explaining modern economics as a microcosm of society the persistence of mainstream economists with methods of mathematical deductive modelling that most agree do not perform well is something of a puzzle here i show this phenomenon to be a special case of gendered tendencies in play in society at large and i offer a psychological explanation copyright the author 2008 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

reclaiming virtue ethics for economics contrast virtue ethics the study of moral character has been an important strand in moral philosophy for literally thousands of years but has received little strand in moral philosophy for literally thousands of years but has received little attention from contemporary economists that neglect has not been reciprocated attention from contemporary economists that neglect has not been reciprocated a signifi cant body of philosophical work in virtue ethics is associated with a radical a signifi cant body of philosophical work in virtue ethics is associated with a radical critique of the market economy and of economics expressed crudely the charge critique of the market economy and of economics expressed crudely the charge sheet is this the market depends on instrumental rationality and extrinsic motisheet is this the market depends on instrumental rationality and extrinsic motivation market interactions therefore fail to respect the internal value of human vation market interactions therefore fail to respect the internal value of human practices and the intrinsic motivations of human actors by using market exchange practices and the intrinsic motivations of human actors by using market exchange as its central model economics normalizes extrinsic motivation not only in markets as its central model economics normalizes extrinsic motivation not only in markets but also in its ventures into the territories of other social sciences in social life but also in its ventures into the territories of other social sciences in social life more generally therefore economics is complicit in an assault on virtue and on more generally therefore economics is complicit in an assault on virtue and on human fl ourishing we will argue that this critique is fl awed both as a descriphuman fl ourishing we will argue that this critique is fl awed both as a description of how markets actually work and as a representation of how classical and tion of how markets actually work and as a representation of how classical and neo classical economists have understood the market we will show how the market neo classical economists have understood the market we will show how the market and economics can be defended against the critique from virtue ethics and economics can be defended against the critique from virtue ethics crucially our response to that critique will be constructed crucially our response to that critique will be constructed using the language and logic of virtue ethics in this respect it is fundamentally different from a response in this respect it is fundamentally different from a response that many economists would fi nd more natural to point to the enormous benefi ts that many economists would fi nd more natural to point to the enormous benefi ts

the employment relationship in an almost structureless labour market the case of domestic work although domestic workers are generally engaged in informal contracts with hourly and daily wages some have formally written contracts and are paid monthly hourly and daily wages suggest flexible arrangements whereas the monthly payment system may be used to develop a stable relationship using original data from a sample of domestic workers in portugal we offer empirical evidence on predictors of four types of arrangement that combine formality and stability the results from multinomial logistic regression indicate that the wage level is a crucial predictor of the type of contract households seem to make a trade off between stable contracts and high level wages however the odds of being given a formal and stable contract increase when domestic workers have specific skills or are responsible for care and there are trust related issues our findings suggest that the use of flexible and informal labour has its limitations even in an activity perceived as non skilled

similarities and convergence in g 7 cycles this paper examines the properties of g 7 cycles using a multicountry bayesian panel var model with time variations unit specific dynamics and cross country interdependences we demonstrate the presence of a significant world cycle and show that country specific indicators play a much smaller role we detect di erences across business cycle phases but apart from an increase in synchronicity in the late 1990s find little evidence of major structural changes we also find no evidence of the existence of an euro area specific cycle or of its emergence in the 1990s

post keynesianism meets feminist economics this article explores the relationships between post keynesian economics and feminist economics it distinguishes three key concepts in each tradition that recommend serious attention in the other tradition gender the household and unpaid work and caring as key concepts in feminist economics uncertainty market power and endogenous dynamics as core concepts in post keynesian economics this article will show with reference to the literature in which such cross fertilisation has been explored already how both traditions can be enriched from a stronger mutual engagement

recognition applications in aged care work detailed arguments about the importance of recognition were present in adam smith s theory of moral sentiments but received little attention in classical and neoclassical economics however recognition is re emerging as an important concept in social and economic research in this study we consider the importance of recognition and misrecognition for a nuanced understanding of the motivation to undertake paid care work we use survey and interview data from a mixed methods study of the employment intentions of australian women working in aged care to investigate links between recognition wage rates and intentions to remain working in the sector our findings suggest that low wages convey misrecognition and that both wages and misrecognition have adverse implications for the future labour supply of aged care workers we conclude by considering particular challenges faced by the aged care sector and its workers in redressing low wage rates

marshallian industrial districts in italy the end of a model or adaptation to the global economy this paper discusses the marshallian industrial district as it was rediscovered and further developed by italian economists before tracing the main changes in the market and institutional context in the wake of globalization it then focuses on some of the main transformations that have taken place in the italian districts since the 1990s after highlighting the important role still played by the districts in the italian economy the paper develops a framework for the evolutionary processes of the marshallian industrial district that would allow reproduction of the district in a manner suited to the era of globalisation

state accumulation projects and inward investment regimes strategies abstractstate accumulation projects and inward investment regimes strategies regional studies based on kitchener waterloo ontario and saguenay lac saint jean quebec case studies we link inward investment regimes iir to the strategic relational approach to the state the state continues to be significant in 1 selecting multinational enterprise mne value chain segments 2 policies maximizing foreign direct investment fdi spillovers 3 empowering iir participants and 4 managing the institutionalized compromises underlying these policies quebec s developmental state qds reflects labour s greater power and has stronger levers to maximize fdi spillovers than ontario s competition state ocs however both confront significant fdi challenges

paradoxical positions the methodological contributions of feminist scholarship the goal of this paper is to consider the contributions of feminist activism and interdisciplinary scholarship to economic institutional methodology by further extending the historical institutional analysis of key categories such as the self ownership of labour model of locke smith and marx the paradoxical position of women can be avoided a greater understanding of the reification of concepts like property and the economy and the role of gender in naturalizing them will help to expand the narrow role of economics discourse in the articulation of feasible economic policies and objectives for human development

