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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > Economic theory & philosophy
This provocative book challenges traditional tenets about behavioral regulation in society as well as in business. Verner Petersen asserts that attempts to solve ethical problems by creating explicit guidelines, codes and rules discourage individual reflection and responsibility. Likewise, attempts to put important aspects of human life into tabular form, by devising schemes for counting everything that matters, have serious flaws, leading to further erosion of individual responsibility and insight. This book stresses the importance of tacit knowledge, ineffable values and a shared social grammar, as the foundation for individual responsibility and ethical awareness. It shows how the moral fabric of societies may be inculcated, changed and kept alive through individual decisions and actions. Based upon these ideas he argues that the open-endedness of self-regulation is the only viable alternative to modern bureaucratic attempts to regulate and control behavior. Instead of explicit regulation from the outside, putting a leash on a straining economic logic, it argues that this logic can be contained by the self-regulation of business and the responsible entrepreneurship of individual decision-makers. To make this possible Petersen presents a new view of leadership. He shows how spirited leadership can give direction, sense and latitude to employees, and asserts the importance of tacit knowledge and ineffable values for achieving coherence and unity of purpose. Scholars and students interested in management, leadership and ethics will find this well-argued volume intriguing and convincing as will business practitioners, HR professionals and those concerned with public regulation.
In The Methodology of Macroeconomic Thought, Sheila Dow attempts to bridge the gap between methodology and macroeconomic theory through the study of four different schools of thought in economics - the Neo-Austrian, mainstream, post Keynesian and Marxian traditions - and by seeking to understand their methodological foundations in their own terms. In this substantially-revised new edition of her classic work, Macroeconomic Thought: A Methodological Approach, Dr Dow argues for methodological awareness among practising economists as a basis for constructive debate and reasoned argument. The methodological content has been substantially increased to include material on recent developments in the field. After analysing the historical and methodological development of each of the schools, the author covers the micro-foundations of their macroeconomics and their approaches to key concepts including equilibrium, expectations, money and macroeconomic policy. The author seeks to identify the sources of differences between schools of thought as well as potential and actual commonalities before examining their differences at a conceptual level. Unlike other accounts, mainstream economics is treated here as one school of thought on a par with Neo-Austrian economics, PostKeynesian economics and Marxian economics. The Methodology of Macroeconomic Thought will be welcomed by readers for its description and analysis of these schools in their own terms, as well as for the wider perspective it offers on methodology.
This book asks, how would a stable, prosperous economy of the future look if one started with a blank sheet of paper? Given that the world's economy is locked into a coevolution with nature, the urgency of this question is brought into stark relief by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and ongoing climate change. While physical technologies to build such an economy mostly exist, the social technologies, in the form of institutions, governance and policies, do not. The development of these social technologies will necessitate a reconsideration of economic norms: in particular, what is the economy for, and what are we, as actors within it, striving for? This book integrates normative, institutional, political and economic requirements into a systematic framework to drive our present growth economy toward a future planetarian one. It outlines a suite of interrelated policies to increase the economy's material efficiency, establish a basic living standard, and reform the money system, while along the way eliminating economic debt and balancing government budgets. The framework and policies together form a paradigm of market planetarianism: the idea that the power of markets may be used to steer the economy toward a desired long-term goal. The methodological aspects of this paradigm are covered in the companion volume, Economics of a Crowded Planet.
In this enlightening book, John Berdell addresses the widely-held belief that classical economics distanced itself from policy issues and public debates regarding the effects of international trade on economic growth in advanced economies. He argues, through a detailed consideration of the evolution and structure of Hume's, Smith's, Ricardo's and Malthus' analyses, that it is not only contemporary international economic theory which takes account of these issues.Berdell uses a series of non-linear dynamic models to illustrate and analyse important aspects of each author's discussion of the interactions between trade and growth. The findings are then extended to create a comparison of the classical models with recent empirical research in this area. Berdell suggests that John Stuart Mill's plan to synthesise and extend Hume's, Smith's and Ricardo's analysis of commercial society was rendered intractable by the limitations of Hume's associationalist psychology. This work will be of great interest to both historians of economic ideas and economists concerned with modelling the interactions between growth and international trade.
This book shows that research contributions from different fields-finance, economics, computer sciences, and physics-can provide useful insights into key issues in financial and cryptocurrency markets. Presenting the latest empirical and theoretical advances, it helps readers gain a better understanding of financial markets and cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to use a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending and to control its issue without the need for a central authority, and it has attracted wide public attention since its introduction. In recent years, the academic community has also started gaining interest in cyptocurrencies, and research in the field has grown rapidly. This book presents is a collection of the latest work on cryptocurrency markets and the properties of those markets. This book will appeal to graduate students and researchers from disciplines such as finance, economics, financial engineering, computer science, physics and applied mathematics working in the field of financial markets, including cryptocurrency markets.
