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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | David Colander |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:1035&r=pke |
| By: | Gerald Epstein; Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth |
| Abstract: | Epstein and Carrick-Hagenbarth analyze the conflict of interest that exists when academic financial economists, acting in their roles as presumed objective experts in the media and academia on topics, such as financial regulation, fail to report their private financial affiliations. The authors analyze the linkages between academia, private financial institutions and public institutions of nineteen academic financial economists who are members of two groups who have put forth proposals on financial reform.<span> </span>In addition, they review media writings and appearances, as well as the academic papers of these economists between 2005 and 2009, to determine the portion of the time these economists identified their affiliations with private or public financial institutions when writing about or commenting on financial policy issues. The vast majority of the time, these economists did not identify these affiliations and possible conflicts of interest. In light of these and related findings the authors call for an economists’ code of ethics which would require academic economists to identify these connections in appropriate contexts. |
| Keywords: | Professional Ethics, Financial Regulation, Academic Economists, Codes of Ethics, conflicts of interest |
| JEL: | A11 A13 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uma:periwp:wp239&r=pke |
| By: | Ingrid H. Rima (Department of Economics, Temple University) |
| Abstract: | A relatively new phase in China’s reform since the Cultural Revolution is evidencing itself in the focus given to direct foreign and joint investment in large-scale manufacturing industries that yield increasing returns. The ongoing relative cheapness of the yuan at 6.78 to the dollar is assuredly enhancing the effectiveness of China’s export program. The U. S. Congress maintains that a more expensive renminbi would ease the plight of the American manufacturing sector and laid-off workers. However, the argument of this paper is that the success of China’s trade is not based on Ricardian comparative advantage. Its trade reforms are better explained in terms of increasing returns as set forth in Nicholas Kaldor's restatement of Verdoorn’s Law and Adam Smith’s “vent for surplus” principle. This analytical perspective seems particularly relevant, given contemporary political concern about the value of the yuan. Given the attractiveness of China for direct foreign investment (DFI), what is the likely ultimate effect on the distribution of the world’s wealth? It seems possible that trade can alter the distribution of the world’s negotiable wealth in the twenty-first century in much the same way as the programs of the World Bank and the IMF enabled the OECD countries and the United States to control some 85 percent of the world’s wealth in the twentieth century. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Revolution, direct foreign investment, export-led growth, trade reform, vent for surplus, Verdoorn's Law. |
| JEL: | F12 F31 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tem:wpaper:1012&r=pke |
| By: | David Colander |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:1037&r=pke |
| By: | James Scott; Rorden Wilkinson |
| Abstract: | This paper sets out to examine the likely benefits accruing to developing countries from the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) as it currently stands. In pursuit of this aim, the paper draws from the insights of both the economic and the political economy literatures in pursuit of a more fulsome account of the likely results of the DDA for poor countries. The paper begins with a review of the projected aggregate gains accruing to developing countries from a concluded DDA. It then marries this aggregate picture with an exploration of the progress in the negotiations to sharpen an insight into just how poor the results of a concluded DDA are likely to be for the least developed. In so doing, the paper reviews progress in the negotiations generally as well as more specifically in the area that has emerged as the core ‘development content’, namely agriculture (focusing on the issues of food security, import surges and the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM)). The paper concludes that a review of both the aggregate projections of the likely results of the DDA and progress in the negotiations highlights more precisely just how poor, and problematic, the outcome of the Doha Round will be for the least developed. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:13210&r=pke |
| By: | David Colander; Roland Kupers; Thomas Lux; Casey Rothschild |
| Abstract: | Social science disciplines see themselves as distinct, with their own territory, their own methods, and their own framework. Within such an environment multidisciplinary work involves enormous conflict and translation problems. This situation is no longer acceptable. Dealing with modern problems requires researchers with broad transdisciplinary knowledge and with the ability to communicate with other social science researchers in a way that will allow them to arrive at transdisciplinary recommendations. Complex issues such as healthcare, income distributions, crime prevention, industrial policy, agriculture require not only insights from multiple social disciplines, but the integration of those insights. This document offers a proposal for training social science researchers. Specifically, it proposes reintegrating the social sciences by modifying the current system of training—which provides completely separate training for researchers in each sub-discipline—to incorporate a common first year “core"of training for all social science researchers. If implemented, the proposal will reduce the babble that currently characterizes much of the interdisciplinary conversations. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:1033&r=pke |
| By: | Dean Baker; David Rosnick |
| Abstract: | Social Security has made it possible for the vast majority of workers to enjoy a period of retirement in at least modest comfort without relying on their children for support. The average length of retirement has increased consistently since the program was started in 1937. However, the increase in the normal retirement age from 65 to 67 that is being phased in over the years 2003 to 2022 largely offsets the increase in life expectancy. As a result, workers who work long enough to collect their full benefits will see little gain in the expected length of their retirement over this period. These gains have gone overwhelmingly to workers in the top half of the income distribution. Consequently, the increase in retirement age will offset the gains in retirement lengths for the bottom half — even if there is no further inequality in improvements in life expectancy. If such inequality in improvements persist, then the bottom half of workers born in 1973 will have retirements no longer than those born in 1937. |
| Keywords: | social security, retirement, retirement age, life expectancy |
| JEL: | H H6 H62 H63 H68 J J1 J14 J18 J3 J32 J38 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:epo:papers:2010-25&r=pke |
| By: | David Colander |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:1039&r=pke |
| By: | Amsden, Alice H. |
| Abstract: | An elite derives its status from its relationship to property, whether physical or human capital. While stable property rights are necessary for everyday business, unstable property rights that result in major institutional changes (such as land reform) may have a positive impact on economic development. When are the ‘wrong’ property rights right? Institutional changes have a positive impact on economic development when a country’s elite can manage them. To support this generalization we examine the managerial capacity associated with elite status, highlighting which capabilities enable them to control changes in property rights regimes to their individual and national advantage. We compare how nationalization of foreign firms, a radical change in property rights, was managed in Argentina, China, Korea and Taiwan after the Second World War. |
| Keywords: | Elites, property rights, indigensim, capabilities, role models |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2010-109&r=pke |
| By: | Evans, Peter |
| Abstract: | Neoliberal globalization is commonly seen as the nemesis of labor. A counter-thesis is offered here. Neoliberal capitalism threatens labor at every level, from the local to the national to the global, but rather than assuming that the global level is labor’s Achilles heel, it makes sense to explore how mobilization at the global level can contribute to contestation at the local and national level. Like any reorganization of production, global neoliberal capitalism creates opportunities for counter-organization. Capital is thoroughly globalized. Could it now be labor’s turn? Labor’s response to these opportunities has involved an interconnected diversity of mutually reinforcing organizational forms and strategies. They range from restructured global confederations to new networks of transnational labor NGOs to new orientations toward the global arena on the part of national unions. Synergies among old and new organizational forms have the potential to make the twenty-ï¬rstcentury ‘labor’s turn to globalize.’ |
| Keywords: | globalization, global unions, neoliberalism, transnational alliances |
| Date: | 2010–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:indrel:1623640&r=pke |