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

veblen contra clark and fisher veblen robinson harcourt lineages in capital controversies and beyond in the midst of joan robinson s critique of neoclassical capital theory she remarked that thorstein veblen had made my point much better than i did in 1908 robinson was referring to veblen s attacks on the capital theories of j b clark and irving fisher with little written on these earlier capital controversies one purpose of this article is to fill in the historical record by providing a capital specific exam ination of veblen s attacks and clark s and fisher s responses the second purpose is to explore the unique connections between the veblen clark fisher and the cambridge capital controversies by focussing on three authors veblen robinson and harcourt these controversies shared clashes of fundamentally different visions of economic life as well as differences regarding the historical contextualisation of the meaning of capital and the role of social institutions the adequacy of equilibrium analysis and ideology also play more complex roles compared to other capital controversies conducted within a largely shared vision

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

the new institutional economics this outstanding book presents new original contributions from some of the world s leading economists including ronald coase douglass c north masahiko aoki oliver e williamson and harold demsetz it demonstrates the extent and depth of the new institutional economics research programme which is having a worldwide impact on the economics profession

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

a large scale linear complementarity model of the north american natural gas market abstract the north american natural gas market has seen significant changes recently due to deregulation and restructuring for example third party marketers can contract for transportation and purchase of gas to sell to end users while the intent was a more competitive market the potential for market power exists we analyze this market using a linear complementarity equilibrium model including producers storage and peak gas operators third party marketers and four end use sectors the marketers are depicted as nash cournot players determining supply to meet end use consumption all other players are in perfect competition results based on national petroleum council scenarios are presented

the psychology of early institutional economics the instinctive approach of thorstein veblen s conspicuous consumer theory abstract thorstein veblen a founder of original or old institutional economics combined social and evolutionary thought in his institutionalist approach to dealing with psychological social and economic issues the psychological content of veblen s writings takes instinct and habits into consideration the economic literature on the psychological content of veblen s writings has focused on habits despite the importance of instincts in veblen s works this paper attempts to discuss veblen s notion of instincts in order to make its role clearer in his approach to conspicuous consumer decision making it discusses the role of instincts the instinct of workmanship the relationship between habits and instincts and their influence on the conspicuous consumer consequently this paper contributes to a better understanding of how inner forces and socialization culminate in behavior in veblen s conspicuous consumer approach

an assessment of proposed energy resource tax reform in russia a static general equilibrium analysis abstract a large part of government revenues in russia comes from royalties and export taxes on crude oil oil products and gas recently the russian government has considered reducing export taxes on crude oil and oil products compensated by an increase in the royalty on crude oil the objective of the paper is to analyse the economy wide effects of this proposal moreover a hypothetical replacement of export taxes and royalties with a pure rent tax is analysed a static single country multi sector computable generation equilibrium cge model is employed the primary findings are as follows a replacement of export taxes on crude oil and oil products with a royalty on crude oil provides substantial allocative efficiency gains but this policy is not a superior one welfare could be substantially improved when the export taxes and royalty are replaced with a pure rent tax that can be implemented in the form of a cash flow tax on the negative side reducing export taxes on crude oil and oil products results in a strong appreciation of the currency as a result domestic producers become less competitive in domestic markets and there is a massive increase in import demand

should russia increase domestic prices for natural gas previous analyses of russia s dual pricing system and hidden subsidies for natural gas have neglected to assess the dual pricing system as a domestic environmental policy if dual pricing is considered as a policy to reduce conventional air pollutants it is more than economically justified in russia on the basis of avoided health risks in the short term the substitution of coal for natural gas may result in significant additional human health risk which translates into economic damage an alternative abatement possibility is expensive and unlikely enforceable due to weak environmental regulation the authors conclude that while the price differential can be expected to diminish over time as russia increasingly moves to a market economy in the near term dual pricing of natural gas remains the most efficient environmental policy for russia

