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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > Economic theory & philosophy
Economic Theory, academic policy analysis and public policy design are becoming more interdependent. Hence, the demands for close interactions between the policy community and the research community have been rising significantly. This book assesses how recent economic thinking has advanced under these influences. Furthermore, it evaluates the important contribution economics can add to the design and evaluation of public policy, now more than ever before. The study is of interest to policy makers, policy analysts, researchers and students of economics at all levels. The authors, which include many of Germany's most eminent economists, draw on their wide experience in research and consultancy to present a coherent view of where European economic theory stands today and how it can play a role in the management of the economy of the new millennium.
These essays develop a Marxist response to and approach to aspects of the recent economic past in the United Kingdom. They reflect issues and controversies that have arisen within economic policy debate and the economic theory associated with the debate, highlighting the problematic nature of economic policy in the period since the mid-1970s. The book, first published in 1986, develops a line of argument organized around issues of 'calculation', thus challenging the orthodox Marxist framework and presenting a neo-Marxist analysis.
Joan Robinson is widely considered to be amongst the greatest economists of the 20th Century. This book provides a comprehensive study of her life and work, examining her role in the making of The General Theory, her critical interest in Marxian eocnomics, her contributions to Labour Party policy and her writings on development, especially China.
In many parts of the world, weather and climate are one of the biggest production risks and uncertainty factors impacting on agricultural systems performance and management. Both structural and non-structural measures can be used to reduce the impacts of the variability (including extremes) of climate resources on crop production. While the structural measures include strategies such as irrigation, water harvesting, windbreaks etc., the non-structural measures include use of seasonal to interannual climate forecasts, improved application of medium-range weather forecasts and crop insurance. This book based on an International Workshop held in New Delhi, India should be of interest to all organizations and agencies interested in improved risk management in agriculture.
German Ordoliberalism and French Regulation theory, two institutionalist theories born in different national contexts, show striking convergences and complementarities. Based on an original comparison, Institutional Economics in France and Germany analyses the basic concepts, the development and the present relevance of both schools, the way they deal with the crucial methodological issue of complexity and with transformation in post-socialist Europe. It underlines the specificity and fruitfulness of these European approaches to institutional economics, often unfortunately ignored in the English-language literature. Written by leading scholars, this book is a clear presentation of both theories, with numerous illustrations and in-depth analysis of recent research developments. This theoretical, methodological and thematic comparison raises central issues in the growing field of socioeconomic and institutionalist theory.
Why has the Eurozone ended up with an unemployment rate more than twice that of the United States more than six years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers? Why did the vast majority of low- and middle-income countries suffer a prolonged economic slowdown in the last two decades of the 20th century? What was the role of the International Monetary Fund in these economic failures? Why was Latin America able to achieve substantial poverty reduction in the 21st century after more than two decades without any progress? Failed analyzes these questions, explaining why these important economic developments of recent years have been widely misunderstood and in some cases almost completely ignored. First, in the Eurozone, Mark Weisbrot argues that the European authorities' political agenda, which included shrinking the welfare state, reducing health care, pension, and other social spending, and reducing the bargaining power of labor played a very important role in prolonging the Eurozone's financial crisis and pushing it into years of recession and mass unemployment. This conclusion is based not only on public statements of European officials, but also on thousands of pages of documentation from consultations between the IMF and European governments after 2008. The second central theme of Failed is that there are always practical alternatives to prolonged economic failure. Drawing on the history of other financial crises, recessions, and recoveries, Weisbrot argues that regardless of initial conditions, there have been and remain economically feasible choices for governments of the Eurozone to greatly reduce unemployment-including the hardest hit, crisis-ridden country of Greece. The long-term economic failure of developing countries, its social consequences, as well as the subsequent recovery in the first decade of the 21st century, constitute the third part of the book's narrative, one that has previously gotten too little attention. We see why the International Monetary Fund has lost influence in middle income countries. Failed also examines the economic causes and consequences of Latin America's "second independence" and rebound in the twenty-first century, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
This book represents the full spectrum of Alan Walters's contribution to economics over thirty years, from academic debate to close involvement in British policy making. It includes not only his earlier contributions to applied monetary economics but also his work on political economy which generated much interest following his appointment as economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher. The volume charts the development of Alan Walters's thinking on money, monetary policy and macroeconomics. It makes special reference to his work on the demand for money and the money multiplier, money and the business cycle and the political economy of money. The book opens with an introduction by Kent Matthews in which he provides an overview of Alan Walters's work in the context of the so-called 'monetarist counter-revolution'. He also offers an introductory discussion on each of the essays, which include: the quantity theory of money, consistent expectations, the time lag effects of money, supply-side policies, foreign exchange rates and anti-inflation policies. These essays offer important policy prescriptions, some of which are particularly timely in the light of increasing European economic and monetary integration. The Economics and Politics of Money will be welcomed by business and government as well as professional economists, social scientists and researchers interested in monetary economics and political economy.
