the ces production function the accounting identity and occam s razor this paper reconsiders the argument that empirical estimations of aggregate production functions may be interpreted merely as statistical artefact the reason is that occam s razor or herbert simon s principle of parsimony suggests that the aggregate production function together with the side equations derived from the usual neoclassical optimizing conditions simply reflect the underlying accounting identity that value added definitionally equals the wage bill plus total profits this argument is illustrated with respect to the empirical evidence presented by arrow chenery minhas and solow review of economics and statistics xliii 225 50 1961 and which led them to derive the constant elasticity of substitution aggregate production function it is shown that their results are more parsimoniously explained with reference to the underlying accounting identity than to any technological relationship

the labour demand of firms an alternative conception based on the capabilities approach the aim of this paper is to offer a theoretical framework for the analysis of labour demand alternative to the neoclassical one taking as its starting point the conception of the firm that derives from the capabilities or competence based theories of the organization after briefly reviewing the essential elements of this approach to the firm we tackle a range of diverse aspects such as the link between labour demand decisions and the firm s strategic planning and its determinants the characterisation of labour demand as a demand for productive competencies the consequences that these competencies are embedded in human beings or the relative independence between labour demand decision making and the process of wage setting in general terms this conception of labour demand allows us to incorporate many of the main peculiarities of labour and the demand for it from a number of different areas of heterodox economics particularly from institutional and post keynesian economics and it fits in with the conventional literature on internal labour markets and labour market segmentation

the inverted pyramid a neo ricardian view on the economy environment relationship abstract in ecological economics natural resources which may contribute only a small amount to gdp are viewed as fundamental to the functioning of the economy they are sometimes pictured as sitting at the base of an inverted pyramid with the rest of the economy balanced on top of them in this paper we show that when prices are set by markup a standard heterodox assumption then the inverted pyramid picture of the economy emerges naturally in a neo ricardian model we demonstrate the use of the model with brief applications to biophysical economics the paper is one of a growing number that use heterodox macroeconomics to address questions in ecological economics

the politics of conflict and consent abstract transaction cost economics claims to model the labor contract in terms of the opportunism practised by workers a recent alternative has seen custom as the main means by which workers impose their control of the contract both fail to explore workers co operative behavior in the workplace pay insufficient attention to managerial behavior and misunderstand the social organization of conflict and consent materials from industrial sociology and labor history are used to illustrate these limitations to show how the labor contract is in fact negotiated and to suggest how an alternative approach might be constructed

the hidden persuaders institutions and individuals in economic theory in his classic book the hidden persuaders vance packard claimed that large corporations manipulated consumers using advertising techniques john kenneth galbraith and others have repeated a similar view against this gary becker and george stigler have claimed that advertising is essentially informative rather than manipulative in contrast it is argued here that both of these opposed accounts of human agency neglect the more subtle and undesigned processes by which institutions bear upon and mould individuals this paper proposes a concept of reconstitutive downward causation in which institutions act upon individual habits and dispositions the mechanisms involved do not fall foul of past critiques of holism or methodological collectivism this argument involves a rehabilitation of the concept of habit in social science with far reaching implications

sketching a socio economic model of labour markets using insights from the socio economics of labour markets and building upon critical realist meta theory this paper offers the first sketch of a socio economic model of labour markets as an alternative to the orthodox model the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved

job quality and the economics of new labour a critical appraisal using subjective survey data this paper assesses the record on job quality during the early term of office of the new labour government by interpreting from a political economy perspective changes in a variety of subjective measures of job quality taken from several different data sources we find some improvements in job quality over the period 1998 2004 however we argue that these improvements have arisen not because of new labour s policies towards the workplace but because of low and falling rates of unemployment despite recent improvements a large number of workers in britain remain in low quality jobs and without a radical change of policy direction sustained and substantial progress in the quality of work will remain elusive

the inada conditions for material resource inputs reconsidered it is shown that the thermodynamic law of conservation of mass the so called materials balance principle implies that the marginal product as well as the average product of a material resource input are bounded from above this means that the inada conditions one of the standard assumptions of economic growth theory when applied to material resource inputs are inconsistent with a basic law of nature the analysis is based on a model of multi level production where intermediate goods are produced from elementary resources and an all purpose final commodity is produced from these intermediates

new labour and work time regulation a marxian analysis of the uk economy this paper examines the impact of work time regulation introduced by the uk s new labour governments 1997 to 2010 in doing so we return to marx s hypotheses regarding the length of the working day these include the arguments that class conflict over the length of the working day is inherently distributional in a surplus value sense and that workers often display a preference for reduced hours even with a proportionate reduction in pay our quantitative marxist methodology provides a way of assessing the pattern of surplus value before and during the period of office of the new labour governments and the distributional effects of regulation the impact of such regulations on workers preferences are examined through an investigation of british household panel survey data although many have been sceptical concerning the record of the last labour governments policies such as the working time regulations 1998 and the work life balance campaign 2000 are found to have been noteworthy innovations in the labour market this is all the more important given recent moves by the successor government to weaken work time regulation our results suggest the impact of these policy initiatives was broadly favourable though the effect on men and women was different

consistency and stability analysis of models of a monetary growth imperative ist das streben nach wirtschaftswachstum eine frage des politischen willens oder eine notwendige bedingung fur okonomische stabilitat es ist umstritten ob solche wachstumszwange im heutigen geldsystem bestehen und einen konflikt mit nachhaltigkeit hervorrufen zur untersuchung der ersten behauptung dass zinseszinsen einen wachstumszwang hervorrufen stellen wir funf post keynesianische modelle vor und fuhren eine stabilitatsanalyse im parameterraum durch eine stationare okonomie mit spar und investitionsquote von null kann bei positivem zinssatz erreicht werden wenn der parameter konsum aus dem bestand oberhalb eines schwellenwerts liegt der mit dem zinssatz ansteigt die andere behauptung dass die bildung von gewinnrucklagen aus den zinseinnahmen der banken zu einem wachstumszwang fuhrt basiert auf modellen des monetaren kreislaufs die wir fur widerlegbar halten ihre bilanzierung ist inkonsistent und eine zentrale modellannahme ist nicht theoretisch begrundet aber die hauptursache des wachstumszwangs das eigenkapital der bank muss gesteigert werden selbst wenn ihre verbindlichkeiten nicht wachsen was eine diskrepanz zwischen der intention der autoren und dem eigentlichen modell ist wir kommen zum schluss dass das heutige geldsystem auf der basis von zinstragendem kreditgeld mit privaten banken nicht zu einem inharenten wachstumszwang fuhrt falls der stationare zustand instabil ist liegt es an entscheidungen wirtschaftlicher agenten und nicht an struktureller unvermeidbarkeit