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

thorstein veblen and post darwinian economics thorstein veblen is noted for his view that economics should be an evolutionary science however although the term evolutionary has been adopted in general terms by subsequent institutional economists there has been remarkably little detailed exploration informed by biology of what veblen meant by an evolutionary science and the character of the post darwinian economics that he attempted to build this essay explores the reasons for veblen s attachment to darwinism informed by developments in biology itself and identifies some distinctive and enduring features of veblen s evolutionary theory copyright 1992 by oxford university press

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

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

an assessment of optimal gas pricing in russia a cge approach domestic gas prices in russia are administratively regulated and they are substantially lower than export netback prices the administrative price regulation operates as an implicit subsidy on domestic gas consumption the russian government aims to liberalise domestic wholesale gas prices in the long term while the export netback parity is defined as a political objective it seems not to be a necessary target anymore the export netback parity is not economically rational for russia because the average export netback price of gas is higher than the marginal cost due to gazprom s market power in export gas markets an optimal domestic gas price is still not well defined this paper addresses this question by employing a comparative static single country multi sector computable generation equilibrium model cge the administrative regulation of domestic gas prices is explicitly modelled the main findings are as follows an increase in the domestic gas price provides economic efficiency gains the more elastic the export and domestic demand for gas the larger the welfare gains the optimal domestic gas price should be approximately 55 of the export netback price increasing the domestic gas price provides additional government revenues which can be used to reduce distortionary taxes on sectoral effects the structure of the russian economy shifts from energy toward non energy intensive sectors in response to an increase in the domestic gas price there is an increase in the export supply of gas furthermore an increase in the domestic gas price leads to a reduction in total co2 emissions

economy wide effects of international and russia s climate policies abstract the objectives of this paper are to analyse the economy wide effects of international climate policy on the russian economy as well as the effects of russia s climate policy on european economies our analysis is based on a general equilibrium model that includes inertias such as imperfect sectoral labour mobility and vintage capital and has a detailed depiction of the power generation sector we found that international climate policy could reduce russia s private welfare by 1 8 annually due to lower revenues from exports of fossil fuels at the sectoral level russia could gain a comparative advantage in producing energy intensive commodities and hence russia s producers of those commodities increase their production and export supplies this could result in a carbon leakage in russia eliminating implicit subsidies on domestic consumption of gas and petroleum products could reduce russia s private welfare loss by 0 6 points and eliminate the carbon leakage nevertheless eliminating implicit subsidies on gas and petroleum products might not be sufficient to achieve the pledged emission reductions by 2030 moreover this leads to an undesirable increase in coal consumption and therefore some additional climate policy such as a carbon tax or an emission trading system might be required we also found that russia s climate policy could have positive but moderate effects on the european economies in particular countries such as lithuania slovakia and hungary benefit due to decreased export prices for gas crude oil and petroleum products from russia

socio economic evolution and darwinism in thorstein veblen a critical appraisal the paper questions the idea that a biology based perspective and more speci callydarwinian population thinking constitutes a real alternative for the study of theevolution of social systems this is done through a critical appraisal of the work ofthorstein veblen even though veblen s account of the evolution of humankindmakes the notion of natural selection practically redundant his remainingattachment to darwinism created two other serious tensions for him first hisattachment to the darwinian scheme of descent with modi cation kept him fromdevisingasystematictheoryofthedifferentsocio economicsystemshestudied thisshortcoming is more evident in his analysis of capitalism which not only lacks anelaborated theory but also contradicts his initial evolutionary programme second by postulating that human history is a question of cultural change veblen wastempted to con ate social structures institutions and habits of thought key words evolution thorstein veblen darwinism institutions social structuresjel classi cations b52 b41 b15 p10

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

veblen s evolutionary programme a promise unfulfilled this article examines in detail the way in which veblen attempted to give theoretical expression to the programme for an evolutionary economics that he outlined in methodological terms in his 1898 essay why is economics not an evolutionary science veblen s conception of darwinian methodological principles led him to attempt to develop a theory of institutional evolution that was purely causal in nature this theory was never satisfactorily developed by veblen at base his theory was one of new technology changing economic conditions and new economic conditions leading to new ways of thinking and to new institutions through a non intentional process of habituation those who attempted to follow veblen such as hoxie and mitchell found difficulties with the key aspects of this theory and both men came to abandon it institutionalism in the interwar period is devoid of attempts to develop veblen s theory and veblen s programme remained a promise unfulfilled