the political economics of austerity the 2007 8 financial crisis has reignited the debate about economic austerity with the aim of understanding why a government would pursue such a policy in the current context of persistent economic recession this article traces the social political and economic developments that have together shaped the evolution of ideas about austerity from the earliest theorizing by the classical political economists some three hundred years ago throughout the historical narrative important analytical themes revolve around the arguments used to justify austerity notably appeals to ethics and morality reinforced by misleading analogies drawn between government budgets and the accounts of firms and households these include concerns about inflation and the observed relationship between inflation and unemployment ricardian equivalence and non keynesian effects of austerity and the correlation between public debt levels and economic growth the class analytics of austerity who bears the burden of austerity and who benefits and the process by which alternative ideas penetrate the mainstream and reconstitute the conventional wisdom are also important analytical themes

hedonic indices and housing programme benefits the availability of reliable measures of housing programme benefits is important for decisions that planners make about appropriate housing policies this paper advocates the use of hedonic price estimation techniques for the direct measurement of housing programme benefits in developing countries without restrictive characterisations of housing demand a market weighted economic welfare index is used to measure the housing benefits the benefits are the difference between estimated hedonic price equations before and after the implementation of a programme summed across all households and then multiplied by the cash equivalent of a unit of hedonic value the cash value of a unit of hedonic value is determined by dividing the observed aggregate market value of houses in an analysis sample by the estimated aggregate hedonic value for that sample measuring housing programme benefits from direct market valuation of programme induced changes in housing attributes does not imply that such programmes are necess

feminist thought and economics or what do the visigoths know many economists have expressed concern that approaches borrowed from the humanities or from the softer social sciences will detract from the rigor and objectivity of economic science and give voice to those without proper training and in so doing reduce the discipline to a science no more defensible than alchemy since much feminist thought in economics draws heavily from intellectual traditions alien to mainstream economists e g critical interpretive theory cultural studies and feminist theory some economists may wonder what such modes of inquiry have to offer economics further they may ask are there no pitfalls in modes of inquiry not disciplined by accepted economic methodologies in short what do those visigoths know my purpose is to address issues in method and theory underlying recent feminist work in economics and to explain how economics may gain by opening its disciplinary gates from the perspective of traditional mainstream practice in economics two prominent issues emerge in considering modes of inquiry and theory drawn from other disciplines the first has to do with what counts as theory and the role of critique in theorizing the second has to do with the need to sort out better theories from worse and the perceived dangers of rampant relativism i will address these in turn

towards a more ethically correct governance for economic sustainability in this paper we propose that economic sustainability is seen in terms of inter temporal and inter national value creation we claim that value appropriation or capture can become a constraint to economic sustainability we propose that for sustainable value creation to be fostered corporate governance needs to be aligned to public and supra national governance in order to achieve this a hierarchically layered set of agencies needs to be diagnosed and the issue of incentive alignment addressed enlightened self interest pluralism and diversity as well as a representative supra national organisation for world wide economic sustainability can serve as a new more ethically correct governance for economic sustainability but not a panacea

confronting the science value split notes on feminist economics institutionalism pragmatism and process thought what changes must economics undergo if it is to become a more adequate discipline furthering of survival and flourishing this essay argues that a break must be made from contemporary mainstream economics at the level of ontology i e about the nature of reality drawing on neglected traditions of pragmatist philosophy and process metaphysics some elements of old institutionalist economics and late twentieth century natural science it demonstrates that ample argument exists for a view of the world as open evolving and permeated with value furthermore feminist scholarship offers an explanation for why such a worldview faces an uphill battle for acceptance copyright 2003 oxford university press

a comparison of the dynamics of industrial clustering in computing and biotechnology abstract this paper compares the dynamics of the process by which industrial clusters emerged in the us computing and biotechnology industries it examines whether new companies are attracted by industry strength in particular sectors or by the strength of the science base at particular locations in biotechnology it also compares the growth of incumbent firms in the two industries and asks whether growth is boosted by being within a cluster the paper finds that within computing there are some important cross sectoral effects on entry while in biotechnology these cross sectoral effects are more limited in biotechnology the science base plays an important role in promoting entry the growth of incumbent firms in both industries is promoted by strength in the company s own sector and cross sectoral effects and the role of the science base are negligible

mathematical modelling in the wake of the crisis a blessing or a curse what does the economics profession say the economics profession has been heavily criticised for not anticipating the economic crisis that began in 2007 and even now economists seem unable to suggest ways out of this crisis it is widely acknowledged that the emphasis of modern economics over the last 50 years has been heavily mathematical and formalistic the aim of this paper is to examine whether in the wake of the crisis academic economists have examined this emphasis on mathematics and further to investigate the extent to which they are considering changing their methodological orientation the results of our field study show that many economists have tended to reaffirm their position and argued for the use of newer better mathematical models in economics

underpaid or overpaid wage analysis for nurses using job and worker attributes the nursing labor market presents an apparent puzzle hospitals report chronic shortages yet standard wage analysis shows that nursing wages have increased over time and greatly exceed those received by other college educated women this paper addresses this puzzle data from the current population survey cps are matched with detailed job content descriptors from the occupational information network o net nursing jobs require higher levels of skills and more difficult working conditions than do jobs for other college educated workers a standard cps only wage regression shows a registered nurse rn wage advantage of 22 log points compared to a pooled male female group of college educated workers control for o net job attributes reduces the rn gap to 08 while an arguably preferable nonparametric estimator produces a wage gap estimate close to zero we conclude that nurses receive compensation close to long run opportunity costs narrowing if not resolving the rn wage shortage puzzle

the size distribution of innovating firms in the uk 1945 1983 a survey of 4 378 significant innovations shows that firms with fewer than 1 000 employees commercialized a much larger share than is indicated by their share of r and d expenditures innovations per employee have been consistently above average in firms with more than 10 000 employees and have become so in firms with fewer than 1 000 intersectoral variation in the size distribution of innovating firms can be explained as a function of r and d based technological opportunities and of technological ease of entry by user firms with principal activities outside the sector copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

