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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Szirmai, Adam (UNU-MERIT, and Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | This paper was prepared for the Angus Maddison Memorial conference, held in November 2010 at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. The paper reflects on Angus Maddison's contributions to development economics. It focuses on the following issues: 1. quantification in development economics and the framework of proximate and ultimate causality in growth and development; 2 the debate about levels of GDP per capita in the middle of the eighteenth century; 3 Maddison versus the Malthusians; 4 measurement of Chinese Economic Performance in the long run; 5. the impact of Western expansion on the non-Western world and 6. the role of institutions in economic development. |
| Keywords: | Economic Growth, Development Economics, GDP per capita, China, Western Expansion, Institutions |
| JEL: | N10 O10 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2011035&r=pke |
| By: | Boettke, Peter |
| Abstract: | Deirdre McCloskey’s Bourgeois Dignity (2010) represents another breakthrough work in her career, and the second volume in a multi-volume work on the economic and intellectual history of western civilization. In a sense, the subtitle of the book explains well what this volume is all about--why economics can’t explain the modern world. An important modifier would be – modern economics can’t explain the modern world – because much of what McCloskey argues is the resurrection of an older argument that was associated with classical liberal political economists from Smith, Bastiat, Mises, Hayek and Friedman. Fundamentally, she reasserts the power of ideas to shape the world. McCloskey’s narrative is simple and compelling -- materialist stories (whether technological, genetic, or institutional) do not work; incentive based stories do not provide a complete picture of why some countries grew rich while others remained poor, let alone for the exact timing for the divergence in the wealth and poverty of nations with the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th century. McCloskey proposes that incentive based explanations must reside within a broader narrative that addresses values and beliefs, as well as institutions, technologies, and material conditions. In doing so, McCloskey paves the way for a true behavioral approach to a political and economic inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. |
| Keywords: | Economic History; Economic Development; Industrial Revolution |
| JEL: | O10 N00 P10 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32376&r=pke |
| By: | Nathan Perry; Matias Vernengo |
| Abstract: | Conventional wisdom contends that fiscal policy was of secondary importance to the economic recovery in the 1930s. The recovery is then connected to monetary policy that allowed non-sterilized gold inflows to increase the money supply. Often, this is shown by measuring the fiscal multipliers, and demonstrating that they were relatively small. This paper shows that problems with the conventional measures of fiscal multipliers in the 1930s may have created an incorrect consensus on the irrelevance of fiscal policy. The rehabilitation of fiscal policy is seen as a necessary step in the reinterpretation of the positive role of New Deal policies for the recovery. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal Policy; Great Depression |
| JEL: | E62 E63 N12 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_678&r=pke |
| By: | Cullen S. Hendrix (Peterson Institute for International Economics) |
| Abstract: | In the past four years, rising world food prices and the global economic downturn increased the ranks of the world’s food insecure from 848 million to 925 million by September 2010, reversing decades of slow yet steady progress in reducing hunger. While the human costs have been considerable, the political consequences have been significant as well, fueling concerns of two skeptical groups, Neo-Malthusians and food sovereignty advocates. Hendrix assesses the claims of both. On the Neo-Malthusian position, he finds that while population growth and economic development contribute somewhat to price increases, there are few structural, resource-based impediments to increasing aggregate agricultural production. The biggest near-term threats to food security are not dwindling agricultural inputs and agricultural trade, but rather the familiar problems of poverty and political barriers to market access—in particular, the distortions created by agricultural policy in the United States and European Union. A robust trading system is the best way to address current food security problems. In light of forecast changes in global patterns of agricultural productivity, a robust trading system will become even more important to ensuring that a world undergoing climate change will be able to feed itself. |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:pbrief:pb11-12&r=pke |
| By: | Bertocchi, Graziella (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) |
| Abstract: | This essay investigates the determinants of the growth performance of Africa. I start by illustrating a broader research agenda which accounts not only for basic economic and demographic factors, but also for the role of history and institutional development. After reporting results from standard growth regressions, I analyze the role of Africa’s peculiar history, which has been marked by its colonization experience. Next I discuss the potential growth impact of state fragility, a concept which reflects multiple facets of the dysfunctions that plague the continent. The last topic I address is the influence, in and out of Africa, of the slave trades. The essay ends with critical conclusions and suggestions for further research. |
| Keywords: | growth, Africa, history, colonization, institutions, state fragility, slavery |
| JEL: | O43 N17 H11 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5856&r=pke |
| By: | Ulrich Witt; Julia Sophie Woersdorfer |
| Abstract: | How can economic theory explain the reasons why consumers adopt innovations? Using the example of innovations in washing machines two approaches are compared. The first focuses in the manner of household production theory on changes in constraints without specifying preferences, leading to the well-known time substitution hypothesis. The second approach develops specific hypotheses about consumer preferences and focuses on how technical change accounts for them. The two approaches are empirically evaluated with a data set representing the motives suggested in washer advertisements for purchasing new vintages of machines over the period 1888 to 1989 in the U.S. |
| Keywords: | home production, preferences, consumer motivation, product innovation, innovation diffusion, time substitution hypothesis, direct utility Length 30 pages |
| JEL: | A12 D01 D11 D12 D13 N3 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2011-10&r=pke |
| By: | Thomas Masterson; Ajit Zacharias; Selcuk Eren; Edward Wolff |
| Abstract: | We construct estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being for France for the years 1989 and 2000. We also estimate the standard measure of disposable cash income (DI) from the same data sources. We analyze overall trends in the level and distribution of household well-being using both measures for France as a whole and for subgroups of the French population. The average French household experienced a slower rate of growth in LIMEW than DI over the period. A substantial portion of the growth in well-being for the middle quintile was a result of increases in net government expenditures and income from wealth. We also found that the well-being of families headed by single females relative to married couples deteriorated much more, while the well-being of households headed by the elderly relative to households headed by the nonelderly improved much more than indicated by the standard measure of disposable income. The conventional measure indicates that a steep decline in economic inequality took place between 1989 and 2000, while our measure indicates no such change. We argue that these outcomes can be traced to the difference in the treatment of the role of wealth in shaping economic inequality. Our measure also indicates that, on balance, government expenditures and taxes did not have an inequality-reducing effect in France for both years. This is, again, contrary to conventional wisdom. |
| Keywords: | Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-being (LIMEW); France; Economic Well-Being; Economic Inequality; Household Income Measures |
| JEL: | D31 D63 P17 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_679&r=pke |
| By: | Andrew Sharpe; Alexander Murray; Benjamin Evans; Elspeth Hazell |
| Abstract: | This report presents estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) for a representative sample of Canadian households in 1999 and 2005. The results indicate that there was only modest growth in the average Canadian household’s total command over economic resources in the six years between 1999 and 2005. Although inequality in economic well-being increased slightly over the 1999–2005 period, the LIMEW was more equally distributed across Canadian households than more common income measures (such as after-tax income) in both 1999 and 2005. The median household’s economic well-being was lower in Canada than in the United States in both years. |
| Keywords: | Well-being, Inequality, Income, Wealth, Government Expenditure, Household Production, LIMEW, (Canada) |
| JEL: | D13 D31 D63 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_680&r=pke |