nep-hpe New Economics Papers on History and Philosophy of Economics
─────────────────────────────┐
Issue of 2019‒09‒23
seventeen papers chosen by
Erik Thomson (University of Manitoba)
http://ep.repec.org/pth72
[Selections by Humberto Barreto for SHOE list.]
1. The Relation Between Law and Morality
Emima Alistar
2. Pluralism and political economy in interwar britain: G.D.H. Cole on
economic planning
Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak
3. How economics became an interventionist science (and how it ceased to
be)
Rafael Galvão de Almeida
4. DSGE Models and the Lucas Critique. A Historical Appraisal.
Francesco Sergi
5. Doing Bad to Look Good: Negative Consequences of Image Concerns on
Pro-social Behavior
Ivan Soraperra; Anton Suvorov; Jeroen van de Ven; Marie Villeval
6. The Evolutionary Stability of Optimism, Pessimism, and Complete
Ignorance
Burkhard C. Schipper
7. Reconsidering the Role of Farmer Politics in Swedish Democratization
Bengtsson, Erik
14. The economy of well-being: Creating opportunities for people’s
well-being and economic growth
Ana Llena-Nozal; Neil Martin; Fabrice Murtin
16. Uneven and combined development as a methodological tool: a dynamic
approach after a dialogue between Kondratiev and Trotsky
Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque
17. Do we really know that U.S. monetary policy was destabilizing in the
1970s?
Haque, Qazi; Groshenny, Nicolas; Weder, Mark
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
1. The Relation Between Law and Morality
Emima Alistar ("Dimitrie Cantemir" Christian University, Bucharest,
Romania)
Most specialists agree that between law and morals there is a close
connection, because the moral principles of good, justice and truth are
appliances and promoted by the rule of law, even if the right and the moral
retains its identity. However, over time, their views on the problem of
knowing what is the relationship between law and morals were contradictory.
Between law and morals, I consider that there is only an apparent
contradiction, because the two concepts are complementary. The right would
seem a trap for lawyers in that could make them to resist the temptation to
not see beyond the letter of the law, given that the need for law
enforcement and understanding of its spirit. A true man of law must not only
know the law but also to look beyond it and realize that the main attraction
of the moral law.
Keywords: : law, moral, philosophy, religion, rationality
Date: 2019–04
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:cpaper:53eh&r=hpe
2. Pluralism and political economy in interwar britain: G.D.H. Cole on
economic planning
Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak (Cedeplar-UFMG)
The political philosophy of pluralism enjoyed great currency in Britain
during the early decades of the 20th century, as an alternative to the
extreme poles of individualism and collectivism. Positing the existence of
multiple types of political allegiances in any society, pluralism questioned
the notion of state sovereignty by advocating that other forms of
associational life should be recognized as legitimate sources of political
power. In an age of increasing state intervention in economic affairs,
however, this fragmentation of power concerned political economy as well.
The paper explores the interplay between political claims for a weaker state
and economic claims for a stronger state through a case study of G.D.H.
Cole, the foremost British advocate of guild socialism and a prolific writer
on economic planning. While defending the cause of democratic industrial
self-management, Cole envisioned stateled economic planning as a
transitional device for developing the communal loyalties necessary for a
well-functioning socialist economy.
Keywords: pluralism, state sovereignty, economic planning, G.D.H. Cole,
democracy.
Date: 2019–09
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td609&r=hpe
3. How economics became an interventionist science (and how it ceased to
be)
Rafael Galvão de Almeida (Cedeplar-UFMG)
The relationship between economics and State has been intimate ever since
classical political economy. However, perceptions about the role and size of
the State have changed according to the epoch. In other words, economic
theory assigned a bigger or a smaller role to the State depending on the
political situation. This article analyses the change in economists and
economic theory’s perception of the role of the State in the economy, from
favoring an interventionist approach from the 1930s to the 1960s, and a
liberal approach from 1970s, in order to understand the factors behind this
change.
