crisis or opportunity economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability introduction to this special issue abstract this article reviews the burgeoning emerging literature on sustainable degrowth this is defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level in the short and long term the paradigmatic propositions of degrowth are that economic growth is not sustainable and that human progress without economic growth is possible degrowth proponents come from diverse origins some are critics of market globalization new technologies or the imposition of western models of development in the rest of the world all criticize gdp accounting though they propose often different social and ecological indicators degrowth theorists and practitioners support an extension of human relations instead of market relations demand a deepening of democracy defend ecosystems and propose a more equal distribution of wealth we distinguish between depression i e unplanned degrowth within a growth regime and sustainable degrowth a voluntary smooth and equitable transition to a regime of lower production and consumption the question we ask is how positive would degrowth be if instead of being imposed by an economic crisis it would actually be a democratic collective decision a project with the ambition of getting closer to ecological sustainability and socio environmental justice worldwide most articles in this issue were originally presented at the april 2008 conference in paris on economic degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity this conference brought the word degrowth and the concepts around it into an international academic setting articles of this special issue are summarized in this introductory article hueting d alessandro and colleagues van den bergh kerschner spangenberg and alcott discuss whether current growth patterns are un sustainable and offer different perspectives on what degrowth might mean and whether and under what conditions it might be desirable matthey and hamilton focus on social dynamics and the obstacles and opportunities for voluntary social action towards degrowth lietaert and cattaneo with gavalda offer a down to earth empirical discussion of two practical living experiments cohousing and squats highlighting the obstacles for scaling up such alternatives finally van griethuysen explains why growth is an imperative in modern market economies raising also the question whether degrowth is possible without radical institutional changes

time consistent public policy in this paper we study how a benevolent government that cannot commit to future policy should trade off the costs and benefits of public expenditure we characterize and solve for markov perfect equilibria of the dynamic game between successive governments the characterization consists of an inter temporal first order condition a generalized euler equation for the government and we use it both to gain insight into the nature of the equilibrium and as a basis for computations for a calibrated economy we find that when the only tax base available to the government is capital income an inelastic source of funds at any point in time the government still refrains from taxing at confiscatory rates we also find that when the only tax base is labour income the markov equilibrium features less public expenditure and lower tax rates than the ramsey equilibrium

degrowth and collaborative value creation reflections on concepts and technologies abstract the concept of degrowth aims fundamentally at reducing material and energy throughput equitably while questioning the desirability of further economic growth in order to achieve this reduction of society s throughput radical changes in the ways goods and services are produced distributed and used are required in this think piece concepts of consumer integration into the value creation process and new enabling technologies are discussed as possible constituting elements of alternative organizational models in a degrowth society to date collaborative value creation concepts such as crowdsourcing and mass customization have been discussed almost exclusively as business model patterns for companies in economies that are set to grow the same applies to the assessment of new technologies such as additive manufacturing web based user interfaces for co creation and other flexible production technologies that allow for collaborative and individualized production potential positive and negative effects of these concepts and technologies with regard to the objectives of degrowth are discussed in order to initiate a debate about the inclusion of cvc for the design of alternative organizational models that are in line with degrowth thinking this think piece illustrates that several elements of collaborative value creation and its enabling technologies coincide with degrowth objectives but do not lead per se to their attainment thereby a starting point for future empirical work in this area is generated

green growth or degrowth assessing the normative justifications for environmental sustainability and economic growth through critical social theory abstract scientists agree that changes in the organization of human society and economy are needed to stop the degradation of the natural environment the most commonly proposed solution green growth has been increasingly criticized but the offered alternative of degrowth has remained a marginal undertaking in academia and in practice this article further develops the argument for degrowth the article conducts a comparative analysis of the normative foundations of green growth and degrowth using frameworks from critical social theory the analysis shows that green growth and degrowth work toward different normative ideals that are justified in different ways the analysis shows that degrowth has a stronger normative justification than green growth and therefore should be preferred the article contributes to the debate about green growth and degrowth by establishing normative grounds for focusing efforts for environmental sustainability on degrowth rather than green growth

micro equity for sustainable development selection monitoring and exit strategies of micro angels abstract sustainable development requires balancing environmental social and financial concerns this requires investors to select and monitor entrepreneurs who would balance these triple concerns at the same time there has been considerable attention to small is beautiful and micro investors have stepped in to look for such eco entrepreneurs to the classical institutional logic of economic returns they add the logic of social returns as well as the logic of environmental and local safeguards this study looks at investment clubs in france which have been coping with this balance of people planet and profitability for the last three decades we study their preferences in the selection process for investment projects in the entrepreneurs monitoring process as well as their exit strategies using principal components analysis we find that a large number of selection criteria can be regrouped into underlying factors that take into account two out of the three major dimensions of sustainable development at a time we find that four factors lie beneath the criteria used by the micro angels in the monitoring process we have also been able to establish a one to one correspondence between four of the six major exit strategies and four selection factors suggesting a prior relationship between selection process criteria and preferred exit strategies

intergenerational redistribution with short lived governments we study the politics of intergenerational redistribution in an overlapping generations model with short lived governments the successive governments who care about the welfare of the currently living generations and possibly about campaign contributions are unable to pre commit the future course of redistributive taxation in a stationary politico economic equilibrium the intergenerational transfer in each period depends on the current value of the state variable and all expectations about future political outcomes are fulfilled we find that there exist multiple stationary equilibria in many political settings steady state welfare is often lower than it would be in the absence of redistributive politics