the future of capitalism a consideration of alternatives the article reviews three entry points into a discussion of alternatives to today s neoliberal capitalism the first examines the need for a green new deal from mostly uk based think tanks positioning the household as central to the economy posing new core values for the economy that respect the environment the social economy as well as the possibilities offered by web based technologies for new economic and political community relations the second entry point is a review of feminists search for alternatives to mainstream economics and global development processes with calls for a transition to place based socio economic practices built on the ethics of care gender justice the centrality of social reproduction and community livelihoods the last section examines the alternatives to global development and neoliberal capitalism emerging from latin america examining buen vivir intercultural pluriversal political and economic practices and lessons from latin american indigenous women and decolonial feminist movements

chinese institutional innovation and privatization from below one of the most distinctive features of china s transition to a market economy has been the role played by rural township and village enterprises tve s in the face of sustained rapid growth of tve s the share of total industrial output produced by state owned enterprises soe s has fallen below half despite steady state sector growth and the absence of significant privatization yet most tve s are collectives a form of publicly owned enterprise this feature seems to make them unique in no other transitional economy has public ownership played such a dynamic role china presents the unusual picture of an economy that has made a transition to a primarily market economy but in which publicly owned enterprises still produce the bulk of manufacturing output surprisingly also the collective ownership form does not have a precise legal definition in china leading to some uncertainty about ultimate property rights martin weitzman and chenggang xu 1993 point out that public ownership with vaguely defined ownership ought to represent a recipe for economic disaster to them tve success suggests instead advantages to the internal institutional form of tve s which are seen to facilitate cooperation through implicit contracts among community members locked into an ongoing relationship victor nee 1992 advances a similar interpretation arguing that long time community residents create forms of income sharing that may be optimal in the absence of an independent legal system an alternative perhaps complementary view is presented here the success of tve s i argue is due largely to a set of external conditions to which tve s are an effective adaptation tve s are responses to one of the most distinctive characteristics of the chinese transition as a whole the early creation of product markets which exist for a prolonged period without well developed markets for factors of production or assets tve s are a flexible and effective but basically ordinary adaptation to this environment

toward an economic model of the japanese firm i owe a great deal to professor moses abramovitz who suggested that i write this article i appreciate his constant encouragement and guidance which aided me throughout its preparation i am also indebted to three anonymous referees of the journal and to professors ryutaro komiya and michael riordan for their critical comments and helpful suggestions needless to say i am solely responsible for the views expressed in this paper

the reconstruction of the supply side of the labour market the relative autonomy of social reproduction been replaced in recent years by a proliferation of theories about the family and its rela tion to the system of production 1 it is our contention that this work for the most part has done little to establish the family system as an interesting central and dynamic vari able for economic analysis this outcome however is the direct result of the application of two opposing but equally inappropriate methodologies for the analysis of the family system in this paper we examine the main approaches to the analysis of social reproduc tion using the position of women in the system of production and reproduction as the main example of existing work on social reproduction we show that across the whole spectrum of theoretical approaches from neoclassical to marxist and feminist broadly similar methodologies for analysing the relationships between the spheres of production and reproduction have been employed

ontology and the study of social reality emergence organisation community power social relations corporations artefacts and money the conception of social reality i have previously defended and here extend positing features such as social relations positions and powers is thoroughly naturalistic and even consistent with modern interpretations of quantum field theory it also serves to ground a social science that can be scientific in the sense of natural science this is the thesis defended here central to the argument is an emphasis on a strong form of emergence and the category of organisation in process to bring out various salient features of the position defended i take the opportunity to compare aspects of it with relevant components of the contribution of john searle whose ontological conception appears at once to be both very similar yet also very different copyright the author 2012 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

the firm as a nexus of treaties part 1 knowledge its acquisition sharing and or asymmetry the participatory generation of information rents and the theory of the firm masahiko aoki common knowledge and the co ordination of economic activities jacques cremer profit sharing information and employment matti pohjola part 2 vertical integration and the strategic management of the enterprise what is vertical integration michael h riordan vertical integration transaction costs and learning by using kurt lundgren the firm as a nexus of internal and external contracts torger reve part 3 issues of labour organization the viability of worker ownership an economic perspective on the political structure of the firm henry hansmann intellectual skill and the role of employees as constituent members of large firms in contemporary japan kazuo koike the implicit contract for corporate law firm associates ex post opportunism and ex ante bonding robert h mooking part 4 finance and the political structure of the firm capital structure as a mechanism of control a comparison of financial systems erik berglof long term contracts in financial markets hakan lindgren the principle of external accountability in competitive markets herbert gintis union militancy and plant designs kar ove moene can transaction cost economics explain trade associations marc schneiberg and j rogers hollingsworth

industrial organisation the degree of monopoly and macroeconomic performance a perspective on the contribution of keith cowling 1936 2016 keith cowling became a pioneer and key figure in a number of areas in industrial economics including mergers and acquisitions advertising the theoretical determination of structure conduct performance scp relationships and the welfare losses of monopoly power he was informed and motivated by real life challenges of real life people and aimed to find solutions that fostered social welfare by leveraging the power of theory and evidence in mainstream io he was mostly famed for his work on scp and monopoly power building upon this contribution keith also became renowned for being critical of contemporary capitalism arguing that its concentration tendencies rendered it prone to abuse of corporate power and paved the way to stagnation and crises in doing so he provided an insight into how the micro firm and industry level foundations of the industrial economy impacted upon macro economic performance he cross fertilised mainstream and radical approaches to economics and was widely respected for his conceptual mathematical and empirical rigour in this paper we highlight his major contributions in the fields of io international political economy and public policy