an essay on post keynesian theory a new paradigm in economics the impact of keynes s work in the 1930 s has been viewed by some economists as a revolution in economic thinking see lawrence r klein 56 1947 yet to those who were most closely associated with keynes at cambridge during that period the revolution proved largely abortive over the past 30 years many of keynes s critical insights into the workings of a modern technologically advanced economy seem to have been ignored with the result that there has been little fundamental change in the way economists perceive the world those one time associates of keynes joined by a small number of the younger generation at cambridge and elsewhere have consistently tried to highlight the incompatibility of keynes s views with orthodox theory even as they worked to develop more fully a generalization of the general theory see joan robinson 78 1952 this generalization may be said to represent in thomas kuhn s sense 62 1962 a new paradigm and since it extends the analysis set forth in keynes s treatise on money 1930 and the general theory it can be termed post keynesian few american economists seem aware of the major works that have contributed to the development of this new paradigm2 and fewer still even among those likely to be sympathetic seem to be aware of the

understanding corporate coherence theory and evidence abstract multiproduct firms are perceived to be coherent in their scope yet there is no strong theoretical foundations to explain coherence in modern industrial organization theory this paper shows that as u s manufacturing firms grow more diverse they maintain a constant level of coherence between neighboring activities this finding runs counter to the idea that firms with many activities are generally more incoherent a framework is then presented which appeals to the nature of enterprise learning path dependencies and the nature of the selection environment to explain the ubiquity of coherent diversifiers

attitudes towards climate policies in a macrodynamic model of the economy abstract in a recent article published in this journal guarini and porcile 2016 expanded the balance of payments constraint bopc growth model suggesting a way to make it possible to address some of the challenges posed by greenhouse gas emissions building on their set up we formalise into the model a mechanism that explains how people with different environmental attitudes or sentiments influence each other and contribute to the design of environmental policies we detail the concept of transition probabilities for the agent s switching from pro to anti environmental positions and vice versa and discuss the macroeconomic results that follow numerical simulations allow us to investigate in more detail the implications of the validity of porter s hypothesis as well as to discuss the feasibility of decoupling conditions a policy implication of our analysis is that we should encourage the dissemination of pro environmental attitudes among the public because this could lead to a more desirable equilibrium as important as enhancing public knowledge of climate change is to keep alive the debate at the collective level so as to influence the probability of switching sides

ecological macroeconomic models assessing current developments our society faces a dilemma while continued economic growth is ecologically unsustainable low or negative rates of economic growth are accompanied by adverse social impacts hence there is a need for macroeconomic tools that can help identify socially sustainable post growth pathways the emerging field of ecological macroeconomics aims to address this need and features a number of new macroeconomic modelling approaches this article provides 1 a review of modelling developments in ecological macroeconomics based on the literature and interviews with researchers and 2 an analysis of how the different models incorporate policy themes from the post growth literature twenty two ecological macroeconomic models were analysed and compared to eight policy themes it was found that environmental interactions and the monetary system were treated most comprehensively themes of income inequality work patterns indicators of well being and disaggregated production were addressed with less detail while alternative business models and cross scale interactions were hardly addressed overall the combination of input output analysis with stock flow consistent modelling was identified as a promising avenue for developing macroeconomic models for a post growth economy however due to the wide interpretation of what the economy entails future research will benefit from employing a range of approaches

labour markets social justice and economic efficiency in conventional economic theory a trade off supposedly exists between social justice and economic efficiency in reality market and other economic institutions are dominated by power relations so that the sponsorship of social justice is a productive factor neo liberal economic policies by lifting the constraints on the exercise of unequal power increased injustice and triggered a downward economic and social spiral reversing this requires a revolution in economic theory and policy focused on full employment the working of labour markets the organisation of work and household organisation social provision and self sufficiency in conventional economic theory the initial resource endowments of individuals are taken as given and although these may be unequal they are essentially external to the market labour markets are assumed to be more or less competitive and within them real wages reflect the quality of workers resource endowments mainly human capital and their personal efficiency and energy that these result in a wide dispersion of labour market rewards some of which may be insufficient to sustain a reasonable standard of life is a demonstration it is argued of how widely dispersed are individual resource endowments and capabilities hirsch and addison 1986 from this perspective any idea of social justice designed to reduce income inequalities risks damaging incentives and lowering overall economic well being this is the basis of okun s 1975 thesis that there exists an inverse trade off between social equality and economic efficiency that greater social income equality can only be purchased at the cost of lowering economic efficiency the alternative perspective explored in this special issue recognises the central import ance of relative power in determining outcomes this focuses attention on the external and internal forces structuring markets and how these differentially affect the incomes and opportunities of individuals from this perspective social justice requires the removal of the obstacles that inhibit individuals and groups from developing their potential and from deploying their resources to full advantage thus contrary to the orthodox view increasing

political economy of growth with a taste for status abstract this paper investigates the political economy of growth when individuals prefer high levels of relative consumption a pivotal voter determines the equilibrium tax on capital the revenues from which fund the provision of productive public goods the taste for status and the distributions of wealth and political power interact to generate stylized versions of oligarchies middle class democracies and populist democracies a rise in the taste for status increases the role of distributional concerns in policy preferences lowering growth in an oligarchy or populist democracy but increasing it in a middle class democracy in addition the egalitarian redistribution of wealth or political power causes growth to first rise and then fall as the equilibrium tax rate approaches and then exceeds its growth maximizing level generating inverse u shaped relationships between democracy and growth and inequality and growth

developing an understanding of meaningful work in economics the case for a heterodox economics of work the idea that work has meaning and is meaningful beyond its contribution to consumption has been largely absent from mainstream economics this paper gives reasons for why mainstream economics has neglected the idea of meaningful work it identifies the idea of the disutility of work the assumption of free choice on the part of workers and the use of a formal and individualistic method as key constraints on the ability of mainstream economics to incorporate the idea of meaningful work it also addresses the contribution of happiness economics and shows how it is unable to encompass the idea of meaningful work ideas on work from heterodox economics are then discussed these ideas provide essential insight and inspiration for the incorporation of the idea of meaningful work into the economics of work in all respects the paper seeks to contribute towards the development and promotion of a heterodox economics of work that has the goal of meaningful work at its centre