The advent of the Information Age has transformed the ways in which individuals work, travel, and conduct their daily activity. Anna Nagurney and June Dong lay out the theory of supernetworks, networks that exist over and above existing electronic networks, in order to formalize decision-making in the Information Age. Supernetworks are conceptual in scope, graphical in perspective, and, with the accompanying theory, predictive in nature. In this book, the authors provide a unifying framework for the study of decision-making by a variety of economic agents including consumers and producers as well as distinct intermediaries in the context of today's networked economy. They provide the conceptual, analytical, and computational tools for the study of supernetworks. Their approach is rigorous and of sufficient generality and detail to give added insight into the behavior and structure of large-scale, interacting and competitive network systems, such as transportation, telecommunication, and financial networks. Areas studied include: supply chain networks with electronic commerce, financial networks with intermediation, telecommunicating versus commuting decision-making, teleshopping versus shopping decision-making, as well as transportation and location decisions. Case studies drawn from practice are provided for illustration purposes. Academics and practitioners in economics, business, and operations research along with management scientists, transportation and logistics researchers, computer scientists and applied mathematicians will find this book fascinating and useful.
Economic Growth is an advanced undergraudate text written specifically for one semester courses in growth theory and for first year graduate students to refresh their knowledge. It should also be of great use for scholars and professional economists as the text contains many references to practical policy issues. The author condenses the fundamental issues of growth theory and covers the new ideas in a highly entertaining text, written in a clear and accessible style.
This publication contributes to the serious games field by investigating original contributions and methods that use serious games in various domains. This comprehensive and timely publication works as an essential reference source, building on the available literature in the field of Serious Games for the economic and social development of countries while providing for further research opportunities in this dynamic and growing field. Thus, the book provides the opportunity for a reflection on this important issue, increasing the understanding of the importance of Serious Games in the context of organizations' improvements, providing relevant academic work, empirical research findings, and an overview of this relevant field of study. This text provides the resources necessary for policy makers, technology developers and managers to adopt and implement solutions for a more digital era.
This second part of a two-volume set continues to describe
economists' efforts to quantify the social decisions people
necessarily make and the philosophies that those choices define.
Contributors draw on lessons from philosophy, history, and other
disciplines, but they ultimately use editor Kenneth Arrow's seminal
work on social choice as a jumping-off point for discussing ways to
incentivize, punish, and distribute goods.
How should a principled nation which believes in the benefits of mutually beneficial trade respond to the predations of mercantilist trading partners and imbalanced trade? Many argue that the response should be to do little or nothing. Balanced Trade argues that achieving the full benefits of international trade requires an effective response. Although trade deficits provide short-term gains in consumption, these are combined with long-term losses in consumption, innovation, investment, employment and power. Furthermore, market mechanisms do not correct trade imbalances that result from mercantilism, nor do they compensate for the long term shift in production and consumption towards the mercantilist. Balancing trade can make important short run and long run contributions to economic stability and prosperity. In America today, despite the growing evidence that imbalanced free trade is not working, many American economists remain adamant in their promotion of free trade. They are also quick to label actions taken to balance trade as protectionism. The political system has also failed to effectively address the problem of imbalanced trade, and the Federal Reserve has often exacerbated rather than addressed the challenge. We show that the classical economic arguments against mercantilism do not justify doing nothing. Effectively responding to imbalanced trade and mercantilism requires careful selection of strategy in order to achieve multiple objectives: balancing trade while maintaining the benefits of international trade, avoiding unnecessary inefficiencies, and maintaining compliance with international law. One of the best options is the Scaled Tariff. By targeting countries with which the United States has a large current account deficit, the Scaled Tariff would efficiently, legally, and effectively balance trade. It would be applied to all imported goods from trade surplus countries that have had a sizable trade surplus with the United States over the most recent four economic quarters.The tariff rate would be designed to take in a portion (e.g. 50%) of the bilateral trade deficit (goods plus services) as revenue. No particular product is protected; the scaled tariff simply changes the terms of trade between the two countries, much as currency devaluation would change the terms of trade with all countries.