measurement problems in quantifying the distributional effects of subsidy programs abstract use of estimated compensating or equivalent variation benefit measures to analyze the distributional effects of subsidy programs can lead to biased results the vast majority of previous studies have used average elasticity parameters to calculate individual compensating or equivalent variations this can lead to measurement errors which are systematically related to program targeting criteria and result in biased distributional impacts being identified from analysis of cross sectional estimated program benefits the seriousness of this problem is illustrated in a case study with simulated data the results suggest that much greater effort and care are warranted in ascertaining the robustness of estimates of the cross sectional variation in the benefits of many subsidy programs

the current economic crisis its nature and the course of academic economics the current crisis has triggered significant debate concerning economic theory and policy largely absent from this debate is an informed discussion of the methods used by economists in analysing the economy and formulating their proposals but method matters here i argue that current academic research practices need to be transformed before real insight can be achieved specifically i indicate why and how a more grounded framework than that presupposed by current research practices facilitates a potentially more fruitful approach to understanding the crisis

structural transformation marketization and household production around the world we provide evidence on household and market production in 36 countries since 1960 on average the household sector accounts for almost half of total hours worked as gdp per capita increases the employment share of household production in total hours worked initially declines and then hardly changes while the employment shares of market goods and services decrease and increase estimating the value added of household production yields similar patterns labor productivity of household production is lower than and positively correlated with that in the market these findings can be used as an input into quantitative work involving household production

how changes in labor demand affect unemployed workers this study analyzes the manner in which certain favorable shifts in labor demand affect job search although all shifts increase reservation wages they do not necessarily decrease expected unemployment spell durations and increase expected post unemployment wages so that upward sloping short run phillips curves may occur a result due to chamberlain is used to demonstrate that if the wage offer distribution is restricted to be logconcave two of the shifts guarantee downward sloping phillips curves for one of these two shifts previous research by flinn and heckman used logconcavity in a different manner to achieve properly shaped phillips curves

the quiet revolution that transformed women s employment education and family the modern economic role of women emerged in four phases the first three were evolutionary the last was revolutionary phase i occurred from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s phase ii was from 1930 to 1950 phase iii extended from 1950 to the late 1970s and phase iv the quiet revolution began in the late 1970s and is still ongoing three aspects of women s choices distinguish the evolutionary from the revolutionary phases horizon identity and decision making the evolutionary phases are apparent in time series data on labor force participation the revolutionary phase is discernible using time series evidence on women s more predictable attachment to the workplace greater identity with career and better ability to make joint decisions with their spouses each of these series has a sharp break or inflection point signifying social and economic change these changes moreover coincide by birth cohort or period the relationship between the development of modern labor economics and the reality of women s changing economic role is explored the paper concludes by assessing whether the revolution has stalled or is being reversed women who graduated college in the early 1980s did not opt out but recent cohorts are too young to evaluate this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

fertility intra generational redistribution and social security sustainability incorporating heterogeneity in preference to having children into an overlapping generations model of a small open economy we examine the effects of changes in the size of pay as you go payg social security on fertility choices of individuals and population growth of the economy it is shown that payg social security will raise population growth by increasing the number of individuals who have children and the number of children parents have if the system involves redistribution between retirees with different contributions whereas if it has no redistribution payg social security does not affect the fertility decisions of individuals fecondite redistribution intra generationnelle et durabilite de la securite sociale incorporant l heterogeneite des preferences pour avoir des enfants dans un modele d une petite economie ouverte avec des generations qui se chevauchent on examine les effets de changements dans l importance de la securite sociale par repartition sur les choix de fecondite des individus et sur la croissance de la population dans l economie on montre que cette forme de securite sociale augmente la croissance de la population en accroissant a la fois le nombre de personnes qui ont des enfants et le nombre d enfants que les parents choisissent d avoir si le systeme implique une redistribution entre les gens a la retraite qui ont fait des contributions differentes alors que si le regime n implique aucune redistribution le regime de securite sociale par repartition n affecte pas les decisions de fecondite des individus

intercountry comparisons of labor force trends and of related developments an overview this paper is a survey of analyses of women s labor force growth in 12 industrialized countries originally presented at a conference in sussex england in june 1983 the main focus of the conference papers and of the current survey is on growth of the labor force of married women in the years 1960 80 trends in fertility wages and family instability also receive attention as related developments married women s labor force growth is observed in all countries except for the ussr after 1970 where labor force rates of women reached the level of men growth rates differ among countries they apparently respond to growth in real wages and to growth in education but response elasticities differ among countries estimates of these elasticities contained in the country papers were helpful in predicting the trends other findings include ubiquitous declines in fertility and growth of divorce in the 1970s both developments are related to long run labor force growth in all countries wages of women were lo

economics and the family a postcolonial perspective a postcolonial perspective in the history of economic thought reveals the ways in which racial theory was built into the foundations of neoclassical economics neoclassical economics emerged within the context of nineteenth century european colonisation and this paper connects the material practices of colonisation in australia to this emerging body of theory in particular the paper focuses on the western breadwinner dependent family ideal that was deeply embedded within economic visions of development prosperity and progress i argue that neoclassical economics naturalised and justified colonial practices that sought to impose the homogeneity of culture desires and needs used to justify the displacement and subordination of the colonised aborigines copyright oxford university press

the economics of vocation or why is a badly paid nurse a good nurse abstract given the longstanding shortage of nurses in many jurisdictions why could not nursing wages be raised to attract more people into the profession we tell a story in which the status of nursing as a vocation implies that increasing wages reduces the average quality of applicants attracted the underlying mechanism accords with the notion that increasing wages might attract the wrong sort of people into the profession and highlights an in efficiency wage mechanism particular to vocations which makes wages sticky up wards the analysis has implications for job design in vocation based sectors such as nursing and teaching