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

when is a break up of gazprom good for russia in the late 1990s several proposals for a structural reform that would bring competition and market prices to the russian gas industry were intensely debated splitting up russian gas monopolist gazprom into several producing companies was a considered option in this paper i examine theoretically and numerically how a split up of gazprom would affect russian national welfare results show that under the current gas market structures in europe and russia the split up of gazprom s monopoly might not be beneficial for russia however analysis in the paper indicates that the market shares that gazprom has in both russian domestic and european gas markets are important in determining whether gazprom s dominance is supported under the national welfare criteria when gazprom has small market share in europe and large market share in russia a break up of gazprom might plausibly result in increase of russian national welfare

the merits of dual pricing of russian natural gas our analysis reveals that from russia s perspective there is no economic rationale to unify the price of natural gas it sells domestically and in europe we argue that pipelines allow gazprom to segment the russian market from the european including turkey market and that russia has market power in the european market if russia were to fail to exploit this market power in its european market by selling its natural gas to europe at only full long run marginal cost plus transportation costs russia would lose between 5 billion and 7 5 billion per year almost two per cent of its gdp if instead russia were to raise its domestic prices to the prices it charges in europe russian industry would incur very large investment adjustment and unemployment costs in the short run adjustment costs that cannot be justified on the basis of comparative advantage we estimate that the efficient world price would be achieved if gazprom were to employ its optimal two part tariff the optimal two part tariff would double gazprom s annual profits in europe but it involves significant long term risks for gazprom of lost market share

veblen on the machine process and technological change this paper explores veblen s analysis of technological change i claim that rather than succumbing to the traditional criticisms his approach founders due to his failure to fully articulate a social ontology whilst veblen s analysis of his own time remains in many ways compelling this failure creates a gap between meta theoretical promise and current theoretical results i show how work in the social studies of technology has successfully avoided the ontological problems associated with veblenian economics this success is tempered by the fact that the field has not yet provided an appropriate framework to systematise the ways in which technical innovations transform social relations in ways that are beyond conscious control and manipulation copyright the author 2009 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

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

russian gas price reform and the eu russia gas relationship incentives consequences and european security of supply in order to provide a comprehensive picture on the relationship between russia and the eu the focus should be on both the external energy relationship as well as russia s internal organization this paper sets out to do this by combining both strands of research in order to arrive at recommendations for europe on the way to adjust its energy policy towards russia the emphasis is on whether or not russia should impose unified gas pricing main conclusions are that the perceived advantages of unified russian gas pricing to russia as well as europe are in fact overstated and that eu security of supply might worsen under unified gas prices three policy recommendations are that eu policy should 1 more explicitly acknowledge the interdependence between russia and europe 2 not push russia towards unified gas pricing and 3 not take for granted any increase in russian exports flowing to europe

review of key international demand elasticities for major industrializing economies abstract this paper conducts a selective review of various estimates for energy demand responses focused specially upon lower income industrializing economies rather than richer mature nations it emphasizes recent trends from empirical studies that have been published after 2000 emphasis is placed on the five major emerging or transitional economies in brazil china india mexico and russia although other important nations like chile and south korea are also discussed when studies are available the review focuses attention on the long run responses to changes in prices and income after capital stock turnover has been completed the terminology often refers to elasticities or the percentage change in energy use divided by the percentage change in price or income holding constant all other factors that could influence energy use decisions estimates cover petroleum products natural gas and electricity although the available studies often ignore coal they also include the economy wide impacts real gdp to price changes most studies have focused upon household and transportation use of liquid fuels many fewer studies have investigated fuels used by industry or commerce or for electric generation based upon the available estimates price and income elasticities for liquid fuels are generally less than one unity for many countries and sectors except for the long run income effect for transportation purposes which can range widely by country between 0 24 and 1 75 while averaging 0 94 for all countries

