Managerial economics

About: Managerial economics is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1524 publications have been published within this topic receiving 83965 citations.

Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications

Abstract: Conventional economics is increasingly criticized for failing to reflect the value of clean air and water, species diversity, and social and generational equity. By excluding biophysical and social reality from its analyses and equations, conventional economics seems ill-suited to address problems in a world characterized by increasing human impacts and decreasing natural resources. Ecological Economics is an introductory-level textbook for an emerging paradigm that addresses this fundamental flaw in conventional economics. The book defines a revolutionary "transdiscipline" that incorporates insights from the biological, physical, and social sciences, and it offers a pedagogically complete examination of this exciting new field. The book provides students with a foundation in traditional neoclassical economic thought, but places that foundation within a new interdisciplinary framework that embraces the linkages among economic growth, environmental degradation, and social inequity. Introducing the three core issues that are the focus of the new transdiscipline -- scale, distribution, and efficiency -- the book is guided by the fundamental question, often assumed but rarely spoken in traditional texts: What is really important to us? After explaining the key roles played by the earth's biotic and abiotic resources in sustaining life, the text is then organized around the main fields in traditional economics: microeconomics, macroeconomics, and international economics. The book also takes an additional step of considering the policy implications of this line of thinking. Ecological Economics includes numerous features that make it accessible to a wide range of students: more than thirty text boxes that highlight issues of special importance to students; lists of key terms that help students organize the main points in each chapter; concise definitions of new terms that are highlighted in the text for easy reference; study questions that encourage student exploration beyond the text; glossary and list of further readings; An accompanying workbook presents an innovative, applied problem-based learning approach to teaching economics. While many books have been written on ecological economics, and several textbooks describe basic concepts of the field, this is the only stand-alone textbook that offers a complete explanation of both theory and practice. It will serve an important role in educating a new generation of economists and is an invaluable new text for undergraduate and graduate courses in ecological economics, environmental economics, development economics, human ecology, environmental studies, sustainability science, and community development.

Welfare Propositions of Economics and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility

Abstract: Nicholas Kaldor (1908–1986) was born in Budapest and educated in Budapest, Berlin, and at the London School of Economics. In addition to an academic career, which was centered at Cambridge University, Kaldor served as an advisor to several governments and was instrumental in devising the value added tax (VAT). In this brief essay, originally published in 1939, he argues that the net benefit of a policy – the amount that “winners” would be willing to pay minus the amount that “losers” would need to be compensated – provides a measure of the capacity of an economy to satisfy preferences that does not require interpersonal comparisons or any judgment concerning the justice of different distributions. In a separate essay published in the same year, John Hicks defends the same idea, and assessment of alternatives in terms of net benefits is often called “the Kaldor-Hicks efficiency criterion.” In the December 1938 issue of the E conomic J ournal Professor Robbins returns to the question of the status of interpersonal comparisons of utility. It is not the purpose of this note to question Professor Robbins' view regarding the scientific status of such comparisons; with this the present writer is in entire agreement. Its purpose is rather to examine the relevance of this whole question to what is commonly called “welfare economics.” In previous discussions of this problem it has been rather too readily assumed, on both sides, that the scientific justification of such comparisons determines whether “economics as a science can say anything by way of prescription.”

Integrating Variable Risk Preferences, Trust, and Transaction Cost Economics

Abstract: Transaction cost economics (TCE) relies on three behavioral assumptions in predicting how firms choose governance structures—bounded rationality, opportunism, and risk neutrality. We explore the implications of the neglected behavioral assumption of risk neutrality. offer an integrative appraisal of the three behavioral assumptions using trust as a unifying perspective, and explicate subjective costs and risks. We illustrate the relative ease with which previous empirical shortcomings can be addressed by incorporating risk and trust in TCE models.