the decoupling of emerging economies theoretical and empirical puzzle with the growing importance of the emerging economies ees in the international scene a lively debate has begun on whether the national economic cycles are converging or the cycles of ees and advanced economies aes are becoming disconnected the so called hypothesis of decoupling of ees from the aes given the important practical implications that decoupling could have for example on the definition of national and international economic policies and on business strategies aimed at investment diversification and risk management the question kindles not only the interest of academics but also policymakers and practitioners are very interested in the issue the decoupling question has been long debated in different circles and from different points of view this survey aims to retrace the steps of this debate and to provide some suggestions for future empirical researches

are we addicted to love a parsimonious economic model of love abstract it is apparent that love influences people s choices yet little work in economics has focused on how love develops or why it matters for resource allocation decisions here we present a simple dynamic model of how love develops and evolves recognizing our parsimonious model will not capture all the nuances associated with such a complex topic nonetheless our love dynamic motivated by a few intuitive assumptions can explain many observed facts like why stable love relationships can develop but also why blossoming relationships can unexpectedly take a turn and ultimately dissolve we embed our love dynamic in an intertemporal optimization problem and derive the optimal path for effort put toward a love relationship when it can also produce material consumption the optimal path offers an explanation for why taking the other for granted may be rational

economic transition and the motherhood wage penalty in urban china investigation using panel data china s economic transition has fundamentally changed the mechanisms for allocating and compensating labour this paper investigates how the economic transition has affected the wage gap between mothers and childless women in urban china using panel data for the period 1990 2005 the results show that overall mothers earned considerably less than childless women additionally the wage penalties for motherhood went up substantially from the gradualist reform period 1990 96 to the radical reform period 1999 2005 the results also show that that although motherhood does not appear to have a significant wage effect for the state sector it imposes substantial wage losses for mothers in the non state sector these findings suggest that the economic transition has shifted part of the cost of childbearing and rearing from the state and employers back to women in the form of lower earnings for working mothers copyright oxford university press

the benefits of in kind government programs abstract in this paper i present a methodology to calculate the benefits of in kind programs such as public housing which restrict consumption of some goods to the levels offered by the government most previous studies begin with an a priori specification of the direct utility function i begin with the ordinary demand function and then integrate demand to recover the indirect utility function and the expenditure function i argue that this approach gives additional flexibility in choosing a functional form which best describes the data i then use this methodology to estimate the benefits of the u s government s section 8 housing program

solutions to the crisis the green new deal degrowth and the solidarity economy alternatives to the capitalist growth economy from an ecofeminist economics perspective this article deals with three approaches conceived as alternative approaches to the capitalist growth economy the green new deal degrowth and the solidarity economy ecofeminist economics has much to offer to each of these approaches but these contributions remain as of yet unrealized the green new deal largely represents the green economy which holds economic success as contingent upon the ecological restructuring of industrial production the degrowth approach more fundamentally raises questions concerning the relationship between material prosperity and individual and social well being the principles of the solidarity economy involve the immediate implementation of the principles of self determination and cooperation none of these approaches takes into account the claims of ecofeminist economics and none of them clearly view gender equity as essential to economic change the three approaches are however deeply gendered in the sense that they are implicitly based on assumptions concerning women s labor in the sphere of social reproduction this article demonstrates how each approach can be improved upon by the integration of ecofeminist economic principles in order to achieve economic change that also meets claims for gender equity

distance to work in beijing institutional reform and bargaining power in this study we use a large sample from the beijing household travel survey to build husband wife dyads construct variables to measure bargaining power between spouses and place intra household

john nash the master of economic modeling during the past two decades non cooperative game theory has become a central topic in economic theory many scholars have contributed to this revolution none more than john nash following the publication of von neumann and morgenstern s book it was nash s papers in the early fifties which pointed the way for future research in game theory the notion of nash equilibrium is indispensable nash s formulation of the bargaining problem and the nash bargaining solution constitute the cornerstone of modern bargaining theory his insights into the non cooperative foundations of cooperative game theory initiated an area of research known as the nash program nash s analysis of the demand game in which he uses a perturbation of a game to select an equilibrium inspired the construction of several refinements of the notion of nash equilibrium a scholar s influence does not necessarily qualify him for a nobel prize one may argue that such awards are a social institution established to serve social goals it is legitimate to ask what message the swedish academy sends to the scientific community and the rest of the world in some cases prizes are designed to encourage individuals to invest their resources in endeavors that are important to society nash s achievements depend more on his genius than on characteristics which can be encouraged by utilitarian incentives sometimes prizes are expressions of social indebtedness towards members of society who have devoted their life towards advancing a social goal nash s active career was intensive but very short and i have not heard that he deliberately sacrificed attractive alternatives in favor of advancing economic knowledge prizes are also intended to promote the recipient s field of research by now game theory is well recognized any graduate student in economics is familiar with the foundations of non cooperative game theory and i doubt that there is any further need to expand the influence of game theory

children of a policy revolution the introduction of universal child care and its effect on fertility what role does affordable and widely available public child care play for fertility we exploit a major german reform generating large temporal and spatial variation in child care coverage for children under the age of three our precise and robust estimates on birth register data reveal that increases in public child care have significant positive effects on fertility the fertility effects are more pronounced at the intensive than at the extensive margin and are not driven by changes in the timing of births or selective migration our findings inform policy makers concerned about low fertility by suggesting that universal early child care holds the promise of being an effective means of increasing birth rates

the japanese crisis a case of strategic failure this paper provides an alternative insight into japan s current economic problems we concentrate upon the role played by the economy s central actors namely japan s transnational corporations since the early 1980 s japan s transnationals have become dominant players in the global economy and now have a higher rate of physical investment in new overseas greenfield sites than their competitors this has had detrimental consequences for japan s domestic economy particularly for small firms who operate in keiretsu networks this has led to concerns about the hollowing out of japan s domestic industry raising the possibility of long term industrial decline and strategic failure