divisionalization franchising and divestiture incentives in oligopoly a two stage game is used to model firms strategic incentives to divide production among autonomous competing units through divisionalization franchising or divestiture firms simultaneously choose their number of competing units which then engage in cournot competition while it is costly to form autonomous units each firm does so in equilibrium thus reducing firm profits and increasing social welfare relative to the case where firms cannot form competing units with linear demand and costs duopolists choose the socially optimal number of competing units oligopolies with larger numbers of firms choose too many the case of nonlinear demand is also examined copyright 1996 by american economic association

a strategic model of european gas supply gasmod abstract this paper presents a model of the european natural gas supply gasmod which is structured as a two stage game of successive natural gas exports to europe upstream market and wholesale trade within europe downstream market and which explicitly includes infrastructure capacities we compare three possible market scenarios cournot competition in both markets perfect competition in both markets and perfect competition in the downstream with cournot competition in the upstream market eu liberalization we find that cournot competition in both markets is the most accurate representation of today s european natural gas market where suppliers at both stages generate a mark up at the expense of the final customer double marginalization our results yield a diversified supply portfolio with newly emerging lng exporters gaining market shares enforcing competition in the european downstream market would lead to lower prices and higher quantities by avoiding the welfare reducing effects of double marginalization binding infrastructure capacity restrictions strongly influence the results and we identify bottlenecks mainly for intra european trade relations whereas transport capacity in the upstream market is globally sufficient in the cournot scenario

russian gas exchange a new indicator of market efficiency and competition or the instrument of monopolist abstract russian government sanctioned the first gas trade at the saint petersburg international mercantile exchange spimex in 2012 as a part of the gas industry national strategy federal antimonopoly service fas proposed a reform aimed to boost competition among producers and to increase consumer welfare the proposal included lifting of price floor regulation for gazprom that supposed to be a vital element of transition from the government price regulation to spimex benchmark for over the counter otc segment structural reform of this scale has never happened in russia furthermore there are only descriptive studies in the existing literature this paper aims to fill this gap by testing market efficiency in spimex based on fama s theory with the well established model we test the consistency of gas futures and spot prices for unbiasedness we imply this methodology because in transition to exchange benchmark it is necessary that price is formed under market forces and is not influenced by players who have market power or dominance to make a reasonable conclusion we supplement the simulation by relevant qualitative analysis of liquidity price differentials between contracts and market concentration in the exchange the goal of the paper is to answer whether the exchange price today can be a benchmark and substitute for the state regulated price combined with qualitative analysis we argue that the scheduled deregulation counterintuitively may improve the dominance of gazprom in the domestic market

carbon taxation and market structure a cge analysis for russia abstract russia is one of the world s major sources of carbon based energy as well as one its most intensive users introducing carbon taxes can lead to a reduction in emissions and encourage investment in energy efficiency we investigate the economic effects of carbon taxes on the russian economy under perfect competition and a cournot oligopoly in output markets the main findings are i substituting carbon taxes for labour taxes can yield a strong double dividend in russia however welfare gains strongly depend on the labour supply elasticity and elasticities of substitution between capital labour and energy ii under the assumption of a cournot oligopoly with homogenous products and symmetric firms in the markets for natural gas petroleum and chemical products metals and minerals welfare costs of the environmental tax reform can be higher than under perfect competition this is because introducing carbon taxes leads to a reduction in already sub optimal output thereby exacerbating pre existing distortions arising from imperfect competition iii furthermore increases in energy costs can result in higher mark ups in some markets because of less competition resulting from firms exit

