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on Post Keynesian Economics |
| By: | Stefan Ederer; Miriam Rehm (Federal Chamber of Labour Vienna (AT)) |
| Abstract: | We develop and calibrate an analytical growth model in the neo-Kaleckian tradition with an endogenous wealth distribution and differential returns to wealth between workers and capitalists. We show that a long-run equilibrium allows for non-zero wealth owned by workers, even as the model contains the “triumph of the rentier” predicted by Piketty’s r > g as a special case. The model’s calibration to ten European countries shows that the distribution of wealth is likely to become more unequal in all cases, barring political countermeasures. |
| Keywords: | inequality, wealth, income, neo-Kaleckian theory, model calibration |
| JEL: | D31 E12 E21 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pke:wpaper:pkwp1717&r=pke |
| By: | Claudius Graebner (Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria); Wolfram Elsner (Institute for Institutional and Innovation Economics, University of Bremen, Germany); Alexander Lascaux (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia) |
| Abstract: | This paper illustrates the usefulness of computational methods for the investigation of institutions. As an example, we use a computational agent-based model to study the role of general trust and social control in informal value transfer systems (ITVS). We find that, how and in which timeline general trust and social control interact in order to make ITVS work, become stable and highly effective. The case shows how computational models may help (1) to operationalize institutional theory and to clarify the functioning of institutions, (2) to test the logical consistency of alternative hypotheses about institutions, and (3) to relate institutionalist theory with other paradigms and to practice an interested pluralism. |
| Keywords: | agent-based computational economics, evolutionary-institutional economics, informal value transfer systems, general trust, social control |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ico:wpaper:74&r=pke |
| By: | Alex Bell; Raj Chetty; Xavier Jaravel; Neviana Petkova; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in America by using de-identified data on 1.2 million inventors from patent records linked to tax records. We establish three sets of results. First, children from high-income (top 1%) families are ten times as likely to become inventors as those from below-median income families. There are similarly large gaps by race and gender. Differences in innate ability, as measured by test scores in early childhood, explain relatively little of these gaps. Second, exposure to innovation during childhood has significant causal effects on children's propensities to become inventors. Growing up in a neighborhood or family with a high innovation rate in a specific technology class leads to a higher probability of patenting in exactly the same technology class. These exposure effects are gender-specific: girls are more likely to become inventors in a particular technology class if they grow up in an area with more female inventors in that technology class. Third, the financial returns to inventions are extremely skewed and highly correlated with their scientific impact, as measured by citations. Consistent with the importance of exposure effects and contrary to standard models of career selection, women and disadvantaged youth are as under-represented among high-impact inventors as they are among inventors as a whole. We develop a simple model of inventors' careers that matches these empirical results. The model implies that increasing exposure to innovation in childhood may have larger impacts on innovation than increasing the financial incentives to innovate, for instance by cutting tax rates. In particular, there are many "lost Einsteins" - individuals who would have had highly impactful inventions had they been exposed to innovation. |
| Keywords: | inventor, America, innovation |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1519&r=pke |
| By: | Strunz, Sebastian; Bartkowski, Bartosz |
| Abstract: | Critiques of modernity often align with critiques of the existing institutions of lib-eral democracy. We argue that the degrowth movement can learn from the experience of past critiques of modernity by avoiding their major mistake - that is, (inadvertently) conflating a critique of modernity with a rejection of liberal democratic institutions. Hence, we suggest to frame degrowth as the promotion of new vocabularies within a deliberative account of democ-racy. Specifically, we proceed in three steps: first, we briefly review some essential critiques of modernity and their stance towards liberal democracy. Second, we illustrate how some of the argumentative patterns within the degrowth literature may inadvertently endanger core values of the open society. Third, we introduce our perspective on a liberal degrowth that aims to fulfil the "unfinished project of modernity". |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ufzdps:72017&r=pke |
| By: | Xavier Gabaix |
