|
on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | William Barnett (Department of Economics, The University of Kansas) |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kan:wpaper:200601&r=pke |
| By: | Alessia Ruggiero |
| Abstract: | Since the publication of Krugman's paper on "Geography and Trade" in 1991, a burgeoning literature has developed under the heading New Economic Geography. In the following we shall survey the NEG literature and critically evaluate its contribution relative to earlier work on similar topics. More specifically, we will focus our attention on a model that seems to have given new impulses to the introduction of spatial factors into the economic analysis: Krugman’s model. We will proceed with our assesment analysing if and to which extent the features of the model are effective in investigating a real local system of firms: the Etna Valley, an industrial agglomeration specialized in the production of microelectronic components in the area around the Sicilian town of Catania. What emerges from the critical analysis is that the above model results to be extremely simplified. If, on one hand this may be true for every economic model, on the other, we feel that, in our specific case study, the formalization of the processes of local development does not result to be entirely useful. Indeed, great part of the analysis of the industrial district based on the “industrial atmosphere” (Marshall, 1890) remains out of the picture. Therefore, we find more useful the positions of those authors that not drawing on the deductive methods of theorising and analysing employed by Krugman, nonetheless have managed to enlighten mechanisms that seem to be more apt to investigate dynamics taking place in developing areas. More specifically, they seem to offer more useful insights in the context of non stationary economies where markets are not yet stabilized and therefore are not entirely capable of adequately transmitting incentives and information to the actors in the economy. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p273&r=pke |
| By: | Jean-Pierre Cling (DIAL, Paris); Denis Cogneau (IRD-Paris, DIAL); Jacques Loup (AFD); Jean-David Naudet (AFD); Mireille Razafindrakoto (IRD-Paris, DIAL); Francois Roubaud (IRD-Paris, DIAL) |
| Abstract: | The World Bank’s World Development Report 2006 addresses Equity and Development. It defines equity as respect for equal opportunities combined with the avoidance of absolute deprivation. Even though justice theories have long been interested in equity (given that equality of opportunity is one of the recognised values of Western society), it has hitherto remained a marginal issue in development economics. Our critique presents a detailed analysis of this report in the light of recent economic studies on this subject and endeavours to place it in the context of the evolution of World Bank thinking and policies. The first part illustrates the wealth of this concept, with its downside being that it is hard to accurately define. The second part demonstrates the gap between the prospects opened up by the enlargement of the development goals beyond poverty reduction and the report’s policy recommendations, which are generally an extension of the World Bank’s traditional analyses. The future of the equity concept for development policy-making could be closely dependent on the development community’s ability to take on board both all its complexity and wealth. |
| Date: | 2006–01–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:137&r=pke |
| By: | Barrie Needham; Arno Segeren |
| Abstract: | For many years, land markets have been analyzed as though parcels of land were being traded in a frictionless market subject to no rules. To the extent that there were rules which could not be ignored – such as land-use regulations – the effect of these was incorporated as ‘distortions’ to the market. An institutional analysis of land markets, on the contrary, starts by looking the the rules which structure the exchange of rights in land. These are the formal rules regulating such things as access to the market, which rights may be traded and which not, land-use and environmental rules, fiscal rules, inheritance rules. Then there are the informal rules, customary practices, taken-for-granted ways of doing things. All those rules create a structure which affects the availability of information, risk and uncertainty, transaction costs, organizations for buyers and sellers and brokers, etc. It is assumed that people act in a rational way within that structure. The results are the market outcomes: what is traded where, by whom, in what volume, at what price? This paper sets out the method for such an institutional analysis and applies it to two land markets in the Netherlands – for agricultural land and for land on industrial estates. The results of applying this analysis allow market outcomes to be explained better than by an analysis which ignores institutions. The paper is based on research carried out by the authors at the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research (Ruimtelijk Planbureau). |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p582&r=pke |