degrowth from theory to practice abstract the collection of articles reviewed in this editorial presents an eclectic sample of the best contributions from the second international conference on degrowth exemplifying recent debates in the field and touching on different aspects of the multi dimensional transition at stake moving beyond theory and the construction of the degrowth proposal the articles in this special issue look at particular applications new methodologies and fresh policy options for example social enterprises are evaluated as primer candidates for a sustainable degrowth economy in the north lessons are also drawn from very different parts of the world such as cuba s experience with an oil and commodity shock to which it adapted through the introduction of ecological labour intensive agriculture in urban regions this special issue approaches from a degrowth perspective important sectoral issues in agriculture resource consumption and water the unsustainable fuel dependence of the spanish agrarian sector where the energy input for the production process is six times higher than the energy contained in finished food products is analysed in the context of the industrialization of food production rather than efficiency sufficiency in consumption is proposed as an organising societal principle and a call is made for stronger ngo action and coalition building in the direction of absolute rather than relative consumption reduction the obstacles to sufficiency policies are illustrated with a case study on water in the city of barcelona where a growth discourse is still dominant and a source of a technological and institutional deadlock against softer decentralized and more participatory forms of water management finally many of the contributions in this issue focus on work the policy option of a job guarantee scheme is examined as a tool to decouple jobs from economic growth and fiscal policy by bringing them to the realm of political rights this is complemented by a discussion of the social benefits of an amateur economy through work sharing and a socially beneficial reduction in labour productivity original data from barcelona analysed for this special issue shows that household activities an essential component of a more amateur economy have a much lower intensity of energy use than the paid sector delivery of equivalent services especially government and privatized caring services interesting research questions are identified concerning work under a degrowth trajectory not least whether reducing paid work will be possible in an energy scarce future put together the diverse contributions of this issue show that there is a vibrant and fertile degrowth research agenda with a range of open questions to which the community of this journal has much to offer

pareto improving social security reform when financial markets are incomplete this paper studies an overlapping generations model with stochastic production and incomplete markets to assess whether the introduction of an unfunded social security system leads to a pareto improvement when returns to capital and wages are imperfectly correlated a system that endows retired households with claims to labor income enhances the sharing of aggregate risk between generations our quantitative analysis shows that abstracting from the capital crowding out effect the introduction of social security represents a pareto improving reform even when the economy is dynamically efficient however the severity of the crowding out effect in general equilibrium tends to overturn these gains

framing the future of fracking discursive lock in or energy degrowth in the netherlands abstract hydraulic fracturing is a technology developed to improve and increase the production of natural gas in many countries including the netherlands it has caused environmental controversies in these controversies futurity framing may open up debates for alternative paradigms such as degrowth which is the pursuing of collective and deliberative downscaled production of natural resources and less consumption for convivial living based on a frame analysis it is demonstrated that opponents and proponents of fracking have envisaged pessimistic energy futures either to promote or devaluate fracking technology in addition the results show that dominant technological enthusiasm has enabled the introduction of degrowth technology which are downscaled decentralized and renewable energy technologies degrowth technology framing may provide a means of access for more radical degrowth thinking in the energy debates this empirical finding also indicates that the degrowth paradigm could include controversies as entry points for creating support for degrowth thinking

the aging population and the size of the welfare state data for the united states and countries in western europe indicate a negative correlation between the dependency ratio and labor tax rates and the generosity of social transfers after other factors that influence the size of the welfare state are controlled for this occurs despite the increased political clout of the dependent population implied by the aging of the population this paper develops an overlapping generations model of intra and intergenerational transfers including old age social security and human capital formation that addresses this seeming puzzle we show that with democratic voting an increase in the dependency ratio can lead to lower taxes or less generous social transfers

intergenerational risk sharing via social security when financial markets are incomplete this paper develops an overlapping generations model with stochastic production and incomplete markets to assess whether the introduction of an unfunded social security system can lead to a pareto improvement even if the initial equilibrium is neither production ine cient in the spirit of diamond 1965 nor dynamically ine cient in the spirit of samuelson 1957 when returns to capital and wages are imperfectly correlated and subject to aggregate shocks then the consumption variance of all generations can be reduced if private markets or government policies enable them to pool their labor and capital incomes a social security system that endows retired households with a claim to labor income may serve as an e ective tool to share aggregate risk between gener

ecological macroeconomics in the open economy sustainability unequal exchange and policy coordination in a center periphery model abstract this article introduces a novel environmental interpretation of a keynesian coordination game and develops four potential scenarios to remaining within a global carbon emissions constraint with inspiration from research on ecologically unequal exchange eue we demonstrate the drawbacks of present green growth strategies by considering how pollution and resource intensive industries are distributed unevenly in the world economy with large and increasing negative impacts on the periphery the situation may only be exacerbated if the reduction of emissions in the center is based on shifting heavy industries and extractive enterprises to low cost producers in the periphery in this way existing research likely overemphasizes the capacity of green investment policy to achieve sustainable outcomes our scenarios show that achieving global sustainability and improving global equity will require an impressive level of coordination between the center and periphery as well as a significant reduction in the rate of growth degrowth in the center

a theory of remittances as an implicit family loan arrangement abstract the idea of an implicit and informal loan agreement between family members to explain migrants remittances is not new but its implications have not been fully explored in the theoretical literature many empirically testable propositions may be derived from this hypothesis when trying to explain why emigrants remit what the time profile of remittances is how it depends on the intent to stay on the expected length of stay and on interest rates what use people make of remittances and how the home family consumption behavior is affected by the economic prospects in the receiving country furthermore this theory yields many interesting policy prescriptions for less developed countries wishing to maximize the remittance flow from emigrants

