nep-pke New Economics Papers
on Post Keynesian Economics
Issue of 2008‒12‒21
four papers chosen by
Karl Petrick
University of the West Indies

  1. The Monetary Foundation of the Economic Circuit and the Principle of Effective Demand in Marx, Keynes and Kalecki By Hernando Matallana
  2. A ‘New Bretton Woods’: Kaldor, and the Antipodean Quest for Global Full Employment By Leanne Ussher; Sean Turnell
  3. (Over-)Stylizing experimental findings and theorizing with sweeping generality By Werner Güth; Hartmut Kliemt; M. Vittoria Levatia
  4. What explains the academic success of second-year economics students? An exploratory analysis By Pietie Horn; Ada Jansen; Derek Yu

  1. By: Hernando Matallana
    Abstract: Marx carried out the first full inquiry on the economics of the all-comprising circulation process of capital, first in Grundrisse in the late 1850s, and later in Capital and Theories of Surplus Value in the 1860s and the 1870s. Two substantial aspects are at the center of Marx’s analysis: (a) the monetary determination of the social process of production and circulation of capital, i.e. the fact that money-capital is a social relation determining the interaction of agents in the monetary production economy alias capitalism; and (b) the notion of the economic circuit as the key economic category for the understanding of the monetary logic of the principle of effective demand. These aspects are also at the center of Keynes’s and Kalecki’s foundation of the theory of the monetary production economy.
    Date: 2008–11–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:005196&r=pke
  2. By: Leanne Ussher (Department of Economics, Queens College of the City University of New York); Sean Turnell (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia)
    Abstract: In 1949 Nicholas Kaldor co-authored a report that, if implemented, would have revolutionised international economic policy-making. National and International Measures for Full Employment (NIFE) had been commissioned by the United Nations. A capstone to efforts throughout the 1940s to transform international economic policy-making along Keynesian lines, NIFE was without precedent in the importance it accorded global effective demand in determining employment and trade outcomes, and in the commitments it required of governments – not only to their own people, but in enunciating their responsibilities to those of other nations as well. For this it earned the enmity of many, including some prominent economists. In the end NIFE fell victim to the independence of nations within the UN as well as changing world circumstances, and the report was quietly shelved. Today it is little known, and to the extent that NIFE continues to be commented on, its ideas are presented as originating from Kaldor as just another step in his progressive thinking from national to global macroeconomics. But while Nicholas Kaldor was the principal author of NIFE, we argue that the origin for this global Keynesian macro policy should equally lie with his Australian co-authors.
    Keywords: Kaldor, Australian Keynesians, International Full Employment
    Date: 2008–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:quc:wpaper:0002&r=pke
  3. By: Werner Güth (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany); Hartmut Kliemt (Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Frankfurt am Main, Germany); M. Vittoria Levatia (Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Metodi Matematici, University of Bari, Italy)
    Abstract: Human decision making is a process guided by different and partly competing motivations that can each dominate behavior and lead to different effects depending on strength and circumstances. "Over-stylizing" neglects such competing concerns and context-dependence, although it facilitates the emergence of elaborate general theories. We illustrate by examples from social dilemma experiments and inequality aversion theories that sweeping empirical claims should be avoided.
    Keywords: Context-dependent preferences, Experimental economics, Equity theories.
    JEL: A11 D63 D70
    Date: 2008–12–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2008-092&r=pke
  4. By: Pietie Horn (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch); Ada Jansen (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch); Derek Yu (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch)
    Abstract: The factors influencing academic success of first-year Economics students have received much attention from researchers. Very little attention, however, has been given to the determinants of success of senior Economics students. In the USA, Graunke and Woosley (2005: 367) indicate that college sophomores (second years) face academic difficulties, but this receives little attention in the literature. Economics is an elective subject for second-year students at Stellenbosch University. The academic performance of the second-year students has shown a decline, as compared to the first-year Economics performance and the faculty’s average performance. An observed phenomenon at Stellenbosch University is the poor attendance of lecture and tutorials by second year students, some of the factors than can perhaps explain why students perform poorly. This phenomenon may be explained in part by second year students losing interest in academic activities, focusing on other social commitments. This study investigates the academic success of second-year Economics students. It adds to the existing literature on the factors affecting the academic success of Economics students by focusing on the second-year students (a much neglected group in empirical studies, particularly in South Africa). The empirical analyses confirm some of the existing findings in the literature, namely that lecture and tutorial attendance are important contributors to academic success. We also find that as students progress to Economics at the second-year level, their performance in individual matriculation subjects is less relevant, except for those students who had taken Additional Mathematics. However, the matriculation aggregate mark is significant in explaining the academic performance, in a non-linear way. An important finding is that non-White students tend to perform more poorly in essay writing (one of the components of the course mark in the second year) than White students.
    Keywords: Education, Undergraduate, Second-year economics, Academic performance
    JEL: A2 A22 A29
    Date: 2008
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers70&r=pke

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