the econometrics of elasticities or the elasticity of econometrics an empirical analysis of the behavior of u s imports fifty years of econometric modeling of u s import demand assumes that trade elasticities are autonomous parameters that both cross price effects and simultaneity biases are absent and that expenditures on domestic and foreign goods can be studied independently of each other to relax these assumptions the paper assembles a simultaneous model explaining bilateral u s import volume and prices spending behaves according to the rotterdam model which by design embodies all the properties of utility maximization and does not treat trade elasticities as autonomous parameters pricing behaves according to the pricing to market hypothesis which recognizes exporters incentives to discriminate across export markets parameter estimation relies on the full information maximum likelihood fiml approach and uses bilateral price data for 1965 1987 according to the evidence treating trade elasticities as autonomous parameters and ignoring the statistical implications of simultaneity and optimization biases the structural estimates and undermines our effectiveness in addressing questions relevant to economic interactions among nations

a materialist development of some recent contributions to the labour theory of value the paper offers a novel interpretation and affirmation of the opening arguments of capital answering the fundamental but neglected question of why labour is the substance of value marx s arguments require that two philosophical threads often separated in the literature on value be woven together the argument that value is the intrinsic content making commodities exchangeable employs the thread of realism the argument that abstract labour is the emergent social substance of value employs the thread of dialectics this interpretation develops the materialist and dialectical philosophy of e v ilyenkov and deepens the approach to value theory initiated by ben fine

the economics of new labour policy and performance this paper reviews the foundations of new labour s economic policies and the performance of the economy since 1997 it argues that new labour s policies have evolved from thatcherism and that it has largely embraced the tenets of neo liberalism new labour has rejected most aspects of keynesianism and its policies have eschewed the use of active demand management policies but it has been the high levels of demand in particular consumption expenditure that have driven economic growth in the uk and which have ensured that as yet new labour has not faced the problems of dealing with a major economic downturn

on the structural stability of trade equations the case of japan abstract this study examines the stability of japanese trade equations over the period 1976 1993 it finds evidence of parameter nondashconstancy in equations for both total and bilateral us japan trade in most of the equations the instability can be traced to changes in specific parameter estimates in the mid 1980s in these cases failure to account for the parameter changes leads to an underestimation of actual trade flows that in some instances is significant by implication standard trade equations estimated from historical data may not be applicable to the analysis of japanese trade in the late 1980s and beyond

the dynamic capabilities of firms an introduction an expanded paradigm is needed to explain how competitive advantage is gained and held firms resorting to resource bas ed strategy attempt to accumulate valuable technology assets and employ an aggressive intellectual property stance however winners in the global marketplace have been firms demonstrating timely responsiveness and rapid and flexible product innovation along with the management capability to effectively coordinate and redeploy internal and external competences this source of competitive advantage dynamic capabilities emphasizes two aspects first it refers to the shifting character of the environment second it emphasizes the key role of strategic management in appropriately adapting integrating and re configuring internal and external organizational skills resources and functional competences toward changing environment 3 only recently have researchers begun to focus on the specifics of developing firm specific capabilities and the manner in which competences are renewed to respond to shifts in the business environment the dynamic capabilities approach provides a coherent framework to integrate existing conceptual and empirical knowledge and facilitate prescription this paper argues that the competitive advanis tage of firms stems from dynamic capabilities rooted in high performance routines z operating inside the firm embedded in the firm s processes and conditioned by its history it offers dynamic capabilities as an emerging paradigm of the modern business j firm that draws on multiple disciplines and advances with the help of industry studies in the usa and elsewhere

towards post keynesian ecological macroeconomics the paper starts with a brief criticism of macroeconomic analyses of different schools of thought for their focus on economic growth and maximisation of output this applies to the traditional keynesian approach which has focused on the achievement of sufficient aggregate demand to underpin full employment and full capacity utilisation down playing aggregate supply constraints this also applies to the neoclassical approach including the current new consensus macroeconomics approach which asserts the dominant role of aggregate supply in the long run and where growth is set by the so called natural rate of growth with no concerns over environmental and ecological issues the paper then proposes a different approach to macroeconomic analysis it explicitly acknowledges that economic growth is a double edged sword growth can help to alleviate persistent levels of high unemployment but it can also lead to potentially catastrophic environmental problems building on the monetary circuit theory and the demand led growth theory the paper offers an analysis of the interconnections and interdependence of the economic biophysical and social worlds and by doing it hopes to provide the building blocks for the establishment of post keynesian ecological macroeconomics

redistributive taxation in a simple perfect foresight model abstract we investigate the redistributive potential of capital taxation in an intertemporal maximizing model of capital formation first even unanticipated redistributive capital taxation is severely limited in its effectiveness since it depresses wages second under any convergent redistributive tax policy which maximizes a paretian social objective the capital income tax will converge to zero independent of the factor supply elasticities these results are independent of workers holdings of capital

capital income taxation in growing open economies abstract this paper studies how alternative capital mobility assumptions affect the incidence and efficiency of capital income taxation the study uses a two country intertemporal equilibrium model in which imperfectly elastic investment captures the notion of imperfectly mobile physical capital if home goods and foreign goods are perfect substitutes and investment is inelastic the tax effects in open and closed economies are similar only if physical capital is perfectly mobile are capital income taxes completely shifted in small open economies only then and if significant terms of trade effects are absent do open economy efficiency losses substantially exceed the closed economy losses

an intertemporal general equilibrium model of asset prices this paper develops a continuous time general equilibrium model of a simple but complete economy and uses it to examine the behavior of asset prices in this model asset prices and their stochastic properties are determined endogenously one principal result is a partial differential equation which asset prices must satisfy the solution of this equation gives the equilibrium price of any asset in terms of the underlying real variables in the economy in this paper we develop a general equilibrium asset pricing model for use in applied research an important feature of the model is its integration of real and financial markets among other things the model endogenously determines the stochastic process followed by the equilibrium price of any financial asset and shows how this process depends on the underlying real variables the model is fully consistent with rational expectations and maximizing behavior on the part of all agents our framework is general enough to include many of the fundamental forces affecting asset markets yet it is tractable enough to be specialized easily to produce specific testable results furthermore the model can be extended in a number of straightforward ways consequently it is well suited to a wide variety of applications for example in a companion paper cox ingersoll and ross 7 we use the model to develop a theory of the term structure of interest rates many studies have been concerned with various aspects of asset pricing under uncertainty the most relevant to our work are the important papers on intertemporal asset pricing by merton 19 and lucas 16 working in a continuous time framework merton derives a relationship among the equilibrium expected rates of return on assets he shows that when investment opportunities are changing randomly over time this relationship will include effects which have no analogue in a static one period model lucas considers an economy with homogeneous individuals and a single consumption good which is produced by a number of processes the random output of these processes is exogenously determined and perishable assets are defined as claims to all or a part of the output of a process and the equilibrium determines the asset prices our theory draws on some elements of both of these papers like merton we formulate our model in continuous time and make full use of the analytical tractability that this affords the economic structure of our model is somewhat similar to that of lucas however we include both endogenous production and

