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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Engelbert Stockhammer (Kingston University); collin constantine; Severin Reissl |
| Abstract: | The paper proposes a post-Keynesian analysis of the Eurozone crisis and contrasts interpretations inspired by New Keynesian, New Classical, and Marxist theories. The origin of the crisis is the emergence of a debt-driven and an export-driven growth model, which resulted in a rapid increase in private debt ratios and current account imbalances. The reason the crisis escalated in southern Europe, but not in other parts of the world, lies in the unique dysfunctional economic policy regime of the Euro area. European fiscal rules and the Troika impose fiscal austerity on countries in crisis and the separation of fiscal and monetary spaces has made countries vulnerable to sovereign debt crises and forced them to comply. We analyse the role different paradigms attribute to current account imbalances, fiscal policy and monetary policy. Remarkably, opposing views on the relative importance of cost and demand developments in explaining current account imbalances can be found in both heterodox and orthodox economics. Regarding the assessment of fiscal and monetary policy there is a clearer polarisation, with heterodox analysis regarding austerity as unhelpful and large parts of orthodox economics endorsing it. We conclude that there is a weak mapping between post-Keynesian, New Classical, New Keynesian and Marxist theories and different economic policy strategies for the Euro area, which we label Keynesian New Deal, European Orthodoxy, Moderate Reform and Progressive Exit respectively. |
| Keywords: | Euro crisis, European economic policy, sovereign debt crisis, current account balance, fiscal policy, quantitative easing |
| JEL: | B00 E00 E50 E63 F53 G01 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1617&r=pke |
| By: | Guglielmo Forges Davanzati (University of Salento (IT)) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical model inspired by Veblen’s theory of the firm, and to derive some implications of firms’ behaviour for the process of income distribution. It will be shown that the firm is a locus of conflict, involving technicians – interested in expanding production – and “businessmen” – interested in gaining money profits via the management of the “pecuniary side” of the firm. The outcome of the bargaining within the firm defines the ‘workmanship-type’ or ‘non-workmanship-type’ nature of the firm, and affects the level of real wages and employment, insofar as the greater the power of technicians, the higher the real wages are. Moreover, since the expansion of production is associated with the minimum degree of underutilization of capital, technical improvements have a positive effect on the level of employment. Finally, it is argued that a wage increase can have a positive effect on the degree of capital utilization and the level of employment, via the increase in total demand and in the degree of capital utilization. |
| Keywords: | Veblen, theory of firm, wages, income distribution |
| JEL: | B15 B31 D21 D30 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1618&r=pke |
| By: | Diaz-Serrano, Luis (Universitat Rovira i Virgili); Sackey, Frank Gyimah (Universitat Rovira i Virgili) |
| Abstract: | The study aims at testing the Ghana Microfinance Policy set up to support the vulnerable through access to credit. We resort to the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to determine if there is positive discrimination in favor of women and young entrepreneurs in the rationing behavior of the microfinance companies. This is what we should expect if the policy is effective. Our results show that even after controlling for a large number of borrower characteristics, microfinance type and credit worthiness variables, there is positive discrimination that favors female and young entrepreneurs as this discrimination is largely determined by the differential treatment these groups receive in respect of men and older borrowers from microfinance institutions. Our results show that the Government microfinance is the most severe in the rationing behavior towards the discriminating groups. |
| Keywords: | credit rationing, Ghana, microfinance, positive discrimination |
| JEL: | G21 J16 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10323&r=pke |
| By: | Mark Paul (Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, Duke University) |
| Abstract: | In the United States there is a tremendous amount of interest in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) among farmers, consumers, activists, and policymakers. Despite the attention garnered by CSA farms and the resurgence of local agriculture, relatively few studies have examined the livelihood opportunities for farmers within local agriculture. This paper takes a step in this direction, evaluating livelihoods for CSA farmers through in-depth interviews conducted in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. Based on the principles early advocates set forth as goals of the CSA movement, the paper evaluates how CSA farmers are doing from the farmers’ perspective. The paper finds that while CSA farmers are faring better than other farms across the United States and in the study region in terms of earned farm income, they still earn far less than the median national income of all households. Despite these income challenges, CSA provides broader social, ecological, and economic benefits to farming communities as a whole, with its focus on providing food for the community rather than producing mass commodities for the market. These non-market benefits are a significant source of well-being from the CSA farmers’ perspective. |
| Keywords: | Community Supported Agriculture, Local Food, Sustainability, Economic Inequality, Ecological Economics |
| Date: | 2016–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2016-13&r=pke |
