treatment of the Principle of Effective Demand - known as the Z/D model and identified by himself as central to his attempt to fundamentally refute Say's Law - has been ignored or even outright rejected by many post-Keynesians on the grounds that it remains too deeply rooted in mainstream economics. This paper addresses such criticism by emphasizing that any evaluation of the Z/D model must take into account the paradigmatic shift Keynes sought to initiate. |
| Keywords: | Keynes, Z/D model, principle of effective demand |
| JEL: | B50 E12 E24 J23 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cessdp:321891 |
| By: | Gallie, Duncan; Zhou, Ying |
| Abstract: | Since the mid-20th Century, theory and research in sociology on workers' responses to their experience of work can be broadly divided into three overlapping phases. The immediate post-war decades from the late 1940 to the 1970s saw the pervasive influence of an 'essentialist' conception of the meaningfulness of work. From the 1960s this was challenged by a 'liberal' view that rejected the idea that there was an inherent human nature in favour of an emphasis on the importance of individual value choice. It argued that a growth of instrumentalism in work orientations would make job quality decreasingly relevant to the meaning of work. Then in the first decades of the 21st Century, there was a revival of theory and research on meaningfulness, premised on the notion of fundamental human needs, but emphasising at the same time broader societal needs. These different perspectives have given a very different importance to the role of technology as a determinant of the meaning of work. Technological change was at the core of the essentialist arguments, it was marginalised by the liberal arguments and has become once more an important preoccupation of more recent work on meaningfulness. |
| Keywords: | meaningfulness, alienation, job quality, skills, control, technology |
| JEL: | J24 J28 J81 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1652 |
| By: | Kritikos, Alexander; Stock, Günter; Zimmermann, Klaus F. |
| Abstract: | This article highlights the transformation of the German Institute for Economic Research ("DIW Berlin") toward a strong dedication to evidence-based policymaking during the first decade of the 21st century and is part of its centennial celebrations in 2025. This shift came in response to a directive by the German Council of Science and Humanities ("Wissenschaftsrat") to all German economic research institutes. DIW Berlin's successful transition was driven in large part by the integration of research and policy advice, as anchored by stringent publication requirements for research staff members. |
| Keywords: | DIW Berlin, evidence-based policymaking, refereed journal publications, Wissenschaftsrat |
| JEL: | A11 C54 D02 E02 E61 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1651 |
| By: | Hobson, Christopher |
| Abstract: | Faced with a continually mounting array of shocks, surprises and shifts, there is an understandable search for frames to describe these confusing conditions. A combination of the collapse of previous certainties with the lack of a new paradigm solidifying has led many to depict the present moment as an interregnum. This is not a neutral term, to use it is to bring forth the poetic phrasing of Antonio Gramsci: ‘the old is dying and the new cannot be born’. Through a genealogical engagement with Gramsci’s prison notebook entry, this paper traces the remarkable trajectory of the term from obscurity to being adopted by commentators across the political spectrum. The paper considers Gramsci’s original prison notebook entry, observes the lack of engagement with it during the 1960s and 70s when other parts of his work were picked up. Indeed, it was only following the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and the entry being coterminously invoked by two influential scholars, Zygmunt Bauman and Slavoj Žižek. The paper examines how Bauman and Žižek each offered a template for how interregnum has been used in the years since. In the first mode, as represented by Bauman, Gramsci’s entry is placed at the beginning of the analysis and then serves as a frame for the subsequent discussion of maladies identified. In the second mode, as found in Žižek, interregnum appears at the end as part of the argument’s grand finale. In both renditions, Gramsci is deployed to buttress already established arguments. The paper surveys some more interesting and provocative engagements with the entry in recent years presented by Carlo Bordoni, Wolfgang Streeck and Adam Tooze. These are an exception to the more common trend of Gramsci’s interregnum being flattened and thinned out, reduced to an analytical meme. Bemoaning the death of the ‘old’ and the rise of ‘monsters’ is much easier than seriously reckoning with the contradictions and difficulties of an expanding empty space, one devoid of historical guarantees or clear precedents. |
| Date: | 2025–07–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gzhrq_v1 |
| By: | Fiona Paine; Antoinette Schoar; David Thesmar |
| Abstract: | This paper tests how people’s moral values influence their views of debt contracts. We ask participants to make decisions about debt contracts in different hypothetical situations (vignettes). We separately measure their moral values using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2009). We have three main sets of findings. First, differences in moral values strongly explain the cross-section of participants’ debt decisions. Participants with more conservative values show more support for credit score-based loan pricing, stricter forms of collateral, and tougher bankruptcy resolution. Second, when we randomly change the economic costs and benefits of debt within our vignettes, we find that participants change their answers in the direction predicted by economic theory. Third, participants’ beliefs of the functioning of the credit market strongly correlate with their moral values. Participants with conservative values are more likely to believe that strict enforcement and risk-based loan pricing provide incentives and are economically efficient. More liberal participants believe that insurance against unlucky shocks are important. Consistent with moral values being distinct from Bayesian beliefs, financial literacy does not attenuate moral values in shaping beliefs about what is economically efficient. |
| JEL: | G4 G50 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34092 |
| By: | Nikolova, Milena |
| Abstract: | A growing body of research in economics shows that workers care about more than just pay, often seeking social status, career mobility, or meaningful work. This chapter introduces the work orientations framework - a concept from psychology - as a unifying lens for understanding these motivations. Work orientations capture individuals' core beliefs about the role of work: earning a living ("paycheck"), achieving recognition and advancement ("career"), or finding fulfillment ("calling"). These orientations are not mutually exclusive, and many people hold a mix that shapes their workplace behavior. Economists have long examined financial incentives, alignment with an organization's mission, and career ambitions, but these strands remain fragmented. Integrating them within the work orientations framework broadens standard economic models, offers a richer view of labor supply and effort, and suggests new priorities for data collection, measurement, and theory development. The chapter reviews current evidence and outlines avenues for future empirical and conceptual research. |
| Keywords: | Work orientations, Job orientation, Career orientation, Calling orientation, Labor economics |
| JEL: | J22 J24 J28 I31 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1645 |
| By: | Torres-Riquelme, Manuel |
| Abstract: | This article examines the role of two pro-market think tanks in Chile—the Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP) and Fundación para el Progreso (FPP)—in sustaining market-oriented policies via distinct but complementary strategies. Employing a mixed-methods approach combining social network analysis, media corpus analysis, and social media analytics, it conceptualizes these organizations as relational infrastructures that mediate elite cohesion and facilitate the circulation of market rationality in the public sphere. Drawing on the concept of social capital—understood as resources embedded in networks and activated through strategic affiliations—CEP and FPP enact different forms of influence: the former through technocratic legitimacy and elite connections, the latter mostly via ideological outreach particularly targeting youth audiences. The findings reveal how overlapping fields of power stabilize and dynamically rearticulate neoliberal rationalities amid political uncertainty. We argue that recognizing the hybrid and evolving nature of think tanks is essential to understanding the persistence and transformation of market-centred governance in contemporary public and political action, particularly within the specific context of the Chilean political economy shaped by its authoritarian past. |
| Date: | 2025–07–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:kd9mn_v2 |