Hardbound. The market model, introduced over thirty years ago, is one of the most studied and utilized return generating models in finance. Over three decades it has withstood rigorous testing and, with refinements over the years, remains the standard of reference today, being applied to almost all existing global investment opportunities. The resulting literature is prolific, and the aim of this book is to consolidate the most important literature on the market model, focusing especially on recent research involving issues related to the model. The market model is analysed in detail and its characteristics discussed, criticisms presented and possible shortcomings tested. The book also presents a guide to the various applications of the model, as well as a discussion of other types of model, their forecasting power and their relationship with the market model.
This handbook presents a systematic and comprehensive overview of economic sociology, an exemplary interdisciplinary field which draws on theoretical frameworks and empirical findings from both economics and sociology to present a unique lens on the interdependence of the economy and society. The handbook is arranged in four parts which together present the current state-of-the-art of economic sociology as well as pointing toward future directions for research. The first part outlines the theoretical foundations of economic sociology and its relations to other fields, particularly with regard to other alternative approaches to economics, and looks at conceptions and definitions of economic sociology vary. The second part provides an overview of the historical development of economic sociology from classical political economy to the present day. The third part explores the main problematics of economic sociology, analyzing the economy in relation to particular social institutions, the state, ideology, culture and art, religion, gender, race/ethnicity, and more. The fourth part focuses on the principal branches including sociology of the market, industrial organization and work, uncertainty, distribution and inequality, money and finance, and the environment. The stellar international cast of contributors is drawn from both economics and sociology, therefore presenting a holistic view of the field and contributing to a rejuvenation of economic sociology within economics. It is an indispensable reference work for researchers and students across a broad range of sociological and economic disciplines.
This reader in the history of economic thought challenges the assumption that today's prevailing economic theories are always the most appropriate ones. As Leland Yeager has pointed out, unlike the scientists of the natural sciences, economists provide their ideas largely to politicians and political appointees who have rather different incentives that might prevent them from choosing the best economic theory. In this book, the life and work of each of the founders of economics is examined by the best available expert on that founding figure.These contributors present rather novel and certainly not mainstream interpretations of the founders of modern economics. The primary theme concerns the development of economic thought as this emerged in the various continental traditions including the Islamic tradition.These continental traditions differed substantially, both substantively and methodologically, from the Anglo-Saxon orientation that has been dominant in the last century for example in the study of public finance or the very construct of the state itself.This books maps the various channels of continental economics, particularly from the late-18th through the early-20th centuries, explaining and demonstrating the underlying unity amid the surface diversity. In particular, the book emphasizes the writings of John Stuart Mill, his predecessor David Ricardo and his follower Jeremy Bentham; the theory of Marginalism by von Thunen, Cournot, and Gossen; the legacy of Karl Marx; the innovations in developmental economics by Friedrich List; the economic and monetary contributions and "struggle of escape" by John Maynard Keynes; the formidable theory in public finance and economics by Joseph Schumpeter; a reinterpretation of Alfred Marshall; Leon Walras, Heinrich von Stackelberg, Knut Wicksell, Werner Sombart, and Friedrich August von Hayek are each dealt with in their own right."
This is a book about the simultaneous location, production and distri bution decisions of a firm entering a competitive market whose spatial nature is describable by a network in which the market either achieves an equilibrium or is equilibrium tending. As such, the problem is of clear theoretical and practical importance, for it is a rather general version of the problem faced by real firms every day in deciding where to locate. Further, the timeliness of this subject manifests itself in the growing excitement and interest found both in the research/academic communities and in the practitioner/private industry communities for more comprehensive approaches to competitive facility location analy sis and equilibrium modeling of networks. The desire both for new conceptual approaches yielding enhanced insights and for practical methodologies to capture these insights drives this interest. While nor mative, deterministic facility location modeling techniques currently provide valuable input into the location decision-making process, re searchers and practitioners alike have realized the vast and relatively untapped potential of more advanced location decision making tech niques. In this book, we develop what we believe represents a major new line of research in the field of competitive facility location analysis; namely, equilibrium facility location modeling. In particular, this book offers a number of innovations in the mathe matical analysis and computation of solutions to location models which we have pioneered and which are collected under a single cover for the first time."
