nep-pke New Economics Papers
on Post Keynesian Economics
Issue of 2009‒02‒07
four papers chosen by
Karl Petrick
University of the West Indies

  1. The New Development Economics: We Shall Experiment, but How Shall We Learn? By Rodrik, Dani
  2. How to generalize Darwinism suitably to help understand both the evolution and the development of economies By Pavel Pelikan
  3. Institutional Clash and Financial Fragility. An Evolutionary Model of Banking Crises By Knutsen, Sverre; Sjögren, Hans
  4. A Theory of the Corrupt Keynesian By Aidt, T.S.; Dutta, J.

  1. By: Rodrik, Dani (Harvard U)
    Abstract: Development economics is split between macro-development economists--who focus on economic growth, international trade, and fiscal/macro policies--and micro-development economists--who study microfinance, education, health, and other social programs. Recently there has been substantial convergence in the policy mindset exhibited by micro evaluation enthusiasts, on the one hand, and growth diagnosticians, on the other. At the same time, the randomized evaluation revolution has led to an accentuation of the methodological divergence between the two camps. Overcoming the split requires changes on both sides. Macro-development economists need to recognize the distinct advantages of the experimental approach and adopt the policy mindset of the randomized evaluation enthusiasts. Micro-development economists, for their part, have to recognize that the utility of randomized evaluations is restricted by the narrow and limited scope of their application. As the Chinese example illustrates, extending the experimental mindset to the domain of economy-wide reforms is not just possible, it has already been practiced with resounding success in the most important development experience of our generation.
    Date: 2008–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp08-055&r=pke
  2. By: Pavel Pelikan
    Abstract: This paper agrees that a suitably generalized Darwinism may help understand socioeconomic change, but finds the most publicized generalization by Hodgson and Knudsen unsuitable. To do better, it generalizes the extension of Neo-Darwinism into evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo"), which pays more attention to genomes-as-instructors than to genes-as-replicators, and to the entire process of instructed development than to fully developed organisms. The new generalization has clear connections to economics with a minimum guarantee of helpfulness: it generalizes both evo-devo and previously elaborated approaches that already helped understand specific issues of comparative economics, economic reforms, and transformation policies
    Keywords: evolution of instructions, instructed development of interactors, multilevel evolution and development, evolution of institutional rules, development of economies Length 36 pages
    JEL: A10 D02 K10 O10 P50 Z10
    Date: 2009–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2008-17&r=pke
  3. By: Knutsen, Sverre; Sjögren, Hans
    Abstract: There are mainly two types of theories explaining banking crisis, emanating from the monetarist school respectively institutional economics. Using an allegory, monetarists are discussing how much water in terms of liquidity that is needed to stop a fire escalating into a disaster, while institutionalists are occupied with the causes of the fire. Our study rejects the explanatory value of the monetarist view, but also criticizes the Kindleberger-Minsky model for not taking the legalisation and the sanctions in the hands of the authorities into account. We consider the institutional factor as a decisive part in the understanding of systemic risk and the process towards increasing debt in non-financial sectors and introduce the concept institutional clash. Not every recession has caused a banking crisis. But all banking crises have been preceded by an institutional clash. Consequently, an institutional clash is a prerequisite but not sufficient to cause a banking crisis: there must be a recession for a crisis to emerge. We also launch a stage-model for the evolution of banking crises. The stages in that model highlight decisive factors before, under and after a crisis. Our model has the capability to explain the occurrence of crises in a re-regulated economy. However, we only give few examples from Nordic banking crises how our model could be applied. Thus, the article is explorative. It is natural to make further empirical observation in order get a solid theory of driving forces behind banking crisis. The next step would be to empirically integrate all the Nordic banking crises between 1850 and 2000 in our analysis.
    Keywords: Banking history; banking crisis; finance; institutional theory; Denmark; Finland; Norway; Sweden; Scandinavia.
    JEL: N24 N84 G32 G21
    Date: 2009–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:13133&r=pke
  4. By: Aidt, T.S.; Dutta, J.
    Abstract: We evaluate the impact of real business cycle shocks on corruption and economic policy in a model of entry regulation in a representative democracy. We .nd that corruption is procyclical and regulation policy is counter-cyclical. Corrupt politicians engage in excessive stabilization of aggregate fluctuations and behave as if they were Keynesian. We also find that business cycle shocks can induce political instability with politicians losing office in recessions.
    Keywords: Corruption; entry regulation; performance voting; business cycles.
    JEL: D72 K42 O41
    Date: 2008–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:0861&r=pke

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