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

We use a framework suggested by a model of rational addiction to analyze empirically the demand for cigarettes. The data consist of per capita cigarettes sales (in packs) annually by state for the period 1955 through 1985. The empirical results provide support for the implications of a rational addiction model that cross price effects are negative (consumption in different periods are complements), that long-run price responses exceed short-run responses, and that permanent price effects exceed temporary price effects. A 10 percent permanent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces current consumption by 4 percent in the short run and by 7.5 percent in the long run. In contrast, a 10 percent increase in the price for only one period decreases consumption by only 3 percent. In addition, a one period price increase of 10 percent reduces consumption in the previous period by approximately .7 percent and consumption in the subsequent period by 1.5 percent. These estimates illustrate the importance of the intertemporal linkages in cigarette demand implied by rational addictive behavior.

An Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction

We study the link between market forces, cross-sectional inequality, and intergenerational mobility. Emphasizing complementarities in the production of human capital, we show that wealthy parents i...

/pdf/a-theory-of-intergenerational-mobility-3m6u1cf57d.pdf

A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility

The last forty years have witnessed a remarkable boom in higher education around the world. Importantly, the boom in higher education has been concentrated among women, such that today in most higher-income countries, and many lower-income countries, more women than men attend and complete tertiary education. We present a model that explains the increase in higher education, particularly among women, in terms of a market for college graduates in which the supply of college graduates is function of the distribution of the costs and benefits of higher education across individuals. Examining evidence on these costs and benefits, we find no clear evidence that benefits are greater for women than men. Instead, it appears that differences in the total costs of college for women and men - primarily due to differences in the distributions of non-cognitive skills for women and men - explain the overtaking of men by women in higher education.

Explaining the Worldwide Boom in Higher Education of Women

Toward a More General Theory of Regulation: Comment

The economic approach to fertility emphasizes the effects of parents income and the cost of rearing children. With a few exceptions this approach has neglected the analytical links between decisions by different generations of the same family. This article develops the implications of altruism toward children where utility of parents depends on their own consumption their fertility and the utility of each of their children. Altruism toward children implies that the welfare of all generations of a family is linked through a dynastic utility function that depends on the consumption fertility and number of descendants in all generations. The head of a dynastic family acts as if he maximizes dynastic utility subject to a dynastic budget constraint which involves the wealth inherited by the head interest rates the cost of rearing children in all generations and the earnings of all descendants. The authors neglect uncertainty marriage the spacing of births and capital-market restraints over life cycles and across generations. Nevertheless even a highly simplified model of altruism toward children and the behavior of dynastic families appears to us to capture important important aspects of the dynamic behavior of fertility and consumption. If so a new approach would be warranted to the analysis of trends and long-term fluctuations in fertility population growth and consumption.

Gary S. Becker

Papers

An Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction

A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility

Explaining the Worldwide Boom in Higher Education of Women

Toward a More General Theory of Regulation: Comment

Altruism and the Economic Theory of Fertility