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on History and Philosophy of Economics |
| By: | Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru (Timotheus Brethren Theological Institute of Bucharest, Romania) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the enduring influence of John Locke, one of the best-known and most influential thinkers in European history. He is widely regarded as a man ahead of his time, whose ideas remain highly relevant in our world today. Locke’s ideas about politics, knowledge, religion, and education helped shape the way we live in free societies today, where we value things like the equality of all people before the law, the right to own property, personal freedom, and the ability to believe and speak as we choose. He is considered one of the architects of modern culture and the Enlightenment, and his reflections and philosophical work were the result of the social, critical, and philosophical upheavals of his time. |
| Keywords: | John Locke, Philosophical Thought, Ideas, Philosophical Work |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:raiswp:0514 |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo (Rutgers University, Hoover Institution, and NBER); John H. Cochrane (Hoover Institution and NBER); Jonathan S. Hartley (Stanford University and Hoover Institution) |
| Abstract: | John B. Taylor is one of the greatest macroeconomists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This paper surveys his seminal contributions to monetary theory, policy rules, and macroeconomic modeling. Taylor’s work on rational expectations, staggered contracts, and the development of the Taylor Rule transformed the theory and practice of monetary policy. Through scholarship, policy engagement, and public service, Taylor has profoundly influenced academic research and central banking practice, establishing rules-based policy as a central paradigm in macroeconomics |
| Keywords: | Monetary Policy, Central Banks, Policy Objectives, International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions |
| JEL: | E52 E58 E61 F33 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cepsud:346 |
| By: | Herrade Igersheim (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | As Amadae observed in her 2003 Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy, "the priority dispute between Black and Arrow over the mathematical analysis of election problems was bitter and unresolved." Arrow's 1951 Social Choice and Individual Values would subsequently overshadow Black's contributions. Based on a study of Black's, Tullock's, and Coase's papers (housed at the University of Glasgow, Hoover Archives -Stanford University, and the University of Chicago respectively), the present article aims to provide a historical reconstruction of the dispute between the two authors and to show its implications for Black's scientific and personal life. The article also brings to light the strong assistance that Black received from American researchers (Coase, Tullock, Riker) from the 1960s onwards, before finally being recognized as the "founding father" of public choice. |
| Keywords: | Gordon Tullock, Duncan Black, Kenneth arrow, Public choice |
| Date: | 2025–07–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05230470 |
| By: | Chaigneau, Pierre; Edmans, Alex; Gottlieb, Daniel |
| Abstract: | This paper studies executive pay with fairness concerns: if the CEO's wage falls below a perceived fair share of output, he suffers disutility that is increasing in the discrepancy. Fairness concerns do not always lead to fair wages; instead, the firm threatens the CEO with unfair wages for low output to induce effort. The contract sometimes involves performance-vesting equity: the CEO is paid a constant share of output if it is sufficiently high, and zero otherwise. Even without moral hazard, the contract features pay-for-performance, to address fairness concerns and ensure participation. This rationalizes pay-for-performance even if effort incentives are unnecessary. |
| Keywords: | moral hazard; executive compensation; fairness |
| JEL: | D86 G32 J33 G34 |
| Date: | 2025–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125993 |
| By: | Yang, Xiaoliang (Zhongnan University of Economics and Law); Zhou, Peng (Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University) |
| Abstract: | A gravity model of citations for leading economics journals finds that papers with a Chinese first author receive on average 14 % fewer citations after controlling for quality and other attributes. U.S. institutional affiliation mitigates but does not remove the bias, which intensified during the COVID-19 period. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic discrimination; Citation bias; Knowledge diffusion |
| JEL: | J15 J44 J71 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2025/14 |
| By: | Sarang Shah |
| Abstract: | Economics has long been a science of static equilibria, in which time is a second-order rather than first-order concern. Without time, economic modelers may neglect or obscure the role of time-dependent phenomena, e.g. path-dependency, and limit their ability to compare agnostically the model results with empirical observations. In this article, I outline a dynamic, signals-based recipe for building microeconomic models from traditional static models. I demonstrate this recipe using a classic "desert island" Robinson Crusoe (RC) model of consumption. Starting from a classic static derivation, I then move to a dynamic view, using the utility function as a generator of force on consumption. Finally, I show that the resulting dynamic model may be expressed in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian terms. I conclude by suggesting a recipe for scientific iteration using these alternate mechanical formulations, and the alternative explanations these dynamic models may suggest compared to employing a static approach to modeling. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.20268 |