markov perfect equilibria in altruistic growth economies with production uncertainty this paper concerns the existence of markov perfect equilibria in altruistic growth economies previous work on deterministic models has established existence only under extremely restrictive conditions we show that the introduction of production uncertainly yields an existence theorem for aggregative infinite horizon models with very general forms of altruism journal of economic literature classification numbers

economic crisis and social learning for the provision of public services in two spanish municipalities economic crises pose challenges for the provision of public services but may also open up opportunities for social learning about how to achieve a sustainable society the main research question addressed in this paper is can economic crises catalyse social learning for a sustainable society the hypothesis of the paper is that social learning emerges in association with the reduction of consumption levels that follows degrowth or with the reconfiguration of infrastructure management practices and sustainable innovation that could lead to a transition to sustainability following this we empirically examine whether the crisis has led to social learning about the sustainable provision of public services in two similar municipalities in the north of spain after the economic crisis of 2008 we develop an interpretative analysis of individual experiences of learning from the crisis using a set of qualitative interviews with individuals who were involved in key decisions about public service delivery during or immediately after the crisis the analysis suggests that there has been a broader cultural change which is challenging institutional models of regional development that there has been a drive towards greater resource efficiency and that some opportunities have opened for entrepreneurs to develop sustainable innovations the findings support the view that the crisis may have fostered learning responses that could lead to either degrowth or a sustainable transition

a practice approach to the institutionalization of economic degrowth the degrowth literature is rich in critical debate about the unsustainability of the growth economies and in normative envisioning of a transition it lacks analyses on actual materialization and the nature of the change required there have been calls for research that pay attention to institutional constraints and possibilities of implementing a democratic process of sustainable degrowth this paper introduces a practice approach to institutional agency as a fruitful tool for future studies and politics of degrowth the potential of this approach is demonstrated through a struggle between finnish timebanking activists and the tax authorities the cultural and institutional transition promoted by radical bottom up initiatives requires a disruption of existing institutional arrangements some of which may be very persistent and supported by defenders who want to maintain the present institutional order in the case example the authorities and politicians managed to preserve the mechanisms through which certain sanctions are associated with the non compliance of timebanking with the income tax law a practice approach to institutionalization increases our understanding of institutional persistence and makes visible forces that support the present status quo it also enhances understanding of the opposing dynamics and gives tools to engage in more effective efforts to change institutions

persistent ideology and the determination of public policy over time this article investigates how public policy responds to persistent ideological shifts in dynamic politico economic equilibria to this end i develop a tractable model to analyze the dynamic interactions among public policy individuals intertemporal choice and the evolution of political constituency my main finding is that a right wing ideology may increase the size of government data from a panel of 18 oecd countries confirm that after controlling for the partisan effect there is a positive relationship between the right wing political constituency and government size this is consistent with my theoretical prediction but hard to explain by existing theories

environment versus growth a criticism of degrowth and a plea for a growth in recent debates on environmental problems and policies the strategy of degrowth has appeared as an alternative to the paradigm of economic growth this new notion is critically evaluated by considering five common interpretations of it one conclusion is that these multiple interpretations make it an ambiguous and rather confusing concept another is that degrowth may not be an effective let alone an efficient strategy to reduce environmental pressure it is subsequently argued that a growth i e being indifferent about growth is a more logical social aim to substitute for the current goal of economic growth given that gdp per capita is a very imperfect indicator of social welfare in addition focusing ex ante on public policy is considered to be a strategy which ultimately is more likely to obtain the necessary democratic political support than an ex ante explicit degrowth strategy in line with this a policy package is proposed which consists of six elements some of which relate to concerns raised by degrowth supporters

guestworker migration remittances and the extended family evidence from pakistan the paper places migration in the context of the extended family it models informal loans between migrant and extended family for financing the costs of international labor migration to show repayments to extended family is important we trace the effects of such loans on migrant savings and remittance to the immediate family we employ a standard life cycle approach which predicts that the demand for extended family financing rises with migration costs and falls with pre migration wealth remittance to the immediate family and savings retained abroad both fall with the pre migration loan these hypotheses are tested using data from a survey of return migrants to pakistan carried out in 1986

south korean green growth and the jevons paradox an assessment with democratic and degrowth policy recommendations the policy instruments at the core of the notion of green growth are central to south korea s national strategy for green growth nsgg 1 green stimulus packages 2 price based or market corrective policies and 3 green research and development to bring about a technological shift that increases resource efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources this assessment of the nsgg explores the potentials and limitations of 3 in light of the jevons paradox the commonly found association between improved efficiency and increased resource use greenhouse gas ghg emissions and total energy use have increased since the implementation of the nsgg despite overall improvements in energy efficiency we argue that the jevons paradox is a fundamental limitation of the nsgg and suggest policy alternatives to the nsgg 1 increased public participation in environmental decision making and 2 economic degrowth

are international remittances altruism or insurance evidence from guyana using multiple migrant households abstract while international remittances provide significant disposable income for many households in less developed countries there is no consensus on migrants remittance motivation two principal competing explanations for remittances are altruism and risk sharing this paper employs previously unanalyzed data to bring new evidence to the debate we develop a simple theoretical model that yields distinct testable predictions for each motivation among the model s testable predictions is differential remittance behavior by migrants from households with multiple versus single migrants under altruism and risk sharing our estimation finds significant differences in remittance behavior of multiple and single migrants and these differences support the altruistic incentive to remit

