Showing papers in "Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics in 1994"
TL;DR: The authors pointed out the role that the static maximization approach plays in neoclassical analyses since L. Robbins and P. Samuelson's influential contributions came about after World war II.
Abstract: This is an article on the methodology of economic thought. The critical assessment of the neoclassical research programme contained here basically comes from the contributions of J.M. Buchanan, Nobel prize winner in Economics 1986. These comments are aimed at pointing out the role that the static maximization approach plays in neoclassical analyses since L. Robbins and P. Samuelson's influential contributions came about after World war II. Just to complement this basic purpose, I present in section 4 the alternative methodological foundations J.M. Buchanan proposes and uses to replace the static maximization approach when building public choice theory, and I sketch in section 5 several personal comments about some explanatory and prescriptive limitations both neoclassical and public choice analyses share. Except in rare and anomalous cases, neither neoclassical nor public choice analyses contain concepts making reference to the non-voluntary or power influences some individuals might exercise over others in their economic interactions.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare three different approaches to achieving cooperation: a contractual approach, a trust approach and a hostage approach, and conclude that the latter is more useful in Eastern Europe or perhaps in some developing countries.
Abstract: Different societies use different mechanisms to assist people or organizations achieve cooperation. The purpose of this paper is to compare three different approaches to achieving cooperation. They are a contractual approach widely used in Anglo-Saxon societies, a trust approach more common in Asia, and a hostage approach widely used in the past and perhaps useful now in Eastern Europe or perhaps in some developing countries.
6 citations
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a view of markets in network terms is suggested as being complementary to the convential ideas of supply and demand, and a 'holistic' idea of economics is advocated and used as a building stone for alternative approaches to societal decision-making.
Abstract: Environmental problems represent a challenge to economics. The neoclassical view of man as a rational consumer and of firms as profit-maximizing entities may be useful for some purposes but does not facilitate a debate about ethics and the social responsibility of business. In this essay 'political-economic man' is suggested as an alternative to 'economic man' and also organizations are seen as political entities. A view of markets in network terms is furthermore suggested as being complementary to the convential ideas of supply and demand. Finally, a 'holistic' idea of economics is advocated and used as a building stone for alternative approaches to societal decision-making. Together these elements comprise the skeleton of a microeconomics for ecological sustainability.
4 citations
TL;DR: In economics, the idea of economic miracles has been studied extensively as discussed by the authors, with richly suggestive images about miraculous nations, industries, firms, technologies, products, and leader figures.
Abstract: Economies are socially constructed phenomena, but the idea of economic miracles, once redeemed from modernist doubt, certainly surprises and puzzles more than most. Both highly politically prized, and considered the spur behind worldscale change, such miracles enjoy exceptionally good press, and carry their appeal right through into everyday life with richly suggestive images about miraculous nations, industries, firms, technologies, products, and ‘entrepreneurial’ leader figures. Yet they remain perpetual philosophical puzzles which, despite first confounding established worldviews, stay difficult to fully demonstrate, prove, and explain along recognized lines thereafter. Key arguments over whether, where, and how they ever arise, what form and course they take, and whether they are reproducible elsewhere are therefore difficult to decipher and resolve without the guiding theorizations outlined here.
4 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that despite the efforts of US unions in the past decade as essentially ineffective, unions have met the challenges of disintegrated job quality and contributed to the alleviation of job quality deficits in each of the three sectors outlined above.
Abstract: Job quality in the US has traditionally been formulated as a synthetic concept where empirical ‘good’ jobs net a whole array of quality dimensions. ‘Good’ jobs, it was assumed, simultaneously provided high wage levels, a high propensity for wage growth, and good job security. The demise of the postwar collective bargaining system and the process of industrial restructuring, with the accompanying decline in manufacturing employment, have created a situation where this view is no longer warranted. Today’s jobs are unlikely to optimise on all dimensions of job quality, and individual employment is likely to be characterised by tradeoffs between different quality dimensions. These tradeoffs are manifested in the institutional structure of empirical labor market in three ways: a) in the public sector, jobs are highly secure but employees have traditionally experienced lower than average wage increases, b) in the strongly unionised manufacturing sector, wage levels tend to be above average but jobs appear to be less secure than elsewhere in the economy, c) in the dynamic tertiary sector, the possibility of wage mobility tends to be substantial while starting-out wages tend to lie below average. This essay argues that contrary to research which has described the efforts of US unions in the past decade as essentially ineffective, unions have met the challenges of disintegrated job quality and contributed to the alleviation of job quality deficits in each of the three sectors outlined above.
4 citations
TL;DR: The authors compared the philosopher Sir Karl Raimund Popper with the Nobel prize winner of economics, James M. Buchanan, arguing that Popper's views on social and political decisions and on institutions are similar to the arguments of the public choice school.