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

today or not today deregulating the russian gas sector abstract although russia is the world s biggest producer of natural gas its ability to maintain timely and reliable supply to meet the growing global demand has come under question in recent months the gas war with ukraine notwithstanding concern has been raised by a number of observers that underinvestment in the gas sector will lead to a systemic failure of the state monopolist oao gazprom to increase or even maintain current levels of production yet with a quarter of european gas coming from russia and with increasing presence of gazprom in european downstream operations such as germany hungary and other cis states as well as seemingly closer ties with algeria another major supplier of gas to europe there has been a strong reaction from europe s policy makers to decrease dependence on russian gas deregulating and liberalising the gas sector would see the lifting of restrictions to foreign or independent investors wishing to gain access to russian reserves as well as the unhindered access to the pipeline infrastructure and export markets it would also signal the unbundling of gazprom and an end to the artificially low price of gas to the domestic consumer this paper discusses whether deregulation is the optimal way to raise capital attract investment and increase supply security for russia s western neighbours in doing so the paper identifies the objectives of the eu as the importer whilst trying to align them with the objectives of the russian federation as the exporter in the current political context

lifestyle conformity and lifecycle saving a veblenian perspective since the 1950s the lifecycle hypothesis has been the dominant explanation for the inverse u in household wealth accumulation this paper advances an alternative explanation rooted in the ideas of veblen that emphasises the role of lifestyle conformity because people tend to adopt lifestyles common to their social group and modify them in standard ways as they age lifecycle norms impart a certain order to the accumulation of assets and liabilities which enables people to do lifecycle saving via habitual thinking after laying out the argument conceptually the paper provides empirical evidence on the role of conformity in lifecycle saving and discusses its contribution to the current low saving rate in the usa copyright the author 2008 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

russian natural gas exports will russian gas price reforms improve the european security of supply in this paper we use both theoretical and numerical tools to study potential effects on russian gas exports from different russian domestic gas prices and production capacities in 2015 we also investigate whether a fully competitive european gas market may provide incentives for gazprom the dominant russian gas company to change its export behaviour our main findings suggest that both increased domestic gas prices and sufficient production capacities are vital to maintain gazprom s market share in europe over the next decade in fact russia may struggle to carry out its current long term export commitments if domestic prices are sufficiently low at the same time if russian prices approach european net back levels gazprom may reduce exports in favour of a relatively more profitable domestic market

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

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

on the impacts of carbon tax and technological progress on china using a dynamic national computable general equilibrium model we investigate the impact of carbon tax and energy efficiency improvement on the economy and environment of china the chinese social

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

distributional effects of higher natural gas prices in russia abstract this paper analyses the distributional effects of eliminating the implicit subsidy on natural gas consumption in russia the analysis is based on a computable general equilibrium model with multiple households and a detailed power generation sector it is found that using additional government revenues from higher domestic gas prices to increase the income of low and middle income households could improve the welfare of these households and alleviate income inequality in russia e g total private consumption of the poorest decile could increase by 3 nevertheless the most efficient revenue recycling policy would be to invest in the energy efficiency of buildings which have the largest energy savings potential in russia in the long term investing in the energy efficiency of buildings could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 240 million tonnes of co2 equivalent per year and increase the welfare of low and middle income households e g total private consumption of the poorest decile increases by 1 it is also found that increasing the regulated domestic gas price could lead to windfall profits for non gazprom producers hence to increase government revenues the gas price reform could be supplemented by an increase in the capital income tax in the gas sector

natural gas price effects in china based on the cge model abstract natural gas is a clean energy source with many benefits and its proportion in the energy consumption structure in china has been gradually increasing over the recent years since the price of natural gas in china has been controlled and maintained at a relatively low level by the government reforming the natural gas industry in china has been the matter of much attention in light of its macroeconomic effects on the overall economy using the computable general equilibrium model and the 2012 social accounting matrix the results show increases in natural gas prices lead to an increase in the consumer price index cpi and lead to reductions in gdp the chemical industry sector is strongly influenced by a natural gas price increase furthermore chemical fertilizer manufacturing industry and chemical products manufacturing have very significant effects in china therefore the government may gradually establish and improve the management of natural gas price to avoid negative effects and implement a differential price as the industries exhibit different levels of resistance in response to natural gas price changes