international spillovers in macrofinancial linkages and the decoupling phenomenon abstract this paper contributes to the debate on the decoupling of emerging economies ees from advanced economies aes by measuring how the resilience of ees to external shocks i e shocks spreading from aes has changed over time and whether ees are relatively more vulnerable to real or financial external shocks a time varying panel var model with factorisation of the coefficients was used to perform counterfactual experiments over a period of about 30 years for a large sample of countries allowing for time varying coefficients permitted the decoupling phenomenon to be examined as a slow moving evolution process over a long time rather than as a structural break at a specific moment the factorisation of coefficients allowed a large dynamic panel to be managed with interdependences across many countries consequently the experiment was more realistic in terms of evaluating the response of ees to shocks hitting the aes within a global framework the resilience of ees has improved over time however this increasing resilience was discontinuous over the approximately 30 year sample period tracing a wave path in the whole sample period the ees were relatively more vulnerable to credit shocks than to real ones this greater vulnerability increased over time and peaked in the last 5 years of the sample period

post the washington consensus economic governance and industrial strategies for the twenty first century recent events in the global economy have led to a growing dissatisfaction with the neo liberal economic paradigm that has dominated economic policy over the last 30 years and the increasing concentration of and abuse of economic power within the corporate sector that has ensued however amidst calls for a new approach to economic management there is a danger that a new policy framework may overlook underlying economic governance structures that exist and may evolve within the economy such oversight has implications for development this paper seeks to demonstrate that the long run efficacy of industrial strategy depends upon designing appropriate economic governance structures that serve the wider public interest it does so by exploring past experiences of industrial strategy drawing lessons from the usa the uk japan the third italy and the emerging and transition economies we also offer some suggestions for ways forward

male female differences in hourly wages the role of human capital working conditions and housework this study uses a new data set from a 1986 survey of workers to examine simultaneously the wage effects of human capital household responsibilities working conditions and on the job training the analysis suggests that household responsibilities had a negative effect on women s earnings but the unexplained difference between the earnings of men and women is not greatly reduced by inclusion in the explanatory model of information on either housework or working conditions the presence of children appears to have had a positive effect on the wages of both men and women t wenty years of research on gender differences in earnings have failed to explain the entire wage gap as a consequence of measured differences between male and female workers some researchers view the unexplained residual as evidence of discrimination against female workers others take the position that the entire wage gap is potentially explicable by differences in labor supply according to the latter view an unexplained wage gap remains because the data sets in use do not contain adequate information on all productivity related characteristics this view implies that the unexplained wage gap will be reduced by more comprehensive infor

critical ethical naturalism and the transformation of economics in this article i shall argue that critical ethical naturalism an ethical position elaborated by tony lawson can help understand lawson s critique of modern mainstream economics according to critical ethical naturalism human action should be concerned with removing obstacles that lie in the way of human development and flourishing the attempt of transforming economics into a discipline that contributes to human development rather than being an obstacle to such a development can be seen as an exercise driven by critical ethical naturalism albeit in a more implicit way in lawson s earlier writings and in a more explicit way in more recent writings but the significance of critical ethical naturalism as elaborated by lawson goes well beyond the problem of transforming economics and so i shall also highlight some more general implications of this ethical position before addressing the specific problem of transforming economics to do so i will first present lawson s critical ethical naturalism while showing the relevance of his social ontology for the study of ethics at various levels of generality including meta ethics ethical theory and applied ethics

a budget based definition of poverty an approach to defining poverty through a basic needs budget bnb is presented which takes account of families differing needs for child care and transportation and of regional differences in housing costs taxes and noncash benefits from governmental and private sources are also accounted for the bnb poverty rate for single parents for 1989 is 47 percent compared to 39 percent under the official method almost a quarter of single parents holding full time jobs are counted as poor under the bnb method radical reduction in both the welfare rolls and the poverty rate would require government assurance of child care and medical care to single parents

do it yourself digital the production boundary the productivity puzzle and economic welfare part of the debate about the productivity puzzle concerns potential mismeasurement of gdp due to digital activities this paper discusses some measurement issues arising from digitally enabled substitutions in activity across the conventional production boundary production boundary issues are not new as conventionally defined gdp statistics account for the monetary cost but not the time cost of consumption and production this means that changes in the way in which time is allocated between market and home production affect measured growth and productivity as well as economic welfare just as technological innovation in domestic appliances led to a substitution from home production into market consumption in the second half of the 20th century today s digital innovations are driving some reverse substitution out of the market into home production statistical agencies do not currently collect the data needed to measure the scale of the switch but the available evidence suggests that it may be enough to make a contribution to understanding the current productivity puzzle

competitiveness and industrial policy from rationalities of failure towards the ability to evolve this article elaborates a dynamic rationale of industrial policy focusing on how to strengthen the socio economic system s ability to evolve i e how to achieve high real income together with qualitative change it highlights that the ubiquitous rationalities of failure be it of markets governments or systems are rooted in a peculiar habit of accepting hypothetical perfect states as normative benchmarks in contrast a dynamic logic of intervention should start from the question what the system aims to accomplish combining the structuralist ontology of micro meso and macro with the functional principles of evolutionary change the paper proposes a general typology of economic policies based on their respective contributions to the system s ability to evolve

the economic future of europe after three years of near stagnation the mood in europe is definitely gloomy many doubt that the european model has a future in this paper i argue that things are not so bad and there is room for optimism over the last thirty years productivity growth has been much faster in europe than in the united states productivity levels are roughly similar today in the european union and in the united states the main difference is that europe has used some of the increase in productivity to increase leisure rather than income while the united states has done the opposite still not everything is well unemployment is still high and europe suffers from inefficient regulation here also however there is more action than often perceived and a wide ranging reform process is taking place this process is driven by reforms in financial and product markets reforms in those markets are in turn putting pressure for reform in the labor market reform in the labor market is slowly taking place but not without political tensions these tensions dominate the news but they are a symptom of change not a reflection of immobility