structural change under new labour the paper examines specific features of structural change in the uk since 1997 contrasting the decline in industrial jobs with the rise in a variety of service jobs it examines the proximate causes of structural change in particular whether the chronically slow growth of manufacturing output in the 1980s has persisted the implications of this structural change are considered particularly the effects on the balance of payments and regional employment patterns the paper suggests that the main impact of government policies on regional employment may have been through the direct and multiplier effects of public expenditure

parameter instability in aggregate us import demand functions abstract the paper examines parameter stability in aggregate us import demand functions for the time period 1972 1990 we identify in particular whether parameter stability depends upon the definitions used to represent the dependent and independent variables significant instability is found for 1974 75 in all models tested for the 1975 1990 period parameter stability depends on the definition of the relative price term employed in the model equations which exclude computer imports tend to have fewer stability problems than non oil import demand models we also find that the most stable models generate the best out of sample forecasts

on the social structure of markets economic theorists have seldom discussed the social structures behind markets even though market trading relies heavily on seller buyer roles and personal relations among traders this paper considers the structural basis of markets and proposes a layered approach which accommodates a wide range of competitive and relational trade within a definition of markets that distinguishes them from non market exchange giving due regard to social structures lays bare the institutional character of markets and provides a rationale for case studies of how particular markets function

the convergence of neo ricardian and embodied energy theories of value and price abstract the concepts of embodied energy entropy and the like have made limited inroads into orthodox economic thought ecological economists however have been developing a coherent theoretical perspective to be considered with and or against orthodox economics this paper focuses on the classical economic implications of the embodied energy theory of value it is argued that the embodied energy theory of value is very similar to neo ricardian economics after examining the issues separating classical and neoclassical economics the paper makes a beginning theoretical integration between these two theories finally several suggestions for theoretical development of embodied energy theory and for the empirical testing of the theory are made

different approaches of modelling reaction lags how do chilean manufacturing exports react to movements of the real exchange rate this study examines the relationship between export supply and the real exchange rate using annual chilean data for the period 1960 1996 the hypotheses to be tested are first that the real exchange rate does matter for the supply of exports contrary to studies relying on quarterly data and second that the impact of a real depreciation only ceases to be positive and significant after about two three years four different distributed lag models were considered as potentially adequate and useful to depict the impact of the real exchange rate over time even though all four models assumed different underlying lag structures they all point to the importance of maintaining a competitive real exchange rate over time the transfer function model is particularly well suited in shaping any lag structure in that it is not presumptive in form

from ecological macroeconomics to a theory of endogenous money for a finite planet abstract this paper takes stock of the achievements and gaps of the emerging field of ecological macroeconomics which has brought insights from specific schools of macroeconomics most notably post keynesian to ecological economics with a strong emphasis on the endogeneity of money ecological macroeconomics has proposed fiscal monetary and prudential reforms to boost green investments and developed new modeling frameworks to explore the interactions between the financial macroeconomic and biophysical spheres while these proposals open a broader range of possibilities to engage in a socio ecological transition than those offered by the current paradigm of a financialized global economy they paradoxically suffer from similar limitations by placing much faith in green investments they impose a vision of the transition that presents strong technical and institutional limitations the field also fails to revisit its own understanding of macroeconomics and of specific phenomena e g financial instability through a biophysical lens in spite of increasing transdisciplinary evidence supporting this approach we suggest overcoming these limitations through institutionalist perspectives that understand money as a language through which value is created and legitimized those perspectives seem essential to re embed the governance of money within a worldview that acknowledges the finiteness and incommensurable values of earth s life support systems

work for all those who want it why the neoclassical labour supply curve is an inappropriate foundation for the theory of employment and unemployment this paper questions the usefulness of the neoclassical labour supply curve as a factor in the theory of employment and unemployment this curve rests on the false premise that workers can choose whether to work or not and gives credence to the idea that all unemployment constitutes chosen leisure despite this it was used by keynes to define the point of full employment this contributed to the misleading impression that the level of full employment is determined by psychological factors challenging this view joan robinson sought to integrate a wider set of issues into the theory of labour supply in order to build a different non neoclassical foundation for keynes s theory of effective demand drawing upon robinson the paper argues against the use of the neoclassical labour supply curve within macroeconomic analysis copyright 2006 oxford university press

keynesian economic policies for the new millennium in this paper we outline an approach to economic policy in which there is an emphasis on the need for both demand side and supply side policies to secure full employment our approach can be considered keynesian in the sense that its policy implications arise from the perception of the role of aggregate demand in setting the level of economic activity and the lack of automatic forces leading a market economy to full employment our conception of the operations of a market economy is briefly outlined in section 2 this we further elaborate upon in section 3 by considering the constraints on achieving full employment that operate in a market economy this leads into section 4 in which we outline and analyse the nature of keynesian policies relating both to the demand and supply side of the economy the final main section 5 considers some of the constraints and ways of overcoming them on the implementation of the type of keynesian policies which we are advocating there are two key elements of keynes 1936 on which we draw the first is the contention that a laissez faire market economy will not usually generate full employment the obstacles to the achievement of full employment are not some imperfections like monopolistic competition or trade union activity which could potentially be removed through government action cf shapiro 1996 it is rather that a laissez faire market economy would exhibit elements of instability and does not usually generate a level of aggregate demand consistent with full employment the second is that a less unequal distribution of market power income and wealth is another desirable goal in its own right and a vehicle for increasing general prosperity as keynes 1936 remarked the outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes p 372

toward consilience between biology and economics the contribution of ecological economics abstract during its ten year history ecological economics has made a real difference in the way economists look at the natural world and in the way biologists look at the economy in this survey article we examine the contributions to the journal in terms of e o wilson s concept of consilience that is his argument that the methods and assumptions of any field of study should be consistent with the known and accepted facts in other disciplines in particular we examine the contributions of ecological economics to reconciling the economic theory of the consumer and producer with biophysical reality

