nep-pke New Economics Papers
on Post Keynesian Economics
Issue of 2023‒10‒16
five papers chosen by
Karl Petrick, Western New England University


  1. Ideologies and Utopia: A Ricoeurian Reading of Thomas Piketty By Benoît Walraevens
  2. Structural Transformation and Value Change: The British Abolitionist Movement By Valentín Figueroa; Vasiliki Fouka
  3. Is the economy a complex system in eternal disequilibrium? By Ávila, Diego
  4. RACE IN CONSUMER RESEARCH: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE By Sonya A Grier; David Crockett; Guillaume D Johnson; Kevin D Thomas; Tonya Williams Bradford
  5. gingado: a machine learning library focused on economics and finance By Douglas Kiarelly Godoy de Araujo

  1. By: Benoît Walraevens (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: In his most recent books, Piketty offers a global history of ine-quality in its economic, social, political, and intellectual dimensions, ar-guing that history is moved by the struggle of ideologies. To take part in this battle of ideas, he conceives a new ideal model of society, ‘participa-tive socialism', as an egalitarian alternative to the dominant neoproprie-tarian ideology and to the dangerous resurgence of nationalism and pop-ulism. This paper provides a new interpretation of Piketty's view of his-tory and of his participatory socialism in light of Paul Ricoeur's study of the dialectics of ideology and utopia. First, I present Ricoeur's singular analysis of ideology and utopia, which he sees as two inseparable facets of social imagination. Then I show how Ricoeur's concepts can be fruit-fully applied to Piketty's conception of history and to his conception of a new form of socialism for the 21st century, drawing lessons from history and forming a ‘good' or ‘realist' utopia. Finally, I demonstrate that this interpretation of Piketty's socialism can help to better understand some of the criticisms he has received. © 2023, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics. All Rights Reserved.
    Keywords: ideology, participatory so-cialism, Piketty, realism, Ricoeur, utopia
    Date: 2023
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04195650&r=pke
  2. By: Valentín Figueroa; Vasiliki Fouka
    Abstract: What drives change in a society’s values? From Marx to modernization theory, scholars have identified a connection between structural transformation and social change. To understand how changes in a society’s dominant mode of production affect its dominant values, we examine the case of the movement for the abolition of slavery in the late 18th and early 19th century Britain, one of history’s most well-known campaigns for social change, which coincided temporally with the Industrial Revolution. We argue that structural transformation alters the distribution of power in society and enables groups with distinct values and weak economic interest in the status quo to mobilize for change. Using data on anti-slavery petitions, membership in abolitionist groups, MP voting behavior in Parliament and economic activity, we show that support for abolition was strongly connected to manufacturing at the aggregate and individual level. We rely on biographical data and the analysis of parliamentary speeches to show that industrialists were relatively less reliant on income from slavery and were characterized by a universalist worldview that distinguished them from established elites. Together, our findings suggest that both values and economic interest play a role in driving social change.
    JEL: A13 N63 O14 P16 Z10
    Date: 2023–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31708&r=pke
  3. By: Ávila, Diego (Universidad Nacional de Colombia)
    Abstract: This article presents a general discussion of some of the reasons for believing that an economy would be better framed in the theory of complex (organic) systems than in the theory of mechanical systems of the dominant neoclassical school. Complex systems are characterized here by heterogeneous units that interact with each other, with non-linear trajectories, positive feedbacks, co-creation of regularities, non-ergodicity of the system and constant evolution. Financial and urban systems are analyzed as examples of economic problems that present these characteristics.
    Keywords: real world economics; disequilibrium; collective decision; making; Economía del mundo real; desequilibrio; toma colectiva de decisiones
    JEL: B59
    Date: 2023–02–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000418:020904&r=pke
  4. By: Sonya A Grier (AU - American University Washington D.C.); David Crockett (UIC - University of Illinois [Chicago] - University of Illinois System); Guillaume D Johnson (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Kevin D Thomas (UC Santa Cruz - University of California [Santa Cruz] - UC - University of California); Tonya Williams Bradford (UC Irvine - University of California [Irvine] - UC - University of California)
    Abstract: Race has been a market force in society for centuries. Still, the question of what constitutes focused and sustainable consumer research engagement with race remains opaque. We propose a guide for scholars and scholarship that extends the current canon of race in consumer research toward understanding race, racism, and related racial dynamics as foundational to global markets and central to consumer research efforts. We discuss the nature, relevance, and meaning of race for consumer research and offer a thematic framework that critically categorizes and synthesizes extant consumer research on race along the following dimensions: (1) racial structuring of consumption and consumer markets, (2) consumer navigation of racialized markets; and (3) consumer resistance and advocacy movements. We build on our discussion to guide future research that foregrounds racial dynamics in consumer research and offers impactful theoretical and practical contributions.
    Keywords: Race, Racism, Racial Dynamics, Global Markets, Resistance: Advocacy
    Date: 2023
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04200003&r=pke
  5. By: Douglas Kiarelly Godoy de Araujo
    Abstract: gingado is an open source Python library that offers a variety of convenience functions and objects to support usage of machine learning in economics research. It is designed to be compatible with widely used machine learning libraries. gingado facilitates augmenting user datasets with relevant data directly obtained from official sources by leveraging the SDMX data and metadata sharing protocol. The library also offers a benchmarking object that creates a random forest with a reasonably good performance out-of-the-box and, if provided with candidate models, retains the one with the best performance. gingado also includes methods to help with machine learning model documentation, including ethical considerations. Further, gingado provides a flexible simulatation of panel datasets with a variety of non-linear causal treatment effects, to support causal model prototyping and benchmarking. The library is under active development and new functionalities are periodically added or improved.
    Keywords: machine learning, open source, data access, documentation
    JEL: C87 C14 C82
    Date: 2023–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1122&r=pke

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