the classical soviet type economy nature of the system and implications for reform i t is increasingly apparent that the traditional soviet type command economy is a catastrophic failure despite the touted statistical gains of real socialism during the last 40 years we now understand that these gains were largely a statistical illusion fostered by mismeasurement faulty methodology systemic incentives for exaggeration and ideologically and politically motivated distortion winiecki 1988 ericson 1990 moreover the economic system of real socialism in each of these states has imposed large negative social political ecological and personal externalities significant economic reform is now generally accepted as an imperative i am however convinced that successful economic reform of the soviet type economy will require a more comprehensive attack than hitherto attempted to understand the immense difficulties facing radical reform in the soviet union and eastern europe one needs to perceive the soviet type economy as a coherent whole a true system with its own inherent logic necessary components and natural interaction of those components it like any other economic system is as much an organism as a mechanism tending to counteract forces impinging frorn outside and to equilibrate the natural forces and tendencies that arise within it the logic and natural equilibrium of a command economy differ qualitatively and significantly from that of a largely private enterprise market economy hence reforms of a soviet type economy that are consistent with the basic nature of the system survive without altering the qualitative characteristics of

equity and efficiency aspects of rent control an empirical study of new york city modem rent controls arose during world war ii to deal with the war related influx into urban areas since then numerous cities have either considered adopted or eliminated rent controls the policy debate about the desirability of rent controls continues unabated and becomes particularly acute when high inflation rates drive up rents rapidly rent controls have both efficiency and distributional consequences the economics literature has produced theoretical insights about the inefficiencies created by rent controls this literature is frequently cited by opponents of rent controls who argue that the efficiency costs of rent controls are manifested in a decaying housing stock and altered mobility patterns proponents of rent control invariably argue that the distributional impacts of rent controls outweigh efficiency costs considering the large number of cities that have investigated or adopted rent controls relatively little empirical research documents either the efficiency or distributional effects of rent controls the most notable exceptions are the studies of new york city by de salvo 3 olsen 13 and roistacher 15 and the studies of los angeles by rydell et al 16 and fallis and smith 4 more recently linneman lo and marks 12 have further examined ramifications of rent controls in new york city and vancouver this paper fills some gaps in knowledge about the effects of rent controls we examine rent controls in new york city in 1968 using the new york city housing and vacancy survey 2 the paper extends the work of olsen 13 although there are important differences in both the questions addressed and methodology used this paper examines in detail the distributional consequences of rent controls for new york city residents both

the prospects for caring economic theory and policy analysis this paper examines three distinguishing features of caring that it involves the development of a relationship that caring responsibilities and needs are unequally distributed and that social norms influence the allocation of care and caring responsibilities to draw out their implications for analysing caring and its movement between unpaid and paid economies rising opportunity costs of caring are found to produce pressures experienced in different ways across different sectors of the economy these coupled with inequalities in care responsibilities and labour market opportunities influence the movement of care between paid and unpaid economies this analysis is then used to examine the likely evolution of caring norms and practices and how policy might intervene to avoid an uncaring future

the household s decision to accept or reject a conditional transfer offer households deemed by society to have insufficient resources to purchase an adequate commodity bundle are often offered aid i e additional resources conditional upon the households purchasing a given level of some commodity e g food fuel or housing such conditional transfers attempt to modify the households normal behavior i e if the households would normally purchase the required level of the designated commodity upon receipt of the transfer the constraint would not be necessary how these incentives and constraints interact to affect the households behavior determines in large part the number and type of eligibles aided by the program aggregate program costs given payment levels and the types of commodity bundles purchased by the recipient households clearly understanding the decision to accept or reject a conditional transfer offer has widespread implications for the costs of the transfer program the impact on eligible households and the attainment of society s objectives numerous studies have investigated the size and distribution of recipient benefits in conditional transfer programs 1 3 6 8 9 14 16 21 to this author s knowledge however no analysis has estimated a model of the household s decision to participate in a conditional transfer program using household data and a theoretically appropriate measure for the household s net gain to overcome this gap in our understanding of the household s

from global imbalances to global reorganisations the world feels itself to be in transition but to what is unclear will the liberal market model retain its normative primacy once some semblance of normality is restored or will other varieties of capitalism with a bigger role of the state acquire more legitimacy the answer depends partly on one s explanation for the current crisis this essay argues first that global imbalances had too important a role to ignore in contrast to a mainstream view that focuses on mistakes in monetary policy and financial regulation it argues second that in light of global dynamics the crisis is likely to become worse by early 2010 which on the face of it makes significant reorganisations of capitalism more likely the third section lays out what should be done to reconfigure capitalism at national and international levels the final section discusses the political economy of policy reforms in terms of the difficult translation from what should be done to what can be done the broad conclusion is that in five years from now the liberal market model will have been restored to normative primacy and we must have more globalization will again be the elite rallying cry but the crisis will have left behind sufficient doubts about factual propositions and value priorities that political parties and economists advocating alternatives will have more scope than they have had for the past three decades

for love or money or both this paper explores the implications for economic analysis societal well being and public policy of the movement of care services such as child and elder care from home to market a broad empirical overview sets the stage for the argument that this process cannot be properly evaluated using only a priori judgments about the suitability of marketization the context in which markets operate is crucial and while the growth of market provision poses some risks it also offers some potential benefits

the american family and family economics abstract gary becker s path breaking treatise on the family 1981 subjected individuals decisions about sex marriage childbearing and childrearing to rational choice analysis the american family has changed radically in recent decades we survey these changes as well as the ongoing effort to understand partnering parenting and care of the elderly as results of maximizing choices made by individuals first we describe the recent changes in the american family the separation of sex marriage and childbearing fewer children and smaller households converging work and education patterns for men and women class divergence in partnering and parenting strategies and the replacement of family functions and home production by government programs and market transactions second we examine recent work in family economics that attempts to explain these changes third we point out some challenging areas for further analysis and highlight issues of commitment in two primary family relationships those b