This insightful book presents topics in applied dynamic macrotheory for closed and open economies. The authors give an advanced treatment of macroeconomic topics such as the Phillips curve, forward and backward looking behavior, open economy macrodynamics, structural macroeconometric model building as well as the empirics of Keynesian oriented macro models. The dynamics of open economies in the context of interacting two country models are treated as well.
In Poverty from the Wealth of Nations , the author presents an analysis of the evolution of global disparities that goes beyond the earlier neo-Marxist critiques of global capitalism. He moves beyond their narrative by inserting two additional asymmetries into the global economy - those created by 'unequal races' and unequal states. The author analyzes not only the power of markets, but the powers that shaped these markets. More importantly, he marshals cross-country evidence to show that loss of sovereignty retarded industrialization, human capital formation and economic growth.
John E. Roemer, one of the founders of analytical Marxism, draws on contemporary mathematical economics to put forward a refined extension of the Marxian theory of exploitation, labour value and class.
This book - the second of two volumes- looks at episodes in American economic history from a public choice perspective. Each chapter discusses citizens, special interests, and government officials responding to economic incentives in both markets and politics. In doing so, the book provides fresh insights into important periods of American history, from the First Nationalist Movement of 1783 to the perpetual renewal of the Federal Reserve in 1927. This volume features the work of prominent economic historians such as Hugh Rockoff; well-known public choice scholars such as Joshua Hall and J.R. Clark; and younger scholars such as Marcus Witcher and Zachary Gocenour. This book will be useful for researchers and students interested in economics, history, political science, economic history, public choice, and political economy.
Leading experts on Kalecki have contributed special essays on what economists in the 21st century have to learn from the theories of Kalecki. Authors include surviving students of Kalecki, such as Amit Bhaduri, Mario Nuti, Kazimierz Laski Jerzy Osiatynski, and Post-Keynesian economists such as Geoff Harcourt, Marc Lavoie, and Malcolm Sawyer.
This book examines the life and work of the extraordinary Polish
economist, Michal Kalecki. It discusses Kalecki's theory of the
capitalist economy, and provides a thorough guided tour through his
published works, including his important writings on the economics
of underdeveloped countries.
Intellectual time lags exist in every field of science. So it is that even today one often hears the same old "common knowledge" nonsense and simplistic analysis from the early post-Keynesian era when students learned about some of the monetary and fiscal policies applicable to the U.K. and its institutions (Keynes) on the premise that they are also applicable to the U.S. Many are not. The result has all too often been inflation or massive unemployment that continues even though it could be quickly ended without fiscal changes or new laws. This is a re-presentation of Professor Lindauer's early ground-breaking work from the 1960s. It explains why not all Keynesian and neo-classical theory and monetary and fiscal policies are applicable to the unique structure and institutions of the United States and how the current United States' malaise can be quickly ended - via a new approach to monetary policy, long ago explained by Lindauer and adopted by other countries. It was while at Claremont as professor of economics that Lindauer first modeled the concept of aggregate supply and related it with the concept of aggregate demand to develop many of the macroeconomic theories presented herein and integrate them into the then-existing theories of inflation and unemployment. Importantly in these days of high unemployment, the unique and quickly effective monetary policies he suggested years ago to end recessions and depressions without causing inflation or exacerbating government deficits are today immediately available without requiring fiscal changes or the passage of new laws and regulations. Professor Lindauer's other publications include "Land Taxation and Indian Economic Development" (with Sarjit Singh); various editions of his "Macroeconomics" series; and his early ground-breaking journal articles such as ""Stabilization Inflation and the Inflation-Unemployment Trade-off."" A non-technical version of this work is available as "Inflations, Unemployment, and Government Deficits: End Them." It is suitable for journalists, laymen, and lawyers serving as Federal Reserve governors. Lindauer's books have been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Portugese, Korean, Hindi, and Chinese and the policies his theories suggest implemented by central banks around the world. He has additionally served as a visiting professor at Sussex University, the University of California (SD), and Punjab University. He lives in Scottsdale and Chicago. His teaching is limited to lectures and visiting professorships.