Keywords: theory of economic policy; economic planning; liberalism;
neoliberalism
Date: 2019–09
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td612&r=hpe
4. DSGE Models and the Lucas Critique. A Historical Appraisal.
Francesco Sergi (University of the West of England, Bristol)
This contribution to the history of the economic thought aims at describing
how “Econometric Policy Evaluation: A Critique” (Lucas, 1976) has been
interpreted through four decades of debates. This historical appraisal
clarifies how Lucas’s argument is currently understood and discussed within
the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) approach. The article
illustrates how two opposite interpretations of the Lucas Critique arose in
the early 1980s. On the one hand, a “theoretical interpretation” has been
championed by the real business cycle (RBC) approach; on the other hand, an
“empirical interpretation” has been advocated by Keynesians. Both
interpretations can be understood as addressing a common question: Do
microfoundations imply parameters’ stability? Following the RBC theoretical
interpretation, microfoundations do imply stability; conversely, for
Keynesians, parameters’ stability (or instability) should be supported by
econometric evidence rather than theoretical considerations. Furthermore,
the article argues that the DSGE approach represent a fragile compromise
between these two opposite interpretations of Lucas (1976). This is
especially true for the recent literature criticizing the DSGE models for
being vulnerable to the Lucas Critique.
Date: 2018–01–06
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uwe:wpaper:20181806&r=hpe
5. Doing Bad to Look Good: Negative Consequences of Image Concerns on
Pro-social Behavior
Ivan Soraperra (CREED - Center for Research in Experimental Economics and
Political Decision Making - UvA - Universiteit van Amsterdam); Anton
Suvorov (National Research University Higher School of Economics
[Moscow]); Jeroen van de Ven (ASE - Amsterdam School of Economics - UvA -
University of Amsterdam [Amsterdam]); Marie Villeval (GATE Lyon
Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - ENS Lyon -
École normale supérieure - Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL
- Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université
Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - Université de Lyon - CNRS - Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique)
Several studies show that social image concerns stimulate pro-social
behavior. We study a setting in which there is uncertainty about which
action is pro-social. Then, the quest for a better social image can
potentially conflict with genuinely pro-social behavior. This conflict can
induce \bad" behavior, where people lower both their own and others'
material payoffs to preserve a good image. This setting is relevant for
various types of credence goods. For example, recommending an inexpensive
treatment reduces the expert's profits and may not satisfy the true needs of
the client, but is generally good for the expert's image (as it signals the
lack of greed). We test experimentally if people start to act bad in order
to look good. We find that people care about their social image, but social
image concerns alone do not induce them to act bad. That is, without future
interactions, social image concerns do not lead to bad behavior. However,
with future interactions, where building up a good image has instrumental
value (reputational concerns), we do find evidence of bad behavior in the
short run to secure higher earnings in the long run.
Keywords: Social image,credence goods,prosocial behavior,reputation
Date: 2019
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02285897&r=hpe
6. The Evolutionary Stability of Optimism, Pessimism, and Complete
Ignorance
Burkhard C. Schipper (Department of Economics, University of California
Davis)
We provide an evolutionary foundation to evidence that in some situations
humans maintain either optimistic or pessimistic attitudes towards
uncertainty and are ignorant to relevant aspects of the environment. Players
in strategic games face Knightian uncertainty about opponents' actions and
maximize individually their Choquet expected utility with respect to
neo-additive capacities (Chateauneuf, Eichberger, and Grant, 2007) allowing
for both an optimistic or pessimistic attitude towards uncertainty as well
as ignorance to strategic dependencies. An optimist (resp. pessimist)
overweights good (resp. bad) outcomes. A complete ignorant never reacts to
opponents' changes of actions. With qualifications we show that in finite
populations optimistic (resp. pessimistic) complete ignorance is
evolutionary stable and yields a strategic advantage in submodular (resp.
supermodular) games with aggregate externalities. Moreover, this
evolutionary stable preference leads to Walrasian behavior in these classes
of games.
JEL: C72 C73 D01 D43 D81 L13
Keywords: ambiguity, Knightian uncertainty, Choquet expected utility,
neo-additive capacity, Hurwicz criterion, Maximin, Minimax,
supermodularity, aggregative games, monotone comparative statics, playing
the field, evolution of preferences
Date: 2019–09–17
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cda:wpaper:334&r=hpe
7. Reconsidering the Role of Farmer Politics in Swedish Democratization
Bengtsson, Erik (Department of Economic History, Lund University)
In discussions of Scandinavian democratization, it is commonplace to argue
that long-standing farmer representation in parliament and a lack of
feudalism encouraged a democratic-participatory civic culture within the
peasant farmer class – or perhaps in the population as a whole. The present
essay questions this interpretation in the Swedish case. It centers on a
re-interpretation of farmer politics at the national level from a
two-chamber system of representation after the 1866-67 reform to the
alliance between the farmers’ party and Social Democracy in 1933 and offers
a new analytical account of the way that one class’s attitude to democratic
inclusion can change over time, owing to changed political and economic
relationships to other classes. I show that Swedish farmers did not organize
themselves independently of nobles and land-owners until the 1920s, and that
they did not play the role of an independent pro-democratic force. On the
contrary, the broad-based organizations of farmers in the 1920s and 1930s,
with their democratic, participatory culture, appear to have been heavily
influenced by the political culture of liberals and the labor movement,
which in democratic society opened the door to a re-shaping of Swedish
farmer politics that abandoned the old (subservient) alliance with estate
owners. It was not democratic farmers who gave rise to Social Democracy –
rather, it was Social Democracy that caused farmers to become democratic.