| By: | Atsushi Tsuneki (College of Economics, Nihon University); Ayumu Banzawa (Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the historical conditions and processes that led to the rise of militarism in Japan in comparison with fascism in Germanyï¼ Nazism. While both countries pursued wars as Axis powers in World War II, the underlying political institutions, social structures, and economic foundations differed significantly. Germany’s militarism emerged from a mass-based fascist party movement under Nazi leadership, closely tied to the experience of the Weimar Republic and the economic recovery after the Great Depression. In contrast, Japanese militarism developed within the framework of an incomplete constitutional monarchy, driven by middle-ranking military officers and fragmented decision-making mechanisms, without coherent political leadership or broad-based democratic legitimacy. By analyzing these differences across three periods from the late 1920s to 1945, this study highlights the contrasting dynamics of popular support, institutional responsibility, and socio-political bases of militarism in Japan and Germany. The comparative approach also sheds light on the divergent paths of postwar reflection and responsibility in the two countries. |
| Keywords: | Fascism, Japanese Militarism, National Socialism (Nazism), Comparative Historical Analysis, Second World War |
| JEL: | N14 N15 N44 N45 P16 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:2511 |
| By: | Oytun Ha\c{c}ar{\i}z; Torsten Kleinow; Angus S. Macdonald |
| Abstract: | We review Markov models of surplus in life insurance based on a counting process following Norberg (1991), uniting probabilistic theory with elements of practice largely drawn from UK experience. First, we organize models systematically based on one and two technical bases, including a suitable descriptive notation. Extending this to three technical bases to accommodate different valuation approaches leads us: (a) to expand the definition of 'technical basis' to include non-contractual cashflows recognized in the associated Thiele equation; and (b) to add new (mainly) systematic terms to the surplus. Making these cashflows dynamic or 'quasi-contractual' covers many real applications, and we give two as examples, the paid-up valuation principle and reversionary bonus on participating contracts. |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.00011 |
| By: | Biagio Bossone |
| Abstract: | This article extends the analytical framework developed in forthcoming The Critical Role of ‘Conventional Beliefs’ in Economics (Bossone, 2026 forthcoming) by applying it to the concept of the natural interest rate, or r^*. It shows that this is not pinned down by preferences and technology, but rather a belief-contingent variable, shaped by prevailing expectations regimes. When agents coordinate around pessimistic views of future demand or policy ineffectiveness, the economy can settle into rational low-growth, low-rate equilibria, and vice versa when their views are optimistic. These belief-driven dynamics generate multiple equilibria, endogenous liquidity traps, and hysteresis, even in the absence of structural frictions. As macroeconomic parameters become belief-sensitive, traditional filtering methods fail to identify r^* reliably across regimes, leading to systematic policy miscalibration. The coexistence of multiple belief-consistent natural rates implies a new form of policy multiplicity: rules coherent within one belief regime may be inconsistent with another. These results challenge the structural interpretation of r^*and call for credibility-sensitive policy frameworks capable of coordinating expectations in belief-dependent environments. |
| Keywords: | Natural interest rate (r-star); Belief regime; Shock persistence; Policy multiplicity; Equilibria |
| JEL: | D84 E32 E43 E52 E61 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp2520 |
| By: | Yuan, Weipeng; Macve, Richard |
| Abstract: | How far did the indigenous accounting of China's historically successful economy parallel Western double-entry bookkeeping (DEB)? We propose a scheme for classifying stages of bookkeeping that approach full DEB, review recently available nineteenth century Chinese accounting manuals and re-examine how far their recommendations reflect practice to be found in original account books contained in the archives of the Zigong brine wells for 1916-1917 (which have been argued to be essentially unchanged from the nineteenth century Qing era and perhaps earlier) and in the surviving accounts of the Fēngshèngtài salt traders of Henan province spanning 1854-1881. We introduce the accounting records we have now discovered from merchanting businesses in Anhui province, which span 300 years and survive from the 1590s onwards. These are all more sophisticated than the ‘merchant-banking' accounts in the vast archive of Tŏng Tài Shēng covering 1798-1850, and in the case of the Anhui merchants' accounts comprise ‘balance sheets' that include monetary values for physical as well as monetary assets, matching their owners' ‘capital'. We tentatively conclude, on the basis of the evidence now emerging, that despite its variety of forms indigenous Chinese style accounting practice may in some cases have captured the structural essentials of DEB’s content and functions and might be labelled ‘Chinese-style double-entry bookkeeping' ('CDEB'), over which Western bookkeeping had no conceptual advantages. |
| Keywords: | comparative international accounting history; Chinese accounting archives from Ming to late Qing era; Chinese business history; double-entry bookkeeping (DEB); Chinese-style double-entry bookkeeping (CDEB) |
| JEL: | M41 N25 |
| Date: | 2024–02–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:121029 |