Abstract: This paper compares the philosopher Sir Karl Raimund Popper with the Nobel prize winner of economics, James M. Buchanan. Popper is known for his ‘demarcation criterion’ an attempt to separate science from metaphysics. Buchanan is one of the founding fathers of modern political economy, called ‘Public Choice’. The central thesis of this essay is that both owe their fame to a similar trick: to turn prevailing questions upside down. Furthermore, Popper’s views on social and political decisions and on institutions are similar to the arguments of the Public Choice school.
2 citations
TL;DR: The last three years have seen the dramatic transformation of the Polish banking system from a monobank that served primarily as an accounting system for the central plan to an increasingly dynamic system of independent commercial banks.
Abstract: The last three years have seen the dramatic transformation of the Polish banking system from a monobank that served primarily as an accounting system for the central plan to an increasingly dynamic system of independent commercial banks. Financing for productive enterprise, mortgages and household expenditures however remains restricted by a variety of problems. Some of which will be resolved naturally through increasing competition, while others reflect more profound problems in the macro-environment and the economic structure inherited from the socialist past. There has been a greater integration of households in the banking sector but here also, flaws in the deposit insurance scheme have prevented the efficient intermediation of private savings while deficiencies in the mortgage system prevent necessary expansion of housing construction on a solid basis.
1 citations
TL;DR: In 1993, the info-media companies, Philips and Sony brought their new digital audio recording systems (Digital Compact Cassette and the Mini Disc respectively) onto the market.
Abstract: In 1993, the info-media companies, Philips and Sony brought their new digital audio recording systems (Digital Compact Cassette and the Mini Disc respectively) onto the market. Since both systems c...
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a single-period decision on the stock and value constructs is examined and forms for the dynamic evolution of stock/value constructs that represent the feedback of activity levels to stock and/or value levels are introduced.
Abstract: Consumers are seen as limited decision makers who set short-term activity levels from their budgets, stocks of experience, and values following a preference-maximizing heuristic. Disturbances to activity levels in their evolution by exogeneties of social and economic environments, and the feedback of activity levels which agents have no systematic ability to anticipate, reset stock and value levels through the interactive relationships among endogenous variables. Agents then solve the maximization problem for a subsequent period using stock and value levels as modified by the evolutionary process. The dependence of a single-period decision on the stock and value constructs is examined and forms for the dynamic evolution of stock and value constructs that represent the feedback of activity levels to stock and value levels are also introduced. Implications of these forms for the social construction of activities are discussed.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the phenomenon of high levels of unemployment in some countries and show which steps have been undertaken by the governments in order to make it easier to implement real changes in the economy.
Abstract: One of the results of the transformation of the former socialist economies is high levels of unemployment. This paper attempts to describe this phenomenon in some countries and show which steps have been undertaken by the governments in order to make it easier. Its worth adding that there was no experience in embracing such measures under the socialist system, because all those countries dealt at that time was underemployed labor and not its surplus. In result is that neither governments nor private citizens are accustomed to unemployment. Maybe for that reason this problem is so painful for both of them and still makes the implementation of the real changes in the economy difficult.
TL;DR: In this article, the economic performance of 19 OECD countries is studied and the relations among the variables and that between factors and variables are analysed. And the common characteristics of the countries with similar economic performances on the two factors are discussed.
Abstract: This paper studies the economic performance of 19 OECD countries. Eight economic variables are selected to describe the economic performance which are incorporated into two factors afterwards by factor analysis. The relations among the variables and that between factors and variables are analysed. A comparative study is made, based on the factor scores of these 19 countries; and the countries are classified into 5 categories using cluster analysis, according to their similarities in the variables and the extracted factors. The common characteristics of the countries with similar economic performances on the two factors are discussed. The paper presents an outline of the nations’ economic performance during this period. It is quite interesting, as a by-product finding, that the countries sharing the economy similarities also have the geographical communalities.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the apparent failure of the efficient markets model as a paradigm for describing security price behavior and explain the discrepancy between the prices and intrinsic values of securities in terms of the amount of information entering the price determination process, with the amount required for an efficient market finding an interior solution.
Abstract: In behavioural psychology the relationship between the information provided by a stimulus and an individual’s reaction thereto is widely accepted as parabolic and commonly referred to as a Wundt curve. The present paper invokes this relationship in order to examine the apparent failure of the efficient markets model as a paradigm for describing security price behaviour. Discrepancies between the prices and intrinsic values of securities are explained in terms of the amount of information entering the price determination process, with the amount required for an efficient market found to have an interior solution. The social invention of the stock market provides a convenient meeting ground in which to study the nexus between the psychology of investor behaviour and the economics of asset pricing.