Understanding farmer politics correctly also opens up a new understanding of
the determinants of Swedish democratization.
JEL: H10 N53 N54 P16
Keywords: democratization; agrarian politics; Sweden; class structure;
farmers; Sonderweg
Date: 2019–08–21
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0205&r=hpe
14. The economy of well-being: Creating opportunities for people’s
well-being and economic growth
Ana Llena-Nozal (OECD); Neil Martin (OECD); Fabrice Murtin (OECD)
As well-being has matured as a statistical and measurement agenda, it has
become increasingly relevant as a “compass” for policy, with a growing
number of countries using well-being metrics to guide decision-making and
inform budgetary processes. One remaining challenge has consisted in
providing policy-makers with a better understanding of the linkages between
the drivers of well-being and economic growth. This paper develops the
concept of an “Economy of Well-being” as a basis for highlighting these
linkages and showing how policy can most effectively leverage them. The
paper defines an economy of well-being around the idea of a “virtuous
circle” in which individual well-being and long-term economic growth are
mutually reinforcing. It also explores the characteristics of an economy of
well-being and the conditions under which it can be sustained. Secondly,
based on a survey of existing empirical evidence, the paper contributes to
outline how economies of well-being can be built. It provides analysis of
several important channels through which economic growth and well-being
support and reinforce one another, focusing on the multidimensional impact
of policies in four areas that research has shown to be important for
well-being: Education and Skills; Health; Social Protection and
Redistribution; and Gender Equality.
JEL: D61 I14 I24 I38
Keywords: equality of opportunity, multidimensional analysis, policy
linkages, social investment, well-being
Date: 2019–09–20
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stdaaa:2019/02-en&r=hpe
16. Uneven and combined development as a methodological tool: a dynamic
approach after a dialogue between Kondratiev and Trotsky
Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque (Cedeplar-UFMG)
This paper suggests that Trotsky's elaboration on uneven and combined
development can be a methodological tool to understand contemporary
capitalism. A dialogue with Kondratiev is a starting point, as each new
technological revolution creates a new level of unevenness. Technological
revolutions also transform channels through which combination takes place.
As both unevenness and combination change over time, it is possible to have
a dynamic approach to the process of uneven and combined development. This
dynamic approach is a methodology to investigate how new amalgams between
modern and archaic forms shape varieties of capitalism at the periphery and
transform the global dynamic of capitalism.
Keywords: technological revolutions; center-periphery divide; varieties of
capitalism; expansion of global capitalism
Date: 2019–09
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td610&r=hpe
17. Do we really know that U.S. monetary policy was destabilizing in the
1970s?
Haque, Qazi; Groshenny, Nicolas; Weder, Mark
The paper re-examines whether the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy was a
source of instability during the Great Inflation by estimating a
sticky-price model with positive trend inflation, commodity price shocks and
sluggish real wages. Our estimation provides empirical evidence for
substantial wage-rigidity and finds that the Federal Reserve responded
aggressively to inflation but negligibly to the output gap. In the presence
of non-trivial real imperfections and well-identified commodity
price-shocks, U.S. data prefers a determinate version of the New Keynesian
model: monetary policy-induced indeterminacy and sunspots were not causes of
macroeconomic instability during the pre-Volcker era.
JEL: E32 E52 E58
Date: 2019–09–11
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofrdp:2019_020&r=hpe
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
This nep-hpe issue is ©2019 by Erik Thomson. It is provided as is without any
express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in
part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org.
For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at
<[log in to unmask]>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be
rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of
Massey University in New Zealand.
|