This book examines the evolution of basic income policy and research in advanced economies and is divided into two parts. The first section considers the development of basic income as a social policy initiative in advanced (OECD) nations from the 1960s to today. It reviews what the negative income tax experiments accomplished, their limitations, and what they can lend to the design and implementation of basic income pilots or a full blown basic income program today. It also considers important developments and research in poverty and economic inequality and in technological change and labour market adjustment over the last half century. The second section focuses on the Canadian case, where the prospects for basic income are perhaps among the most promising. In addition to a review of Mincome and its lessons and limitations, this section considers important developments in poverty research by the Economic Council of Canada and the Canadian Senate in the 1960s, attempts at welfare reform, and the policy initiatives to develop a basic income for elderly Canadians that has endured to this day. Many of the important social and technological developments that are reviewed in the first part will be discussed in more detail with specific reference to the Canadian case. The evolution of the important policy innovations the National Child Benefit and its successors and the Poverty Reduction Strategy are outlined in detail and linked to other, more modest, income support initiatives such as the federal sales tax credit that provide a potential foundation for a comprehensive basic income plan in Canada. Research, including recent microsimulation studies of a basic income, are critically reviewed. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has increased interest in basic income to support those hardest hit, the book argues for careful design of basic income policies in its aftermath rather than simplistic adoption of emergency pandemic measures.
Foreword by Eric Maskin (Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2007)This book is a collection of articles written by the two authors on the topic of equality of opportunity. All articles build on the idea that a just society should equalize the resources that determine the opportunities agents face in order to follow their goals. Resources are either external, like financial resources, or internal, like preferences or skills. The authors propose to define "equality of opportunity" as the combination of ethical principles of compensation and responsibility. The principle of compensation requires external resources to be used to compensate low-skilled agents (considering that inequalities due to skill differences are unjust). The principle of responsibility requires external resources to be allocated without regards to inequalities due to differences in preferences (considering that these inequalities are not unjust). The articles present different ways of combining the two principles in different economic contexts.The book offers many possible aspects of the analysis of equality of opportunity, ranging from axiomatic discussions in abstract compensation models, to the design of redistribution policies in concrete labor income taxation models.
This book illuminates the real effects of regulations on people's everyday lives. It traces the effects of regulations on an economy by working through the ripple effects of changes. In so doing, the book provides a fundamental understanding for the economy as an organism rather than a machine, and enlightens the reader by offering a model for understanding the economy and market. Regulations, which are restrictions placed on the working of the economy, have consequences, both intended and unintended, direct and indirect. While the direct effects are well understood, the indirect effects are often overlooked because they don't fit with the machine understanding of an economy. More to the point, this book emphasizes the real effects of regulation and market change on individual actors, thereby stressing how the economy works to provide an individual with the options that exist in choice situations. We draft a new definition of prosperity and well-being which focuses on the individual's access to valuable alternatives. From this point of view, the real implications of regulation are traced step by step, following the logic of exchange and the effects on individual actors rather than the economy as a whole.
Hans-Peter Brunner has produced here a very thoughtful piece of scholarship. This important book is genuinely innovative and very well executed. It addresses a very significant problem - how the integration and inter-linkage of national markets through regional cooperation and integration adds to productivity growth. The book goes on to define a meaningful theoretical framework, describes relevant regional experiences, and then presents a road map for cluster development. As such, it will be of value to academics, practitioners and policy makers alike.' - Kislaya Prasad, University of Maryland, College Park, USThe rise of Asia, as well as the future of regional cooperation and integration (RCI) the world over, will be profoundly influenced by the challenges of slowing productivity growth, increasing economic inequalities and systemic vulnerabilities. Such structural reform issues will require RCI policies that complement domestic policy reform. This unique book explains what drives the regional economic integration of nations and their contribution to national knowledge capital. It also lays out how such beneficial integration can generate broad-based, equitable wealth in Europe and Asia. Unique in the regional economic integration literature, this comprehensive book identifies the set of drivers of integration for productivity growth. Importantly, it describes and compares the experiences of the Baltic Sea Region with Asia's use of a set of institutionalized consensual knowledge and decision tools to drive inclusive and productive growth throughout a period dominated by the global economic crisis. Original and enlightening, Innovation Networks and the New Asian Regionalism will be vital reading for academics and researchers interested in regional integration and innovation. Policy makers and practitioners in regional development and economic geography will also find it to be an invaluable resource.
This volume of new, original essays reflects the lifelong concerns and writings of the person they honor, Professor Howard Sherman. Sherman wrote on a wide range of topics - the causes of recessions, depressions and mass unemployment under capitalism; the difficulties and challenges of establishing viable democratic planning systems under socialism; the down-to-earth realities of economic life in the United States, the Soviet Union and elsewhere; and the theoretical traditions he drew upon to inform these empirical studies, i.e. Keynesianism, institutionalism and, most especially, Marxism. The contributors follow in Sherman's tradition through their careful analysis of topics such as the long-term trends in contemporary global capitalism; the relationship between Marxism and institutionalism; debates over the usefulness of class analysis; the political economy of financial liberalization; lessons from the demise of socialism in the Soviet Union and China; and the possibilities for advancing a workable egalitarian economic agenda. This book demonstrates the continued vibrancy and relevance of radical political economy as a mode of social scientific analysis. Scholars and students in economics, sociology, history, philosophy and political science will find the essays thought-provoking and informative.