altruism and beyond an economic analysis of transfers and exchanges within families and groups 1 introduction 2 altruism transfers and wellbeing 3 the timing of intergenerational transfers an implication 4 an exchange implication of transfers the demonstration effect 5 transfers by migrants a strategic motive for remittances 6 exchange with recognition costs an explanation of migrants performance 7 intrafamilial transfers and exchanges forming and sustaining altruism

local currencies for purposive degrowth a quality check of some proposals for changing money as usual this article provides a quality check of the degrowth movement s proposal of local currencies as tools for advancing socially equitable and ecologically sustainable degrowth the article draws comprehensively upon mainly english language academic research about four widespread local currency types lets time banks hour currencies and convertible local currencies clcs to assess their performance with respect to four degrowth related criteria community building advancement of alternative values in economic exchange facilitation of alternative livelihoods and eco localization lets have been found to support alternative livelihoods under quite uncommon conditions and contribute indirectly to eco localization by moderately facilitating informal resale repair and sharing of commercially produced goods although their burdensome management and confinement to small memberships limit their usefulness time banks help expand social networks and are best at reaching the socially excluded however they are confined to unskilled personal services and dependent on grant funding hour currencies do not stand out with regard to any criteria but may have a minor capacity to promote local purchasing clcs are best at attracting local businesses but no significant evidence of their said capacity to localize supply chains has surfaced as yet and their business friendly design works to the detriment of other criteria in sum existing research provides a very weak basis for advocating local currencies as tools for purposive degrowth local currencies are here categorized as two utopian socialist approaches the behind society s back variety of lets and hour currencies and the appeal to elites variety of time banks and clcs marx and engels s critiques of these approaches remain valid successful monetary systems require resources that are not available behind society s back notably the power to levy taxes and designate by which means they can be paid local currencies that appeal for elite support without mass popular backing have shaken off most radical connotations and are vulnerable to changing policy agendas given the present historical conjuncture of popular outrage against the banking sector this paper argues that the degrowth movement would improve its chances of contributing to purposive degrowth by prioritizing government centred ecological reform of the monetary system over local currencies

designing social security a portfolio choice approach public social security systems may provide diversification of risks to individuals life time income capturing that a pay as you go program paygo may be considered as a quasiasset we study the optimal size of the social security program as well as the optimal split between a funded part and a paygo part by means of a theoretical portfolio choice approach a low yielding paygo system can benefit individuals if it contributes to hedge other risks to their lifetime resources moreover a funded part of the social security system can be justified by potential imperfections to the individuals free access to the stock market numerical calculations for sweden norway the us and the uk demonstrate that the optimal size of paygo part of the pension program varies considerably in response to differences in projected growth rates and the correlation between stock returns and growth our calculations suggest that a paygo program has an important role in the three former countries but not in the u k

motivations to remit evidence from botswana in this article a theory of motivations to send remittances is described and tested with data from botswana altruism is one of the motivations tested and found to be an insufficient explanation for remittances among migrants in botswana a refinement of the model stipulates a modified altruism or enlightened self interest in this model the relationship between the migrant and family is tempered by an implicit understanding of mutual benefit the household strategy may be to encourage some members to migrate as a means of spreading risk and sharing gains the household strategy is similar to an insurance policy where migration is to places where market potential is high the risks incurred might be high the example is given of migration during a drought in botswana migrant remittances were greater in households with more cattle or households with more to lose drought alone was not statistically related to remittances increases in remittances were related to increased levels of education it is suggested that repayment was the motive for parents investment in migrants education migrants gains are identified as the potential for an inheritance the security of channeling investments through a trusted family member and security in having a home to return to it is pointed out that the altruism and family remittances from urban migration were strategies that bridged the simple dynamic of either urban development or rural development impacting on family welfare it is suggested that household models of economy adopt some measure to express the relationship of household wealth to remittances from urban migrants

the check in the mail household characteristics and migrant remittance from the us to mexico we develop a household model of migrant remittance that supports testable hypotheses about the effect of migrant income family composition and distribution transaction costs associated with remittance mode income and residence security and other household characteristics on remittance levels and frequency we test these hypotheses using survey data on individual mexican migrants in the united states the results are broadly consistent with our hypotheses

intergenerational risk sharing abstract in this paper we examine government debt and tax transfer policies that can be improve the allocation of risk between generations markets cannot allocate risk efficiently between two generations whenever the two generations are not both alive prior to the occurence of a stochastic event this implies that government policies transferring risk between generations have the potential to create first order welfare improvements our model provides a non keynesian justification for the debt finance of wars and recessions as well as an added rationale for social security type tax transfer schemes which aid unlucky generations e g the depression generation at the expense of luckier generations

remittance receipts and allocation a study of three african countries remittances may influence household expenditures poverty rates development and investments in the receiving country using world bank survey data from ethiopia uganda and kenya the influence of remitters and recipients characteristics on remittance amounts and allocation is examined effects of the remitter receiver characteristics on remittance amounts are generally similar between countries such similarities imply a potential similar effect of policies in these countries age household income frequency of communication family relations with remitter and country the recipient resided in influence remittance allocation recipients in ethiopia and uganda are more likely to allocate remittance towards savings than those in kenya