trends in the well being of american women 1970 1995 this paper examines the trends in the well being of american women over the last 25 years a time of significant changes in the relative economic status of women and in the labor market as a whole a broad range of indicators are considered to capture changes in women s well being in the family as well as in the labor market for virtually all age and education groups substantial evidence is obtained of rising gender equality in labor market outcomes notably labor force participation wages and occupational distributions broad evidence is also found of greater gender parity within married couple families as the housework time of husbands increased relative to wives and the relative wages of wives rose compared to their husbands however parallel to the recent evidence of the declining labor market position of lower skilled men there has been a similar deterioration in the economic status of less educated women especially high school dropouts their labor force participation rates and wages have risen at a much slower pace than those of more highly educated women while their incidence of single headship has increased much more rapidly these findings for less educated women serve to underscore the widening gap between more and less skilled americans of both sexes as well as to emphasize its broad dimensions

soft budget constraints and regional industrial policy reinterpreting the rise and fall of delorean the rise and fall of delorean motor cars limited has traditionally been interpreted as either the result either of john delorean s psychological flaws or as confirming the supposed limitations of activist industrial policy however when the episode is examined in greater historical detail neither of these interpretations is compelling the reinterpretation outlined here draws on institutional analysis as well as a range of archival sources much of it previously unreleased the inefficiencies within the original contractual agreement are highlighted the lack of credibility associated with this agreement was in turn traceable to the institutional environment with its associated risk reward implications under which industrial policy operated this environment had a political element it had been distorted by the troubles and the resulting fears policymakers had of a cumulative causation relationship between violence and unemployment officials in belfast against treasury opposition advocated state led entrepreneurship as a policy response

interdependence through time relationships in post keynesian thought and the care literature does hyman minsky s general interdependence through time have anything to do with carol gilligan s narrative of relationships that extends over time both post keynesian theory and the feminist care literature embrace calendar time and fundamental uncertainty both investigate the properties of networks of wittingly formed forward commitments between actors if some prominent writers in the care literature are right these networks merit their own social ontological status because they are reducible neither to individual behaviour nor structure

the myth of decoupling the decoupling hypothesis is the idea that business cycles in emerging market economies have become more independent from business cycles in advanced economies in recent years decoupling essentially amounts to a structural break in the degree of business cycle interdependence between the two groups of economies and it can be tested as such we develop an innovative measure of business cycle interdependence based on the euclidean distance available at the annual frequency which allows for a proper test for a structural break in a graphical setup we also make use of a standard econometric test both approaches point to the same conclusion there has been no decoupling in recent years if anything the degree of business cycle interdependence has become stronger

innovation and cooperation in the small firm sector evidence from northern britain freel m s and harrison r t 2006 innovation and cooperation in the small firm sector evidence from northern britain regional studies 40 289 305 over the last 20 years network based models of innovation led economic development have grown increasingly popular to both the polity and the academy in contrast to earlier linear conceptions innovation is viewed as a systemic phenomenon in which interactive learning and cooperative entrepreneurship are fundamental the way that systems and in turn networks are usually defined is by the volume and characteristics of the linkages that bind them together accordingly drawing upon a recent survey of small firms in scotland and northern england 1347 responses the paper is concerned with mapping the extent of small firm innovation related networking and understanding the unique contribution such networks make to the successful introduction of new products and processes importantly it investigated the impact of networking on innovation in both manu

social security and endogenous fertility pensions and child allowances as siamese twins abstract this paper analyses public pensions and child support in a model with endogenous fertility we show that the individual fertility choice may not coincide with the social optimum due to the existence of external effects of children on society as a whole the market outcome without government intervention is efficient however as the externalities exactly cancel out in that case if the government wants to redistribute towards the old it cannot replicate the command optimum by merely applying lump sum transfers but rather needs a child allowance scheme to effectively alter the number of offspring finally we analyse whether a pareto improving social security reform is possible it is shown that merely reducing the payg scheme cannot be pareto improving but the introduction of a child allowance scheme can be

the nature of heterodox economics heterodoxy serves as an umbrella term to cover the coming together of separate projects or traditions in answering the question what distinguishes heterodoxy from the orthodoxy the author argues that matters of ontology are central in answering the question how are the various traditions that make up the modern heterodoxy to be distinguished from each other the author defends criteria other than varying commitments to specific substantive theories policy measures or techniques or basic units of analysis

exploitation comes home a critique of the marxian theory of family labour social scientists demographers among them are slowly beginning to acknowledge that inequalities based on age and sex may have a significant impact on household behaviour yet the influence of what is now commonly termed patriarchy on household decisions is almost always pictured in political or ideological terms the economic consequences of patriarchy are often overlooked despite the fact that they clearly hold important impli cations for the analysis of production and distribution within the family neglect of this particular issue may be partially attributed to the influence of neoclassical economic theory a theory which not only excludes the possibility of exploitation in any voluntary exchange but also ignores the way in which individual tastes and preferences are presumably merged into a joint utility function yet marxian theory is equally deserving of blame while many marxists are sympathetic to the political perspective of socialist fem inism most cling to an interpretation of marxian theory which effectively excludes the very possibility that exploitation could take place within the family this common interpretation grows out of marx s exposition of the labour theory of value marx was convinced that the labour theory of value could not operate outside the realm of capitalist commodity production because the labour embodied in one good might vary arbitrarily between producers the actual amount of labour time devoted to pro duction could not be used as a standard of value because some workers might work more or less efficiently than others labour value he reasoned should be determined by socially necessary labour time and the concept of socially necessary labour time is relevant only if some social forces operate in such a way as to eliminate inefficient producers without socially necessary labour time there can be no analysis of labour value and without an analysis of labour value there can be no analysis of exploitation the logic of this argument is impeccable the logic however conceals an assumption that seems somewhat inconsistent with the spirit of marx s theory the assumption that capitalist competition is the only force that can lead to the systematic elimination of inef