In this innovative highly readable contribution to the study of Keynes, Wayne Parsons makes a radical departure from the conventional approaches to Keynesian economies.As a political scientist Parsons believes that, if we are to grasp the revolutionary nature of Keynes's way of thinking about policy problems, we need to place his theories in a wider intellectual and inter-disciplinary setting. Keynes, he suggests, was a social scientist, philosopher and opinion-former with one foot in the age of science and another in the age of sorcery. Like Newton, about whom Keynes wrote with considerable knowledge and insight, he was a thinker whose method was rooted in an alchemical fascination with the art of transmutation and the quest for the philosophers' stone. Parsons maintains that unless we appreciate this alchemical quality of Keynes's economics we fail to comprehend his particular genius as a philosopher of possibility. The author paints a portrait of a Bloomsbury Faust, a Mephistopheles in Whitehall: an image which is a long way removed from the modernist discourse which has largely framed our reading of his economics. Free from the mechanistic and positivistic language which has come to obscure his work Wayne Parsons concludes that Keynes can once again become a source of inspiration and illumination for the theory and practice of public policy. Keynes and the Quest for a Moral Science is an accessible, highly readable account which will appeal to scholars and students in the field of economics, history of economics, public policy and history of ideas.
Kalecki's opus has been acknowledged chiefly as a contribution to the theory of distribution and the business cycle. Little attention has been given to the theory of effective demand and to unemployment equilibrium, i.e. to the field traditionally covered by Keynesian economics. This book is an attempt to draw attention to the most innovative core of Kalecki's thought on capitalist economies, which is also strictly interrelated to the history of economic thought. Accordingly, it focuses on the relationships with other theoretical approaches, to methodology and the theory of effective demand and investment, to the theory of distribution and prices, and to the theory of money.
During the 1980s Britain became one of the world's most market-oriented economies, an approach which resulted in three severe recessions and a deepening degree of inequality. This book argues that a rebalancing of the economy will remain elusive until proactive policies are implemented at the corporate and industrial level.
In an era of increasing inequalities, and also of deep anxieties about the consequences of two major economic crises, economists are faced with a major question: can economic growth be achieved without inequalities? Economic Growth and Inequality critically evaluates the economic literature on this question from a pragmatic perspective, seeking to reconcile those who regard economic liberties as a paramount value, and critics who object that prioritizing these liberties leads to inequitable outcomes. The book presents an overview of the models used by economists to define and measure inequalities and the ongoing dialogues between political philosophers and economists in an effort to find solutions to the problems. It explores Rawlsian justice, Sen's capability theory, and the theory of rent and compares and contrasts the most often discussed institutions and policies designed for remedying poverty and reducing inequalities. This book marks a significant contribution to the literature on some of the most pressing problems of our time and will be of great interest to readers of political economy, public policy, moral philosophy, and history of economic and political thought.
The Corporate Financiers is the fifth book in a series of discussions about the great minds in the history and theory of finance. While the series addresses the contributions of scholars in our understanding of modern finance, this volume presents the ways in which a corporation creates value. More than two centuries ago, Adam Smith explained the concept of division of labor and the efficiencies of specialization as the mechanism in which a firm creates value. However, corporations now find themselves outsourcing some processes to other firms as an alternative way to create value. There must be other economic forces at work than simply the internal efficiencies of a firm. We begin by describing the work of a rather obscure scholar named John Burr Williams who demonstrated in 1938 how the earnings of a firm are capitalized into corporate value through its stock price. We then delve into the inner workings of the modern corporation by describing the contributions of Nobel Memorial Prize winners Ronald Coase and Oliver Williamson. More than any others, these scholars created a renewed appreciation for our understanding of the institutional detail of the modern corporation in reducing costs and increasing efficiency. While Coase and Williamson provided meaningful descriptions of the advantage of a corporation, they did not offer prescriptions for the avenues the corporation can create more value in an era when new technologies make outsourcing and telecommuting increasingly possible. Michael Jensen and William Meckling describe in greater detail the nature of the implicit contracts a corporation employs, and recommend remedies to various problems that arise when the goals of the corporation are not aligned with the incentives of its agents. We also describe the further nuances to these relationships as offered by Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz. We treat the lives of these extraordinary individuals who looked at a very familiar problem in a sufficiently novel light to change the way all look at corporations ever since. That is the test of genius.
Symmetry and Economic Invariance (second enhanced edition) explores how the symmetry and invariance of economic models can provide insights into their properties. Although the professional economist of today is adept at many of the mathematical techniques used in static and dynamic optimization models, group theory is still not among his or her repertoire of tools. The authors aim to show that group theoretic methods form a natural extension of the techniques commonly used in economics and that they can be easily mastered. Part I provides an introduction that minimizes prerequisites including prior knowledge of group theory. Part II discusses recent developments in the field. |
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