a degrowth transition pathways for the degrowth niche to replace the capitalist growth regime abstract facing the intertwined environmental social and economic crisis requires us to seriously consider alternatives to the current capitalist system including the emerging concept of degrowth existing understandings of degrowth have focused on characterizing the shape the key elements and the proposals for a degrowth society however its dynamic and evolving nature as an alternative vision of the future and the dynamics of a transition toward degrowth are inadequately considered this paper seeks to address this conceptual gap through a reconceptualisation of degrowth as a radical niche innovation to the capitalist growth regime by extending the multi level perspective framework to the capitalist growth system we undertake a critical reconsideration of the multi level perspective exposing key assumptions of this framework grounded in capitalist economic theory through this we propose a pluriversal potential pathway for change to consider this further a bibliometric analysis is used to measure and visualize research activity in degrowth as a proxy for the processes of development of the degrowth niche then we return to the multi level perspective to consider two potential pathways for change involving the degrowth niche and the capitalist growth regime finally we point to areas for further research that build on this new conceptualisation of a degrowth transition

modelling sustainability performance to achieve absolute reductions in socio ecological systems as the world s natural resources dwindle and critical levels of environmental pollution are approached sustainability becomes a key issue for governments organisations and individuals with the consequences of such an issue in mind this paper introduces a unifying approach to measure the sustainability performance of socio economic systems based on the interplay between two key variables essentiality of consumption and environmental impact this measure attributes to every system a fitness value i e a quantity that reflects its ability to remain resilient healthy by avoiding ecological social and economic collapse as it consumes the available resources this new measure is tested on a system where there is a limited supply of resources and four basic consumption types the analysis has theoretical implications as well as practical importance as it can help countries organisations or even individuals in finding better ways to measure sustainability performance

determinants of workers remittances an empirical investigation for a panel of eleven developing asian economies we explore the key motives of migrant workers remittances from abroad for 11 major asian migrant sending countries using panel regressions we find that relative higher growth rate interest rate and capital market returns of home over the host investment financial deepening at home have significant impact on remittance inflows into asia along with higher per capita incomes and international crude oil prices with incorporation of per capita incomes and lagged impact of remittances we observe an emergence of consumption motives to remit therefore we conclude that both investment and altruistic motives are the driving forces for remittances inflows into the asian economies

estimating remittance functions for pacific island migrants there is concern that pacific island economies dependent on remittances of migrants will endure foreign exchange shortages and declining living standards as remittance levels drop due to lower migration rates and the belief that migrants willingness to remit decreases over time the empirical validity of the remittance decay hypothesis has never been tested from survey data on tongan and western samoan migrants in sydney this paper estimates remittance functions using tobit regression analysis it is found that the remittance decay hypothesis has no empirical validity and migrants are motivated by factors other than altruistic family support including asset accumulation and investment back home c 1997 elsevier science ltd

sweet dreams are made of cellulose sociotechnical imaginaries of second generation bioenergy in the global debate this paper critically examines the sociotechnical imaginaries of second generation bioenergy technology in the global debate exemplified by the deliberations of international organizations special

the economics of degrowth economic degrowth is ecologically desirable and possibly inevitable but under what conditions can it become socially sustainable how can we have full employment and economic stability without growth what will happen to public spending and to public debt how would production be organised in a degrowing economy and under what plausible socio political conditions could such grand changes happen standard economic theories and models ignore these questions for them economic growth is an axiomatic necessity this article reviews recent contributions in the economics of degrowth and identifies research avenues for ecological economists

the redistributive design of social security systems countries with low intragenerational redistribution in social security systems bismarckian are associated with larger public pension expenditures a smaller fraction of private pension and lower income inequality than countries with more redistributive social security beveridgean this article introduces a bidimensional voting model to account for these features agents different in age income and in their ability to invest in the capital market vote on the degree of redistribution of the social security system and on the size of the transfer in an economy with three income groups a small beveridgean system is supported by low income agents who gain from its redistributive feature and high income individuals who seek to minimise their tax contribution and to invest in a private scheme middle income individuals instead favour a large bismarckian system

in defence of degrowth abstract this article defends the proposal of sustainable degrowth a starting premise is that resource and co2 limits render further growth of the economy unsustainable if degrowth is inevitable the question is how it can become socially sustainable i e a prosperous and stable rather than a catastrophic descent pricing mechanisms alone are unlikely to secure smooth adaptation a full ensemble of environmental and redistributive policies is required including among others policies for a basic income reduction of working hours environmental and consumption taxes and controls on advertising policies like these that threaten to harm the economy are less and less likely to be implemented within existing market economies whose basic institutions financial property political and redistributive depend on and mandate continuous economic growth an intertwined cultural and political change is needed that will embrace degrowth as a positive social development and reform those institutions that make growth an imperative sustainable degrowth is therefore not just a structuring concept it is a radical political project that offers a new story and a rallying slogan for a social coalition built around the aspiration to construct a society that lives better with less

the roles of destination gender and household composition in explaining remittances an analysis for the dominican sierra two non exclusive hypotheses about what motivates remittances sent by dominican migrants to their rural parents in the sierra are tested a an insurance contract taken by parents with their migrant children and b an investment by migrants in potential bequests results show that the relative importance of these two motives to remit is affected by destination us vs cities in the dominican republic gender and household composition the insurance function is mainly fulfilled by female migrants to the us only when a male is the sole migrant in his household does he play the role of insurer investment by contrast is pursued by both males and females but only among those migrating to the us d 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

income transfers of chinese rural migrants some empirical evidence from jinan this paper explores the determinants of migrant remittances to rural households using data on male migrant workers drawn from the jinan municipality in shandong province in the summer of 1995 the majority of migrants are found to retain close links with their rural households with 85 remitting some income in the 12 months preceding the survey date the transfers accounted for over a third of urban labour earnings a number of models are used to undertake the estimation of remittance functions no evidence of altruistic behaviour is uncovered and evidence for exchange and coinsurance theories is mixed labour earnings proved the most robust determinant of the level of remittance and the remittance wage elasticity calculated is found to be at the top end of the range of estimates obtained in the literature