The essays in this volume describe, analyse and compare the achievements and the failures of societies that adopted market-based economies within a democratic polity after a long period of communist rule (Russia and Eastern Europe) or military authoritarianism (Latin America). Together, they also trace the rocky course of liberal economic policies over the whole twentieth century. Area experts from various disciplines seek to establish the extent to which the historical experience of the several countries explains successful transitions as well as the less successful efforts to adapt institutions to the needs of a market economy. The papers further show the dilemmas faced in both Eastern Europe and Latin America in reconciling the efficiency benefits of market economies and the need to achieve or maintain socially acceptable patterns of income distribution among the strata of income receivers. In addition to the essays themselves, comments are provided to further explore specific issues. Researchers and students in economics, economic history, political science and regional studies, and others interested in the economics of transition to a market system will find this comprehensive collection an invaluable resource.
This highly innovative and original book proposes evolutionary microeconomics as a synthesis of the collective schools of heterodox economic thought with complex systems theory and graph theory. The book charts a research programme for evolutionary economics that encompasses the theory of dynamic efficiency and emergence in markets, a computational model of the learning and interacting agent, a competence based theory of the firm and the household, and, via a theory of expectations and plans, an agent-based foundation to macroeconomics. Principally a work of meta-theory, The New Evolutionary Microeconomics argues for a radical refocus of microeconomic research toward the evolutionary nature of institutions, preferences, technology and knowledge. This challenging new book should prove timely and important for evolutionary and computational economists as well as those in the fields of managerial economics, business studies and marketing.
This book presents the fundamentals of evolutionary game theory and applies them to the analysis of epidemics, which is of paramount importance in the aftermath of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The primary objective of this monograph is to deliver a powerful tool to model and analyze the spread of an infectious disease during a pandemic as well as the human decision dynamics. The book employs a variant of the "vaccination game," in which a mathematical epidemiological model dovetails with evolutionary game theory. From a social physics standpoint, this book introduces an extended concept of the vaccination game starting from the fundamental issues and touching on the newest practical applications. The book first outlines the fundamental basis of evolutionary game theory, in which a two-player and two-strategy game, the so-called 2 x 2 game, and a multi-player game are concisely introduced, and the important issue of how social dilemmas are quantified is highlighted. Subsequently, the book discusses various recent applications of the extended concept of the vaccination game so as to quantitatively evaluate provisions other than vaccination, including practical intermediate protective measures such as mask-wearing, efficiency of quarantine compared with that of isolation policies for suppressing epidemics, efficiency of preemptive versus late vaccination, and optimal subsidy policies for vaccination.
This research review discusses the most critical and influential articles that utilise field experimentation to answer questions of economic importance. Field experiments have gained popularity in recent years, allowing researchers to infer causal effects of different market environments, policies and interventions. The articles analysed here provide insights into market functioning and individual and group decision-making across a wide range of domains, including marketplace transactions, labor decisions, charitable giving, financial planning, and education and health-related decision-making. This research review will be an important resource for students new to the methodology and applications of field experiments and academics alike.
This book brings together John Creedy's most important essays on the history of economic analysis. The book contributes to our understanding of the development of economics by looking at the subject and some of its major players including Pareto, Edgeworth, Marshall and Wicksell, from an historical perspective. It reveals how learning about a subject and its past is critical to understanding current debates.
In 1965, a family-reunification policy for admitting immigrants to the United States replaced a system that chose immigrants based on their national origin. With this change, a 40-year hiatus in Asian immigration ended. Today, over three-quarters of US immigrants originate from Asia and Latin America. Two issues that dominate discussions of US immigration policy are the progress of post-reform immigrants and their contributions to the US economy. This book focuses on the earnings and human capital investment of Asian immigrants to the US after 1965. In addition, it provides a primer on studying immigrant economic assimilation, by explaining economists' methodology to measure immigrant earnings growth and the challenges with this approach. The book also illustrates strategies to more fully use census data such as how to measure family income and how to use "panel data" that is embedded in the census. The book is a historical study as well as an extremely timely work from a policy angle. The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act set the United States apart among economically developed countries due to the weight given to family unification. Based on analyses by economists-which suggest that the quality of immigrants to the US fell after the 1965 law-policymakers have called for fundamental changes in the US system to align it with the immigration systems of other countries. This book offers an alternative view point by proposing a richer model that incorporates investments in human capital by immigrants and their families. It challenges the conventional model in three ways: First, it views the decline in immigrants' entry earnings after 1965 as due to investment in human capital, not to permanently lower "quality." Second, it adds human capital investment and earnings growth after entry to the model. And finally, by taking investments by family members into account, it challenges the policy recommendation that immigrants should be selected for their occupational qualifications rather than family connections. |
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