taxation of asset income in the presence of a world securities market abstract this paper examines a capm model of world security prices in which governments recognize their ability to influence international security prices via their tax treatment of foreign and domestic investors in this model governments have the incentive to set tax rates such that investors tend to specialize in domestic securities and to restrict net capital flows between countries each country does this to increase the utility of domestic residents taking as given the tax policies of other governments but the net outcome is a reduction in world efficiency and likely a reduction in the utility of all investors

the effects of capital income taxation on international competitiveness and trade flows using an intertemporal equilibrium model this paper analyzes how lower source based taxes on capital income impact trade performance and international competitiveness it shows that depending on import shares and intertemporal and intratemporal substitution elasticities capital accumulation may induce changes in real interest rates and the terms of trade that stimulate domestic saving even if financial capital is perfectly mobile internationally import shares appear important determinants of exchange rate effects numerical simulations illustrate these results copyright 1989 by american economic association

some issues in agrarian and ecological economics in memory of georgescu roegen abstract ecological critics of economics have argued for over one hundred years that economists should study the flow of energy and materials in the economy the services nature offers to the human economy cannot be adequately valued in the accounting system of neoclassical environmental and resource economics today s ecological economics does not only critizice it also tries to provide physical indicators in order to judge whether the economy is ecologically sustainable beyond its decisive role in strengthening such ecological economics georgescu roegen s work currently still holds sway in two additional fields consumption theory as analysed by gowdy 1993 and agrarian economics are there relations between such fields of study and ecological economics in this article i shall first focus on the agrarian question and then on intra and inter generational ecological distribution

ex post liability for harm vs ex ante safety regulation substitutes or complements this paper concerns the regulation of hazardous economic activities economists have generally viewed ex ante regulations safety standards pigouvian fees that regulate an activity before an accident occurs as substitutes for ex post policies exposure to tort liability for correcting extemalities this paper shows that where there is uncertainty there are inefficiencies associated with the exclusive use of negligence liability and that ex ante regulation can correct the inefficiencies in such a case it is efficient to set the safety standard below the level of precaution that would be called for if the standard were used alone jel 619

technological progress and sustainable development what about the rebound effect abstract sustainability concepts that rest on the idea of resource or energy efficiency improvements due to technological progress tend to overestimate the potential saving effects because they frequently ignore the behavioral responses evoked by technological improvements efficiency improvements also affect the demand for resources and energy and often an increase in efficiency by 1 will cause a reduction in resource use that is far below 1 or sometimes it can even cause an increase in resource use this phenomenon is commonly labeled the rebound effect which is well known among energy economists but never attracted much attention in ecological economics the paper starts with the traditional neoclassical analysis of the rebound effect in a partial equilibrium framework that concentrates on the demand of one particular energy service such as mobility or room temperature it also provides an overview of some of the main empirical studies based on this model that mostly confirm the existence of the rebound effect but are controversial about its actual importance however we have to go beyond the neoclassical single service model in order to take care of the variety of possible feedback affecting energy use the paper presents two important expansions of the single service model in order to show the potential relevance of the rebound effect to ecological economics first it is shown that in a multi services model it proves to be difficult to make general statements about the relevance of the rebound effect in this case the overall effect of an increase in energy efficiency on total energy use depends on the on the assumptions about the substitutability between the services considered and the direction of the income effect second the paper also tries to take care of the fact that changes in resource use or energy use are frequently just side effects of other forms of technological progress especially technological change of a time saving nature can have a large influence on energy use as many time saving devices for example faster modes of transport require an increase in energy consumption that is frequently reinforced by a rebound effect with respect to time this effect will be especially strong when wages are high and at the same time energy prices are low as is currently the case in most industrialized countries consequently the paper also provides a strong argument for the introduction of energy taxes

capital income taxation and international portfolio choice abstract distortionary proportional capital income taxation is shown to cause both static effects via portfolio re allocation and dynamic effects via changes in the value of a claim to future transfers as well as via perceived changes in the future investment opportunity set the stochastic structure of returns to investment is important for understanding the consequences of a unilateral increase in the domestic tax rate a government choosing optimal tax policy makes a tradeoff between the increase in the perceived value of future transfers and the distortion to portfolio allocation produced by taxation with corporate taxation the optimal tax rate is positive

information expectations and monetary policy keynes s and friedman s complementary lessons for today this paper considers what lessons there might be for our contemporary monetary consensus in keynes s and friedman s respective policy principles i focus first on the expectations issue for both keynes and friedman monetary policy aims at the stabilisation of expectations and in both cases major issues arise for knowledge and uncertainty although each conceives this in a different manner next i deal with the core of monetary policy principles while keynes s approach is at odds with our modern strategy of inflation targeting friedman would warn us that even in this case interest rate manipulation might not be the appropriate approach the analysis concludes with the issue of interest rate determination the issue of intertemporal coordination and financial stability policy principles are always rooted in theoretical investigation keynes s approach is based upon an analysis of intertemporal coordination failures whereas friedman s policy schemes require that financial markets be made perfectly competitive

a stock flow fund ecological macroeconomic model this paper develops a stock flow fund ecological macroeconomic model that combines the stock flow consistent approach of godley and lavoie with the flow fund model of georgescu roegen the model has the following key features first monetary and physical stocks and flows are explicitly formalised taking into account the accounting principles and the laws of thermodynamics second georgescu roegen s distinction between stock flow and fund service resources is adopted third output is demand determined but supply constraints might arise either due to environmental damages or due to the exhaustion of natural resources fourth climate change influences directly the components of aggregate demand fifth finance affects macroeconomic activity and the materialisation of investment plans that determine ecological efficiency the model is calibrated using global data simulations are conducted to investigate the trajectories of key environmental macroeconomic and financial variables under i different assumptions about the sensitivity of economic activity to the leverage ratio of firms and ii different types of green finance policies

transactions cost economics and the multinational enterprise an assessment abstract this paper applies transactions cost principles to the multinational enterprise in order to ascertain its distinctive properties as a mode of economic organization the analysis helps identify just when and where contractual alternatives to the multinational firm are likely to be viable this turns out to depend upon the nature of the technology the regime of appropriability within which the firm operates and the characteristics of the markets in question transactions cost analysis is also extended to the multinational enterprise host country relationship implications for management and public policy are derived