a gravity model of remittance determinants evidence from latin america and the caribbean abstracta gravity model of remittance determinants evidence from latin america and the caribbean regional studies this paper constructs a microeconomic model of the motivation for remittances and uses it to explore the macroeconomic determinants in addition a new measure of bilateral remittances is used to estimate a gravity model of remittances for 27 latin american and caribbean countries and 18 industrialized countries the results suggest remittances are motivated by a combination of altruism and self interest both of which are encapsulated by economic and non economic variables

degrowth business framework implications for sustainable development abstract recent years have seen a revival in growth scepticism yet degrowth in relation to the macroeconomic level has received almost exclusive attention this resulted in a lack of literature on how post growth and specifically degrowth visions of economy could be implemented including from the perspective of firms and other organisations this paper focuses on degrowth literature and fields of knowledge which share a similar or sympathetic perspective regarding the undesirability of economic growth and desirability of living within planetary boundaries while pursuing wellbeing it then applies degrowth vision to firms and identifies potential elements of a business for a degrowth economy here referred to as a degrowth business these elements comprise a degrowth business framework the framework is centred around the following groups 1 environment 2 people and non humans and 3 deviation from profit maximisation imperative it aims to contribute to an emerging discussion on what firms should be like for a degrowth economy and society to be possible

determinants of credit rationing a study of informal lenders and formal credit groups in madagascar abstract previous research on the determinants of credit rationing focused exclusively on the behavior of formal lenders who contract directly with an individual borrower based on survey data from madagascar this paper presents an analysis of credit rationing by informal lenders and by members of community based groups that allocate formal group loans among themselves the results show that group members are able to obtain and to use locally available information about the applicant s creditworthiness in much the same way as informal lenders do both types of lenders use the applicant s debt servicing obligations and income as the main criteria for credit rationing this paper therefore empirically confirms theoretical arguments that community based groups have an information advantage over distant formal bank agents

intergenerational risk shifting through social security and bailout politics abstract this paper adopts a stochastic overlapping generations framework to analyze the allocation of aggregate financial risks under different social security systems and a majority voting rule we study whether there will be switches between pay as you go payg and fully funded ff systems in such an economy we show that in case of a negative aggregate shock low income young individuals will form a political coalition with the elderly to implement a payg system payg scheme is shown to persist even after a good aggregate shock if the system is redistributive enough

social security and risk sharing abstract in this paper we identify conditions under which the introduction of a pay as you go social security system is ex ante pareto improving in a stochastic olg economy with capital accumulation and land we argue that these conditions are consistent with realistic specifications of the parameters of the economy in our model financial markets are complete and competitive equilibria interim pareto efficient therefore a welfare improvement can only be obtained if agents welfare is evaluated ex ante and arises from an improvement in intergenerational risk sharing we also examine the optimal size of a given social security system as well as its optimal reform

degrowth taking stock and reviewing an emerging academic paradigm degrowth has evolved within a decade from an activist movement into a multi disciplinary academic paradigm however an overview taking stock of the peer refereed degrowth literature is yet missing here we review 91 articles that were published between 2006 and 2015 we find that the academic degrowth discourse occupies a small but expanding niche at the intersection of social and applied environmental sciences the discourse is shaped by authors from high income mainly mediterranean countries until 2012 articles largely constitute conceptual essays endorsed by normative claims more recently degrowth has branched out into modelling empirical assessments and the study of concrete implementations authors tend to agree in that economic growth cannot be sustained ad infinitum on a resource constraint planet and that degrowth requires far reaching societal change whether degrowth should be considered as a collectively consented choice or an environmentally imposed inevitability constitutes a major debate among degrowth thinkers we argue that the academic discourse could benefit from rigid hypotheses testing through input output modelling material flow analysis life cycle assessments or social surveys by analyzing the potentials for non market value creation and identifying concrete well being benefits the degrowth discourse could receive wider public support and contribute to a paradigmatic change in the social sciences

impact caps why population affluence and technology strategies should be abandoned abstract this paper classifies strategies to reduce environmental impact according to the terms of the i pat formula policies limiting resource depletion and pollution impact by heavily taxing resources or rationing them on a country basis are thus called direct or left side strategies other policies to achieve the environmental goal of lowering impact strive to limit population and affluence or to use technology to lower the ratio of resource inputs to goods and services outputs next it is shown that lowering any of these right side factors causes or at least enables the other two to rise or rebound this has two consequences 1 since i pat does not express these interdependencies on the right side it is more accurately written i f p a t and 2 success in lowering any of the right side factors does not necessarily lower impact rationing or pigouvian taxation of resources or pollution on the other hand necessarily lower impact and are therefore preferable to population consumption and technological environmental strategies finally lifestyle and technology changes towards more sufficiency and efficiency would follow the caps as consumers and producers work to retain the greatest amount of welfare within the limits given

a dynamic theory of public spending taxation and debt this paper presents a dynamic political economy theory of public spending taxation and debt policy choices are made by a legislature consisting of representatives elected by geographically defined districts the legislature can raise revenues via a distortionary income tax and by borrowing these revenues can be used tofinance a national public good and district specific transfers interpreted as pork barrel spending the value of the public good is stochastic reflecting shocks such as wars or natural disasters in equilibrium policy making cycles between two distinct regimes business as usual in which legislators bargain over the allocation of pork and responsible policy making in which policies maximize the collective good transitions between the two regimes are brought about by shocks in the value of the public good in the long run equilibrium tax rates are too high and too volatile public good provision is too low and debt levels are too high in some environments a balanced budget requirement can improve citizen welfare