| By: | Austin, Gareth; Frankema, Ewout; Jerven, Morten |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the 'long twentieth-century' development of 'modern' manufacturing in Sub-Saharan Africa from colonization to the present. We argue that classifying Africa generically as a 'late industrializer' is inaccurate. To understand the distinctively African pattern of manufacturing growth, we focus our discussion on the dynamic interplay between the region's specific endowment structures, global economic relationships and government policies. We conclude that the case of Sub-Saharan Africa is best characterized as interrupted industrial growth instead of sustained convergence on world industrial leaders. This is partly because, until very recently, the factor endowments made it very costly for states to pursue industrialization; and partly because successive rulers, colonial and post-colonial, have rarely had both the capacity to adopt and the dedication to sustain policies that modified the region's existing comparative advantage in primary production, by using their fiscal and regulatory powers effectively to promote industrialization. |
| Keywords: | Colonial institutions; economic history; Industrialization; Manufacturing; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | N17 N60 O14 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11609&r=pke |
| By: | Ternyik, Stephen I. |
| Abstract: | The statistical method, based on physical and observable quantities, can very precisely describe universal patterns of human progress and poverty, in terms of money, energy and wealth distribution over time. This research proposal points to the non-natural root cause of all social inequalities in the empirical history of human civilization and possible economic remedies. Poverty is not a natural phenomenon, but the economic result of the human privatization of nature. |
| Keywords: | rent, capital, thermo-economics, economic cycles, singularity, progress, poverty |
| JEL: | B41 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75067&r=pke |
| By: | Timothy M. Diette (Department of Economics, Washington and Lee University); Manu Raghav (Department of Economics and Management, DePauw University) |
| Abstract: | Colleges and universities have to stagger their classes across different times and days to make the best use of their existing buildings. Some of these class meetings are for different lengths of time and meet a different number of days per week. In addition, students and faculty have increased demand for courses that meet fewer days per week. There is some concern that classes that meet more often are better suited for student learning than others. However, this paper finds that, after controlling for the class time and course fixed effects as well as faculty and student fixed effects, there is no statistical difference between student learning in two days and three days classes. Thus, for colleges similar to the one in this study there does not appear to be a trade-off between the frequency of course meetings and student achievement as measured by grades. |
| Keywords: | Class Meeting Frequency; Grades; GPA; Student Learning |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I23 A22 Z18 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dew:wpaper:2016-101&r=pke |
| By: | Constant, Amelie F. (UNU-MERIT, and Princeton University); Zimmermann, Klaus F. (UNU-MERIT, and Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | While Europe feels inundated by the 2015 refugee waves, the policy responses of the European Union and its member countries exhibit signs of helplessness. The Dublin system assigning responsibility to the country of first-entry has failed. Identifying true asylum seekers effectively and distributing them fairly across Europe requests loyalty to the once accepted humanitarian standards and solidarity with the principles of Europe. A turnaround of the European asylum policy is needed: Commonly organised registration, selection and distribution systems have to be followed by an early access of asylum seekers to the European labour markets. |
| Keywords: | Refugees, Asylees, Asylum Policy, Migration, Labour Market Access |
| JEL: | F51 F55 H75 J61 J64 J68 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2016062&r=pke |
| By: | Yana Borissenko; Ron Boschma |
| Abstract: | The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (EE) literature has attracted much attention, especially in policy circles. However, the concept suffers from a number of shortcomings: (1) it lacks a clear analytical framework that makes explicit what is cause and what is effect in an entrepreneurial system; (2) while being a systemic concept, the EE has not yet fully exploited insights from network theory, and it is not always clear in what way the proposed elements are connected in an entrepreneurial system; (3) it remains a challenge what institutions (and at what spatial scale) impact on the structure and performance of EE; (4) studies have often focused on the EE in single regions or clusters, but lack a comparative and multi-scalar perspective; (5) the EE literature tends to provide a static framework taking a snapshot of EE without considering systematically their evolution over time. For each of these shortcomings, we make a number of suggestions to take up in future research on EE. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurial ecosystem, Entrepreneurial system, Networks, Entrepreneurship, Clusters |
| JEL: | L26 M21 O33 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1630&r=pke |
| By: | Ahmad Aminu, Hamidu; Md. Harashid, Haron; Azlan, Amran |
| Abstract: | This paper reviewed different definitions of CSR and presented some summarised dimensions attributed to the definitions which represent the area of focus for the definitions including; Obligation to the society, stakeholders involvement, improving corporate image and reputation, economic development, ethical business practice, law abiding, voluntariness, human rights, environmental protection, transparency and accountability. The six core characteristics of CSR follows as the features which shows how CSR is represented with different initiatives and processes ranging from voluntary activities, managing external factors, stakeholder management, alignment of social and economic responsibilities, considering practices and values and finally extending CSR activities beyond philanthropy to instrumentality. The last segment of this paper elucidates on theoretical perspectives of CSR in six categories; the classical view, the legitimacy, stakeholder, agency, institutional, instrumental and Islamic CSR theories. |
| Keywords: | Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR definitions, CSR core characteristics, Scope of CSR, Theories in CSR |
| JEL: | M1 M14 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75040&r=pke |