finding common ground between ecological economics and post keynesian economics abstract post keynesian economics and ecological economics have in common that they are considered to be heterodox schools of thought aside from that there has not been a strong connection between them previous books on post keynesian economics contain no chapter on environmental or ecological issues this neglect has led leading ecological economists to criticize post keynesians for succumbing to the same growth paradigm as the neoclassical school this paper argues that the two approaches are complementary in the sense that they each have different strong points ecological economics has correctly pointed out that the growth of the global economy may not be welfare improving anymore whereas post keynesians have gained valuable insights into the functioning of the capitalist growth process to determine the feasibility of a synthesis between the two schools the paper compares their approaches to the problems of production consumption and economic dynamics as well as the associated policy recommendations it shows that on a theoretical level the two schools have much in common but their policy conclusions differ with regard to the desirability of further growth the paper concludes that a synthesis of both approaches may lead to a better understanding of how a capitalist economy operates in a natural environment with limits to growth and to better informed policy advice

a realist appraisal of post keynesian pricing theory this paper argues that based on the ontological insights of critical realism epistemological guidelines can be established to review post keynesian pricing theories critically consequently the paper suggests a basis on which the coherence of post keynesian pricing theory can be established crucially some often cited contrib u t i o n s are inconsistent with such a realist define d post keynesian economics the role of empirical work in critical realism is discussed

bilateral trade elasticities this paper estimates income and price elasticities for bilateral world trade in addition to testing the properties of the error terms the dynamic specification and the assumption of parameter constancy the analysis presents the first application of the bank spectrum estimator to bilateral trade flows for all countries the paper finds that bilateral trade elasticities exhibit enough of a dispersion to suggest that the direction of trade is sensitive to changes in income and prices using the bilateral elasticities as raw data the analysis obtains the associated multilateral estimates and finds that they are both consistent with the literature and suitable to addressing questions involving multilateral trade but the evidence also reveals that sole reliance on multilateral elasticities conceals valuable information for both policy applications and empirical analyses of international trade copyright 1990 by mit press

regulation of the employment relationship the old institutional perspective abstract this review article examines the rationale developed by the old institutional economists particularly john r commons and associates of the wisconsin school for the regulation of the employment relationship factors emphasized by the old institutionalists include the promotion of noneconomic social goals the deleterious effects of unrestrained self interest and competition the highly imperfect nature of labor markets the skewed distribution of property rights and labor s inequality of bargaining power the paper then describes the policy strategy and regulatory program advocated by the old institutionalists to improve the efficiency and equity of the market system implications of the old institutional perspective for current debates over the extent and form of employment regulation are then assessed

nontraded assets in incomplete markets pricing and portfolio choice this paper examines portfolio choice and asset pricing when some assets are nontraded for instance when a country cannot trade claims to its output on world capital markets when a government cann

organizational capabilities and the economic history of the industrial enterprise in my book scale and scope 1990 i focused on the history of the modern industrial firm from the 1880s when such firms first appeared through world war ii i did so by comparing the fortunes of more than 600 enterprises the 200 largest industrial firms at three points in time world war i 1929 and world war ii in each of the three major industrial economies those of the united states britain and germany in this paper i first describe the similarities in the historical beginnings and continuing evolution of these enterprises and then outline my explanation for these similarities next i relate my explanation of these empirical regularities to four major economic theories relating to the firm the neoclassical the principal agent the transaction cost and the evolutionary finally i suggest the value of the transactions cost and evolutionary theories to historians and economists who are attempting to explain the beginnings and growth of modern industrial enterprises

prospects for a heterodox economics of the environment and sustainability this paper introduces a special issue on heterodox economics of the environment and sustainability at present humanity faces several challenges such as resource scarcity biodiversity loss and climate change and yet we would argue contributions from traditional heterodox schools of thought such as post keynesianism marxism and to a lesser extent institutionalism have had relatively little to say about them instead the economic analysis of environmental issues has been dominated by approaches inspired by neoclassical economics and latterly by ecological economics the special issue is part of an effort to stimulate more heterodox work on the environment and to explore connections between existing groups of scholars particularly between ecological and heterodox economists

reformulating the foundations of consumer choice theory and environmental valuation abstract the burgeoning field of environmental valuation has raised serious doubts about the fundamental axioms of consumer choice theory the general validity of the walrasian system and methodological individualism this paper examines these aspects of consumer choice theory paying particular attention to the pioneering contributions of georgescu roegen we argue that evidence from psychology game theory anthropology and contingent valuation surveys reveals a more complex pattern of decision making than that described by neoclassical utility theory we discuss the notions of the invariance of preferences non satiation the principle of complementarity lexicographic preferences and the hierarchy of wants with reference to environmental valuation we also discuss the notion of marginal utility of money the validity of the walrasian system and methodological individualism using scaling concept in hierarchy theory we then address the conflict between theory and reality by introducing a probabilistic binary choice scheme under uncertainty about environmental attributes we argue that these extensions are necessary to account for consumer choices revealed in environmental valuation surveys we conclude with the hope that a reformulation of consumer choice theory based on realistic models of human behavior can be the basis for a viable alternative to neoclassical welfare economics

sustainability in a post keynesian growth model for an open economy the paper expands the bop constraint growth model and kaldorian regimes productivity and demand regimes in order to include some of the concerns raised by ecological economics in post keynesian models for open economies the demand regime is modified by taking into account porter s hypothesis which suggests that environmental innovations spurred by environmental policies can foster competitiveness as a result the equilibrium bop constrained rate of growth increases leading to a different version of thirlwall s law which opens room for analyzing the impact of environmental innovations on convergence between developing and developed economies the productivity regime in turn considers the growth and employment implications of innovations in labor productivity standard innovations and environmental efficiency environmental innovations it is argued that the fiscal policy and composition of public expenditure matter for long run growth employment and sustainability

ecological macroeconomics an application to climate change ecological economics has not paid sufficient attention to the macroeconomic level both in terms of theory and modeling yet key topics debated in the field of ecological economics such as sustainable consumption reduction in working time the degrowth debate the energy exergy link and the rebound effect require a holistic and macro perspective while this deficiency has been identified before and keynesian economics has been generally suggested as a potent vehicle to establish economic system s thinking very little concrete theorizing and practical suggestions have been put forward we give further credence to this suggestion and demonstrate the value of tackling key concerns of ecological economics within a keynesian growth framework contextualized by an application to climate change we suggest that policy relevant recommendations need to be based on a consistent view of the macroeconomy we end with laying out key building blocks for a keynesian model framework for an ecological macroeconomics authors abstract