the transition of germany s energy production green economy low carbon economy socio environmental conflicts and equitable society low carbon transitions have been predominantly analysed using quantitative methods mostly building on present and forecasted data of social metabolism this paper addresses both the economic and social dimensions of low carbon emissions by analysing the presence of socio environmental conflicts in germany these conflicts appear to be a consequence of unsustainable policies targeting firms planning and behaviour mainly based on neoclassical economic thinking and various stakeholder groups that oppose carbon intensive businesses by applying a delphi method with 18 experts the authors analyse 117 socio environmental conflicts e g derived from extractive activity energy production and infrastructure projects in germany most of these conflicts include the struggle of various society groups to achieve a low carbon economy but also a more equitable society the analyses presented in this paper shows that germany provides both the best and the worse of achieving low carbon paths a significant investment into renewable energy but also a strong dependency on lignite which supplies the most polluting power stations of europe by addressing the problem from a historical perspective the authors demonstrate how carbon intensive extractive activity has been one of the major causes for environmental activism and protest in both socialist and capitalist societies

political intergenerational risk sharing abstract in a stochastic two period olg model featuring an aggregate shock to the economy ex ante optimality requires intergenerational risk sharing we compare the level of intergenerational risk sharing chosen by a benevolent government and by an office seeking politician in our political system the transfer of resources across generations is determined as a markov equilibrium of a probabilistic voting game low realized returns on the risky asset induce politicians to compensate the old through a payg system this political system typically generates an intergenerational risk sharing scheme that is i larger ii more persistent and iii less responsive to the realization of the shock than the social optimum this is because the current politician anticipates her transfers to the elderly to be compensated by future politicians through offsetting transfers and hence overspends

are we entering the age of involuntary degrowth promethean technologies and declining returns of innovation any reflections on an eventual transition towards a degrowth society have to take into account the current crisis in the dominant system and question whether the latter will be able to grow again or not in order for the latter to happen the role played by technological innovation is crucial this paper starts by reconsidering georgescu roegen s definition of promethean techniques and tainter s principle of declining marginal returns with the aim of providing within the common framework of the theory of complex systems a sound theoretical basis for the analysis of the rise and fall of complex societies the main purpose is to verify whether after the last promethean revolution a great wave emerged or not the second part of the paper presents an initial investigation into this hypothesis using total factor productivity growth as an indicator of marginal returns on innovation 1750 2015 despite the limitations implicit in the use of this indicator data show three cycles of innovation corresponding to the first second and third industrial revolutions but of different magnitude and duration in particular the whole cycle that began with the first industrial revolution in england around 1750 reached a peak in the u s in the nineteen thirties and later declined following a trend that basically confirms the great wave hypothesis even recent innovations resulting from the ict revolution however considerable do not seem capable of counteracting this long term trend data on returns on innovation seem therefore to be coherent with evidence provided by research in other fields energy mineral resources agriculture health education and scientific research showing that advanced capitalist societies have entered a phase of declining marginal returns or involuntary degrowth with possible major effects on the system s capacity to maintain its present institutional framework

the survival of the welfare state this paper provides an analytical characterization of markov perfect equilibria in a model with repeated voting where agents vote over distortionary income redistribution a key result is that the future constituency for redistributive policies depends positively on current redistribution since this affects both private investments and the future distribution of voters the model features multiple equilibria in some equilibria positive redistribution persists forever in other equilibria even a majority of beneficiaries of redistribution vote strategically so as to induce the end of the welfare state next period skill biased technical change makes the survival of the welfare state less likely

on migration and risk in ldcs the authors develop the hypothesis that aversion to risk rather than expectations of higher income is the primary motivation for rural urban migration in developing countries this hypothesis maintains that an optimizing risk averse small farmer family will try to place a family member in the urban sector in order to diversify its income portfolio an additional hypothesis related to risk is also considered at the individual rather than the family level annotation

the future of social security we analyze the effect of the projected demographic transition on the political support for social security and equilibrium outcomes embedding a probabilistic voting setup of electoral competition in the standard olg model with capital accumulation we find that intergenerational transfers arise in the absence of altruism commitment or trigger strategies closed form solutions predict population ageing to lead to higher social security tax rates a rising share of pensions in gdp but eventually lower social security benefits per retiree the response of equilibrium tax rates to demographic shocks reduces old age consumption risk calibrated to match features of the u s economy the model suggests that in response to the projected demographic transition social security tax rates will gradually increase to 16 other policies that distort labor supply will become less important labor supply therefore will rise in contrast with frequently voiced fears

intergenerational risk sharing and fiscal policy abstract risk sharing implications of alternative fiscal policies are compared in a stochastic production economy with overlapping generations ex ante efficiency is shown to be achievable with optimal transfers regardless of distributional concerns for crra preferences stylized real world policies notably safe debt and safe pensions are found inefficient in the direction of imposing not enough productivity risk on retirees and too much on future generations safe transfers can be rationalized as efficient if preferences display age increasing risk aversion such as habit formation the ubiquity of safe transfers suggests that governments treat the young as more risk tolerant than older cohorts

democratic public good provision this paper analyzes an overlapping generation model of redistribution and public good provision under repeated voting expenditures are financed through age dependent taxation that distorts human capital investment taxes redistribute income both across skill groups and across generations we focus on politico economic markov equilibria and contrast these with the ramsey allocation under commitment the model features indeterminate equilibria with a key role of forward looking strategic voting due to the lack of commitment to future policies the tax burden may be on the wrong side of the dynamic laffer curve moreover restrictions on government policies can in some cases be welfare improving

