https://www.sfu.ca/~wainwrig/Econ400/jensen-meckling.pdf

Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure

In this paper, the concept of social capital is introduced and illustrated, its forms are described, the social structural conditions under which it arises are examined, and it is used in an analys...

/pdf/social-capital-in-the-creation-of-human-capital-1836wo2872.pdf

Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital

The social world is accumulated history, and if it is not to be reduced to a discontinuous series of instantaneous mechanical equilibria between agents who are treated as interchangeable particles, one must reintroduce into it the notion of capital and with it, accumulation and all its effects. Capital is accumulated labor (in its materialized form or its ‘incorporated,’ embodied form) which, when appropriated on a private, i.e., exclusive, basis by agents or groups of agents, enables them to appropriate social energy in the form of reified or living labor. It is a vis insita, a force inscribed in objective or subjective structures, but it is also a lex insita, the principle underlying the immanent regularities of the social world. It is what makes the games of society – not least, the economic game – something other than simple games of chance offering at every moment the possibility of a miracle. Roulette, which holds out the opportunity of winning a lot of money in a short space of time, and therefore of changing one’s social status quasi-instantaneously, and in which the winning of the previous spin of the wheel can be staked and lost at every new spin, gives a fairly accurate image of this imaginary universe of perfect competition or perfect equality of opportunity, a world without inertia, without accumulation, without heredity or acquired properties, in which every moment is perfectly independent of the previous one, every soldier has a marshal’s baton in his knapsack, and every prize can be attained, instantaneously, by everyone, so that at each moment anyone can become anything. Capital, which, in its objectified or embodied forms, takes time to accumulate and which, as a potential capacity to produce profits and to reproduce itself in identical or expanded form, contains a tendency to persist in its being, is a force inscribed in the objectivity of things so that everything is not equally possible or impossible. And the structure of the distribution of the different types and subtypes of capital at a given moment in time represents the immanent structure of the social world, i.e. , the set of constraints, inscribed in the very reality of that world, which govern its functioning in a durable way, determining the chances of success for practices.

Forms of Capital

This paper considers the prospects for constructing a neoclassical theory of growth and international trade that is consistent with some of the main features of economic development. Three models are considered and compared to evidence: a model emphasizing physical capital accumulation and technological change, a model emphasizing human capital accumulation through schooling, and a model emphasizing specialized human capital accumulation through learning-by-doing.

The mechanics of economic development

http://individual.utoronto.ca/zheli/sa1.pdf

On the mechanics of economic development

This paper is based on the transcript of a lecture presented by the author on the importance of human resources development as a means of poverty mitigation and the valuation of human capital in national wealth. The lecture was presented at the World Bank, December 16, 1994. The paper includes a summary of questions from the audience asked at the conclusion of the lecture, and the author's responses.

/pdf/human-capital-and-poverty-alleviation-50t2n6gqfd.pdf

Human capital and poverty alleviation

I. INTRODUCTORY Recently a number of economists have shown a revived interest in the monetary theory of the classicists and of the members of the Lausanne School and their successors.2 It has been maintained that all of these authors held basically common views which have been called " the classical system ". Moreover, it has been argued that this system suffers from serious formal shortcomings, in particular that either it is inconsistent or it must leave the absolute price level indeterminate. We believe a summary of the results of the discussion is now appropriate, and that the conflicting views can be evaluated and to some extent reconciled. Moreover, the arguments can be stated rigorously without recourse to the mathematical apparatus which has been employed. A detailed restatement is therefore included in the belief that the discussion will become available to many who did not follow it before. For our purposes we may consider the attack on the earlier writers to have been opened by Lange [I3], although the discussion, as is indicated below, goes back much further. However, the immediate centre of contention is Patinkin's restatement and refinement of the Lange position. We shall therefore describe the Lange-Patinkin version of the classical system and the difficulties which they have shown to be inherent in it. A more satisfactory structure which Patinkin has called " the modified classical system " will then be outlined. Finally, it will be argued through reexamination of some of the classical writings that most of the group probably never held views like those ascribed to 1 The authors are indebted to Professors Viner and Brunner for their comments and suggestions.

The Classical Monetary Theory. The Outcome of the Discussion1

In his 1979 lectures at the College de France, The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault discussed and analyzed Gary Becker’s economic theory of crime and punishment, originally published in The Journal of Political Economy in 1968 under the title “Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach.” In this historic, second encounter at the University of Chicago, Gary Becker responds to Foucault’s lectures and possible critical readings of his writings on crime and punishment, in conversation with Professors Francois Ewald (who was, at the time in 1979, Foucault’s assistant at the College and one of Foucault’s closest interlocutors) and Bernard Harcourt (a punishment theorist and an editor of Foucault’s lectures). The rich encounter explores potential overlaps, complementarities, and conflicts between Foucault’s theoretical work on punishment (both in Birth of Biopolitics and Discipline and Punish) and Becker’s economic theory of crime, builds on the previous confrontation over American neoliberalism, and provides a bridge between contemporary French philosophy and American economic theory.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2321912_code249436.pdf?abstractid=2321912&type=2

Becker and foucault on crime and punishment

We develop a model of intergenerational resource transmission that emphasizes the link between cross-sectional inequality and intergenerational mobility. By drawing on first principles of human capital theory, we derive several novel results. In particular, we show that, even in a world with perfect capital markets and without differences in innate ability, wealthy parents invest, on average, more in their offspring than poorer ones. As a result, persistence of economic status is higher at the top of the income distribution than in the middle. Successive generations of the same family may even cease to regress towards the mean. Moreover, we demonstrate that government interventions intended to ameliorate inequality may in fact lower intergenerational mobility — even when they do not directly favor the rich. Lastly, we consider how mobility is affected by changes in the marketplace.

/pdf/a-theory-of-intergenerational-mobility-2fqss1p1j8.pdf

A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility

Toward a More General Theory of Regulation Author(s): Gary Becker Source: Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 19, No. 2, Conference on the Economics of Politics and Regulation (Aug., 1976), pp. 245-248 Published by: The University of Chicago Press for The Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Law School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/725165 . Accessed: 04/05/2014 19:48

Gary S. Becker

Papers

Human capital and poverty alleviation

The Classical Monetary Theory. The Outcome of the Discussion1

Becker and foucault on crime and punishment

A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility

Toward a More General Theory of Regulation