georgescu roegen versus solow stiglitz daly is right to be concerned about our society s use of resources environmental degradation and the wasteful use of natural resources or any resources for that matter are of concern daly s tirade concerning our work seems motivated by two concerns a lack of consistency with basic laws of physics and the alleged implication that growth can continue unabated without eventually facing constraints imposed by the limited supply of natural resources part of the problem arises from a lack of understanding of the role of the kind of analytic models that we and others have formulated they are intended to help us answer questions like for the intermediate run for the next 50 60 years is it possible that growth can be sustained what does this possibility entail we write down models as if they extend out to infinity but no one takes these limits seriously for one thing an exponential increase in the population presents almost unimaginable problems of congestion on our limited planet in this intermediate run capital can substitute for natural resources and this is true even though capital itself uses resources more precise machines made out of resources that are relatively abundant can reduce wastage of resources that are relatively scarce technical change some of which is the result of investments in rd and increased efficiency in production may imply less wastage of bauxite and less coal or oil to produce the energy used to make a pound of aluminum or consider the resources that were required to run a regression only a half century ago pounds and pounds of heavy calculating machines replaced by mere ounces of a modern calculator changes in technology also allow us to recycle resources more efficiently so that the amount that is not recaptured for future production may be reduced perhaps the most important question is where does all of this lead us resources are scarce and markets when they function well reflect that scarcity economizing on the use of resources there are important instances especially where the environment and natural resources are concerned where markets do not work well there are for instance the classic problems posed by pollution externalities when markets do not

a history of post keynesian economics john king in his a history of post keynesian economics since 1936 raises the question of whether there exists a body of work which can be called collectively post keynesian this paper presents some criteria for addressing this question beginning with the vision and the origins of some of the post keynesian ideas leading to an examination of certain features of the various groups including their methodology and their approaches to uncertainty their pricing theories and their growth theories it is concluded that although there is much diversity in the various groups they are reconcilable when seen as referring to different aspects of the economic process and at differing levels of abstraction copyright 2005 oxford university press

the neoclassical production function as a relic of anti george politics implications for ecological economics abstract widespread support for henry george s land tax proposal prompted a backlash from wealthy landowners who focused their political efforts on tax policy the backlash corresponded chronologically with the development of neoclassical economics and land barons became active in the establishment of academic economics institutions in the united states whereas the classical economists frequently referred to the factors of production as land labor and capital neoclassical textbooks appearing in the 20th century increasingly ignored land and provided a production function y f k l in which capital and labor were the only factors explicitly identified neoclassical authors had several possible reasons for using a two factor production function but the political influence on neoclassical economics during its formative stages was conducive to avoiding reference to land when discussing factors of production an emphasis on land would have invited scrutiny of land rents for tax purposes ecological economics has evolved as a response to the shortcomings of neoclassical economics in dealing with the environmental perils of economic growth one of those shortcomings is the capital labor production function which hides the importance of land and natural resources ecological economists have developed production functions that are more ecologically oriented and one of them is explained herein

transaction cost economics in real time this paper attempts to place the theq of the boundaries of thejirm within the context of the passage of time more precisely it resurrects and places in a modem frame some of the insights of the chsical and marshallian theories of organization the modem reinterpretation of those theories centers around the capabilities view of the jirm taken together with governance costs the capabilities ofjirm and market determine the boundaries of the jirm in the short run ovw time capabilities change as firms and markets learn which implies a kind of information or knowledge cost the cost of trandewing the firm s capability to the market w vice versa these dynamic governance costs are the costs of persuading negotiating and coordinating with and teaching others they arise in the face of change notably txchnological and organizational innovation in fit they are the costs of not having the capabilities you need when you need them dynamic transaction costs provide an explanation for vertical integration that is arguably more general than those dominant in the literature in the face of uncertainty and divwgent views ofthe future common ownership of multiple stages of production is a supwior institutional arrangement for coordinating systemic change asset specrfity is neither necessary nor suffient for this to be true dynamic governance costs may also affit internal organization it may sometimes be costly in 3 terms of persuasion negotiation and teaching to create within the firm capabilities readily available on the market indeed in cases in which systemic coordination is not 4 the issue the market may turn out to be the superior institution of coordination in e 2 genwal the capabilities view of the jirm suggests that we look atfim2 and market as alternative and sometimes overlapping institutions of learning 1 transaction costs in the long rzln and the short 9 x classical and neoclassical perspectives

the approach of institutional economics this paper assesses the old institutional economics it emphasizes the importance of key old institutionalist themes concerning the necessity of habits and rules and the role of institutions a problem in the alternative theoretical program of the new institutionalism is the untenability of its assumption of an original institution free market or state of nature even optimizing behavior requires the prior existence of habits and rules although it still lacks a complete and systematic theory the evolutionary approach of the old institutionalists tackles the problem of the interactive relationship of actor to structure without analytical reduction to one or the other

historical roots for ecological economics biophysical versus allocative approaches abstract a number of economists today are aware that the results of their science are more or less at variance with concrete fact and are alive to the necessity of perfecting it they go wrong rather in their choice of means to that end they try obstinately to get from their science alone the materials they know are needed for a closer approximation to fact whereas they should resort to other sciences and go into them thoroughly not just incidentally for their bearing on the given economic problem until economic science is much farther advanced economic principles are less important to the economists than the reciprocal bearings of the results of economics and the results of the other social sciences many economists are paying no attention to such interrelations for mastery of them is a long and fatiguing task requiring an extensive knowledge of facts whereas anyone with a little imagination a pen and a few reams of paper can relieve himself of a chat on principles pareto 1935 para 2022

the welfare cost of factor taxation in a perfect foresight model this paper examines the marginal efficiency cost of various factor taxes in a dynamic general equilibrium model the au thor solves for the excess burden of anticipated and unanticipated t emporary and permanent tax policies using a range of estimates for taste and technology parameters he finds excess burdens larger than those indicated by previous studies that use static models these exc ess burdens are sensitive to parameter values and timing however th e rankings of alternative tax policies turn out to be insensitive to structural parameter values copyright 1987 by university of chicago press

an empirical examination of the structural stability of disaggregated u s import demand we present three related types of evidence on u s import demand first aggregate import demand is reestimated for comparison with previous research second we provide updated estimates of import demand for five economic classes crude foods crude materials manufactured foods semi manufactures and finished manufactures finally each of these import demand functions is tested for any evidence of structural instability and in those cases where instability is detected the demand equations are reestimated along the lines suggested by the stability tests copyright 1989 by mit press