| Abstract: | Inattention is a central, unifying theme for much of behavioral economics. It permeates such disparate fields as microeconomics, macroeconomics, finance, public economics, and industrial organization. It enables us to think in a rather consistent way about behavioral biases, speculate about their origins, and trace out their implications for market outcomes. This survey first discusses the most basic models of attention, using a fairly unified framework. Then, it discusses the methods used to measure attention, which present a number of challenges on which much progress has been done. It then examines the various theories of attention, both behavioral and more Bayesian. It finally discusses some applications. For instance, inattention offers a way to write a behavioral version of basic microeconomics, as in consumer theory, producer theory, and Arrow-Debreu. A last section is devoted to open questions in the attention literature. This chapter is a pedagogical guide to the literature on attention. Derivations are self-contained. |
| JEL: | D03 D11 D51 G02 H2 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24096&r=pke |
| By: | Deepankar Basu (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts - Amherst) |
| Abstract: | An economic crisis in capitalism is a deep and prolonged interruption of the economy-wide circuit of capital. Crises emerge from within the logic of capitalism’s operation, and are manifestations of the inherently contradictory process of capital accumulation. The Marxist tradition conceptualizes two types of crisis tendencies in capitalism : a crisis of deficient surplus value and a crisis of excess surplus value. Two mechanisms that become important in crises of deficient surplus value are the rising organic composition of capital and the profit squeeze; two mechanisms that are salient in crisis of excess surplus value are problems of insufficient aggregate demand and increased financial fragility. This paper offers a synthetic and synoptic account of the Marxist literature on capitalist economic crises. |
| Keywords: | capitalism, crisis, rising organic composition, profit squeeze, underconsumption, financial fragility |
| JEL: | B24 B51 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2017-21&r=pke |
| By: | Ivan A. Ladynin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The problem basically unanswered is whether the Soviet historiography has ever developed an all-embracing concept of antiquity as a slave-owning society and whether it produced a general scheme of this period at all. Two attempts to create a uniform Marxist concept of “slave-owning antiquity” in 1930-1940s (undertaken by the scholars of GAIMK and by A.V. Mishulin with his followers) failed; a real generalization of ancient history was not achieved before 1980s, when it was perceived (not quite in the manner of Marxist method) as the evolution of rural communities rather than slavery. |
| Keywords: | Marxism, ancient history, general concept, social and economic research, class struggle, slavery, rural community, historiography |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:161/hum/2017&r=pke |
| By: | Gregori Galofré-Vilà; Christopher M. Meissner; Martin McKee; David Stuckler |
| Abstract: | The current historical consensus on the economic causes of the inexorable Nazi electoral success between 1930 and 1933 suggests this was largely related to the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression (high unemployment and financial instability). However, these factors cannot fully account for the Nazi’s electoral success. Alternatively it has been speculated that fiscally contractionary austerity measures, including spending cuts and tax rises, contributed to votes for the Nazi party especially among middle- and upper-classes who had more to lose from them. We use voting data from 1,024 districts in Germany on votes cast for the Nazi and rival Communist and Center parties between 1930 and 1933, evaluating whether radical austerity measures, measured as the combination of tax increases and spending cuts, contributed to the rise of the Nazis. Our analysis shows that chancellor Brüning’s austerity measures were positively associated with increasing vote shares for the Nazi party. Depending on how we measure austerity and the elections we consider, each 1 standard deviation increase in austerity is associated with a 2 to 5 percentage point increase in vote share for the Nazis. Consistent with existing evidence, we find that unemployment rates were linked with greater votes for the Communist party. Our findings are robust to a range of specifications including a border-pair policy discontinuity design and alternative measures of radicalization such as Nazi party membership. The coalition that allowed a majority to form government in March 1933 might not have been able to form had fiscal policy been more expansionary. |
| JEL: | E6 N1 N14 N44 |
| Date: | 2017–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24106&r=pke |
| By: | Thaler, Richard H. (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | Richard H. Thaler delivered his Prize Lecture on 8 December 20167 at the Aula Magna, Stockholm University. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral economics; |
| JEL: | D03 D90 G02 |
| Date: | 2017–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nobelp:2017_003&r=pke |