sustainable development in pacific micro economies abstract this paper argues that the central economic problem for a number of very small pacific island economies is the preservation and enhancement of their status as rentier societies and the relatively high living standards vis a vis other developing countries which go with the status the thrust of most development planning in the region with its focus on sustainable expansion of productive activity is misdirected in these small countries it is not productive activity but rent entitlements which must be sustained and reproduced over time aid philately and migrant remittances are not merely supplements to local incomes they are the foundations of the modern economy insofar as conventional development projects crowd out aid and remittance entitlements their impact is immiserizing criticism is offered of a recent argument for returning to sustainable subsistence economies

financial markets intermediaries and intertemporal smoothing in an overlapping generations economy with incomplete financial markets but no intermediaries there is underinvestment in safe assets in an economy with intermediaries and no financial markets accumulating reserves of safe assets allows returns to be smoothed nondiversifiable risk to be eliminated and an ex ante pareto improvement compared to the allocation in the market equilibrium to be achieved in a mixed financial system however competition from financial markets constrains intermediaries so that they perform no better than markets alone

social security taxation and intergenerational risk sharing the life cycle hypothesis has become the dominant mode used to analyze the effects of a social security system on private saving the labor leisure choice and social welfare as both barro and samuelson indicate a fully funded social security program in a world of certainty would drive out an equivalent amount of private saving if the interest rate is r the effects of a payment of a dollar into the social security pool while young would just offset the effects of receiving 1 r dollars as a transfer when retired papers by diamond hi and samuelson among others have examined the effects of non fully funded social security schemes in a growing economy a non fully funded program can be used to alter the private sector s saving rate and hence the capital labor ratio social security then can be used as a policy tool for achieving the or some variant of the golden rule growth path this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

intergenerational risk sharing in the spirit of arrow debreu and rawls with applications to social security design this paper examines the optimal allocation of risk in an overlapping generations economy it compares the allocation of risk the economy reaches naturally to the allocation that would be reached if generations behind a rawlsian veil of ignorance could share risk with one another through complete arrow debreu contingent claims markets the paper then examines how the government might implement optimal intergenerational risk sharing with a social security system one conclusion is that the system must either hold equity claims to capital or negatively index benefits to equity returns

assessing the degrowth discourse a review and analysis of academic degrowth policy proposals abstract debates on ecological and social limits to economic growth and new ways to deal with resource scarcity without compromising human well being have re emerged in the last few years central to many of these is a call for a degrowth approach in this paper a framework is developed to support a systematic analysis of degrowth in the academic literature this article attempts to present a clearer notion of what the academic degrowth literature explores by identifying organising and analysing a set of proposals for action retrieved from a selection of articles the framework is applied to classify proposals according to their alignment to ecological economics policy objectives sustainable scale fair distribution and efficient allocation type of approach top down versus bottom up and geographical focus local national or international a total of 128 peer reviewed articles focused on degrowth were reviewed and 54 that include proposals for action were analysed the proposals identified align with three broad goals 1 reduce the environmental impact of human activities 2 redistribute income and wealth both within and between countries and 3 promote the transition from a materialistic to a convivial and participatory society the findings indicate that the majority of degrowth proposals are national top down approaches focusing on government as a major driver of change rather than local bottom up approaches as advocated by many degrowth proponents the most emphasised aspects in the degrowth literature are related to social equity closely followed by environmental sustainability topics such as population growth and the implications of degrowth for developing nations are largely neglected and represent an important area for future research moreover there is a need for a deeper analysis of how degrowth proposals would act in combination

less is more the influence of aspirations and priming on well being abstract if resource consumption is to be reduced through economic de growth individuals in industrialized countries may have to accept a reduction in their consumption levels in democratic societies implementing this process requires the consent of a majority of the population however as long as people have high reference levels of consumption lower consumption will induce feelings of loss and hence evoke resistance this paper summarizes recent experimental evidence on some of the factors that determine the utility costs involved in decreasing consumption the results suggest that the acceptance of economic de growth would be facilitated if people s material aspirations were moderated and the extent to which material achievements are emphasized in our daily environment were reduced an analysis of the financial and economic crisis that developed during 2008 suggests that it will not contribute to either of these points rather by increasing the public s focus on the economic sphere even beyond pre crisis levels it may lead to a further decrease in the acceptance of de growth policies in the population

migrants intentions to return home and capital transfers a study of tongans and samoans in australia this article examines the attributes of migrants from the pacific island states of tonga and samoa living in australia to assess the extent to which return migrants could contribute to the human and physical capital stock of the migrant sending countries it also examines the impact of intention to return on remittances and asset accumulation the study finds that very few migrants plan to return home and very little evidence that those who plan to return embody significant human capital education experience and skills intention to return may be important nevertheless since those who plan to return remit significantly more than those that do not and also accumulate far more physical capital at home than those that do not intend to return

rent emigration and unemployment in small islands the mirab model and the french overseas departments and territories abstract many small island economies depend heavily on rents coming from the outside international aid from foreign or metropolitan governments remittances from emigrants or fishing rights some small islands have massive emigration and almost no unemployment while others have no emigration or even immigration sometimes with high unemployment the four sector economic model proposed here tries to explain such differences in migration behavior and unemployment rates for islands with unlimited legal emigration outlets

diaspora growth and aggregate remittances an inverted u relationship this paper presents a model in which remittances stem from a decision made jointly by a family coalition of multiple migrants and non migrants allowing two alternative interpretations migrants a