the cambridge school of keynesian economics there have been strong ties between the cambridge journal of economics cje and the cambridge school of keynesian economics from the very beginning in this paper the author investigates the environment that saw the birth of the cje at cambridge uk in 1977 and the relationship that linked it to the direct pupils of keynes a critical question is explicitly examined why didn t the keynesian revolution succeed in becoming a permanent winning paradigm some behavioural mistakes of the members of the keynesian school may explain this lack of success but only to a certain extent in any case there were and there still are remedies too but what we are inheriting is a unique set of analytical building blocks the paper lists eight of them that makes this school of economics a viable and in some directions definitely superior alternative to mainstream economics admittedly there is some important work still to be done the paper highlights the need for a two stage approach addressing pure theory and extensive institutional analysis it is argued that a combination of the two would strengthen the coherence of the theoretical foundations and at the same time would provide a fruitful extension of economic analysis to empirical institutional and economic dynamics investigations copyright 2005 oxford university press

structured pluralism in ecological economics a reply to peter soderbaum s commentary abstract peter soderbaum argues in his commentary concerning my article on sustainability economics remig 2015 for more open and radical ecological economics i agree with that statement however i reject soderbaum s interpretation that my arguments foster mainstreamed ecological economics or dictatorship in my critique of sustainability economics i raised several issues that have remained unspecified and that potentially lead to unsustainable development patterns once put into practice soderbaum does not reply to these conceptual challenges of sustainability economics in this commentary i argue that structured pluralism dow 2004 is a constituent element of ecological economics i welcome peter soderbaum s proposal for a discussion about the definition of economics and suggest to rely on ronald coase s proposal to define economics as a science that studies the working of the economic system i conclude that sustainability economics in its current form is closer to neoclassical than ecological economics

towards an economic theory of the multiproduct firm this paper outlines a theory of the multiproduct firm important building blocks include excess capacity and its creation market imperfections and the peculiarities of organizational knowledge including its fungible and taut character a framework is adopted in which profit seeking firms are seen to diversify in order to avoid the high transactions costs associated with using various markets to trade the services of various specialized assets neoclassical explanations of the multiproduct firm are shown to be seriously deficient

do labour supply and demand curves exist the objective of this paper is to show that circumstantial and empirical evidence for the existence of labour supply and demand curves is at best inconclusive and at worst casts doubt on their existence because virtually all orthodox models of labour markets simple and complex are built upon the foundation stones of labour supply and demand curves these models lack empirically supported foundations orthodox labour economists must therefore either provide stronger evidence or stop using labour supply and demand curves as the foundation stones of their models the conclusion discusses implications for future orthodox and heterodox labour economics

toward a macroeconomics of the medium run these days macroeconomics has become more respectable than it used to be i can remember when many economists liked to say microeconomics is not problematic but i just don t understand macroeconomics there was a definite implication that something must be wrong with macroeconomics not with the observer of course macroeconomics cannot be exact it has to work by rough analogy and empirical compromise maybe a certain raffishness is inevitable most economists work on microeconomic problems with increasing use of new microeconomic data but now it is widely understood that macroeconomics is at the heart of economics it will not do to be snooty about it this centrality will continue for the best possible reason the need to understand current events especially unfavorable ones and to formulate policies even benign neglect is a policy to

taxation and uncertainty while taxes may be certain u s tax policy has certainly not been furthermore intrinsic economic risk makes investment decisions risky therefore a serious examination of the effects of tax policy on dynamic economic behavior should consider both sources of uncertainty this paper presents a simple theoretical and computational model that can analyze both intrinsic risk and uncertain taxation furthermore it will be clear that these techniques will be useful for examining general problems of taxation and risk when studying the impact of past and or proposed tax changes one of two extreme assumptions are usually made either agents are perfectly aware of future tax policy a perfect foresight assumption or they always believe that no change will ever occur a myopic foresight assumption these two assumptions yield substantially different views of recent tax experience as alan auerbach and james hines 1987 demonstrate in a partial equilibrium context both are clearly wrong the myopic specification assumes that individuals believe at each point in time that the current tax law will surely continue forever even after they have been hit repeatedly with tax changes on the other hand it is absurd to think that in say 1977 a significant number of individuals perfectly knew the various tax changes that would occur during the following decade this paper analyzes a dynamic general equilibrium model wherein taxpayers understand the uncertainty in tax policy when making their deci

the new institutional economics and the theory of behaviour under uncertainty the new institutional economics nie is diverse in terms of the theory of behaviour under uncertainty some views are close to neoclassical economics but others are similar to those held by heterodox economists distinctions between procedural and substantive uncertainty weak and strong uncertainty and ambiguity and fundamental uncertainty help to identify different approaches to uncertainty in nie regarding the influence of institutions on economics behaviour not all nie focuses on institutions as constraints and takes individuals as given the dominant views of rationality in nie are standard neoclassical maximization and bounded rationality but alternative notions have also been defended

what is ecological economics ecological economics addresses the relationships between ecosystems and economic systems in the broadest sense these relationships are the locus of many of our most pressing current problems i e sustainability acid rain global warming species extinction wealth distribution but they are not well covered by any existing discipline environmental and resource economics as it is currently practiced covers only the application of neoclassical economics to environmental and resource problems ecology as it is cur rently practiced sometimes deals with human impacts on ecosystems but the more common tendency is to stick to natural systems ecological economics aims to extend these modest areas of overlap it will include neoclassical environmental economics and ecological impact studies as sub sets but will also encourage new ways of thinking about the linkages between ecological and economic systems we have chosen the name ecological economics for this area of study because it implies a broad ecological interdisciplinary and holistic view of the problem of studying and managing our world the earth from space cover of the journal reflects this global holistic perspective we did not intend to imply with the ordering of the two words in the title that the journal is mainly an economics journal it is intended to be a new approach to both ecology and economics that recognizes the need to make economics more cognizant of ecological impacts and dependencies the need to make ecology more sensitive to economic forces incentives and constraints and the need to treat integrated economic ecologic systems with a common but diverse set of conceptual and analytical tools there was much discussion of other possible names such as economic ecology or ecology and economics or some conjoining of the two words that to me end up being confusing tongue twisters like ecolnomics or econology but ecological economics seemed to get closest to the mean ing we desired while still being evocative to the uninitiated