从经济学再到政治经济学:理解包容性增长

胡锦涛主席在亚太经合组织的两次会议上倡导包容性增长,其理论与现实意义深远。经济增长自经济学诞生以来就一直是经济研究的核心问题,经济学史上从政治经济学到经济学,再到最近新政治经济学的兴起实际上反映了人们对经济发展中的繁荣与公正、市场与政府的认知的深入过程。强调机会平等的包容性增长正是当下中国的政治经济学。从经济学发展过程审视政治与经济离合的演变有助于我们深入理解和研究包容性增长。     

Urbanizing economics

Action takes place at a given time and place. As a science of human action, economics is, therefore, just as much about the spaces where real action occurs as it is about real time. The implications of real time for social order is better recognized than the significance of “action space.” The living city is the principal locus of action space and enabler of social change as well as the source of fundamental concepts in economic theory. Just as a loss of density and diversity in cities tends to retard dynamic discovery and development, the turn in economic theory in the mid-20th century toward static equilibrium reflected a move from an urban-based to a plantation-based conception of the economy—from the city to the farm. Some recent developments in network theory, game theory, and geography, however, can be interpreted as a re-urbanization of economics.

Calhoun's constitutional economics

Calhoun's early speeches and writings argue for an expansive national government. His later works, most notablyA Disquisition on Government, argue for a strong version of states' rights, nullification, and secession. Earlier accounts of Calhoun's thought attribute this apparent contradiction to political expediency and opportunism. But I argue here that Calhoun's early nationalism was a reaction against the operation of multiple vetoes in the legislative process, requiring near unanimity to pass legislation. By 1825, however, Congress had evolved institutions that circumvented these vetoes, resulting in majoritarian redistribution. The later Calhoun opposed the legislation that followed from these circumventions and proposed an alternative form of unanimity, the concurring majority, as the appropriate corrective. An earlier version of this essay was prepared for a public lecture at Clemson University, to commemorate the Clemson University Centennial, October 18, 1989.     

Edith Penrose and economics

This paper contains a constructive critique of the Penrose pictureof firm, comparing it with, on the one hand the Coase-Williamsontransactions-cost picture, and on the other with the author'sown growth model. It concludes that the Penrose theory doesnot at the end of the day quantitatively determine the growthrate of the firm and that the transactions-cost story does notat the end of the day determine the size of the firm. The author'sown model determine's the growth rate of the firm, but not thesize. If married to a stochastic process, the author's modelcontributes to the determinate, but the quantitative parametersin any one society at any one time, are not. As there is, however,a strong case that the administrative efficiency of firms hasno robust relationship to absolute size this indeterminacy maynot be economically significant. In other words, the staticefficiency of an economy is not sensitive to either the absolutesize distribution of firms or to their growth processes. Instead,the key contribution of firms' growth processes to social welfareprobably lies mainly in the realm of competitive dynamics. Interfirmcompetition for growth is also competition to innovation, àla Schumpeter.     

Can neoclassical economics become social economics?

This essay has both a general and a specific purpose. Its general purpose is to pose the question: Can neoclassical economics be social economics? Its answer to this general question is: Yes, but only if it abandons its methodological soul; that is, by abandoning methodological individualism, positivism, and ahistoricism, and expressly and systematically adopting a methodological perspective which is holistic, normative, and historical. Its specific purpose is to identify and examine the major elements in the economics of one leading figure in the historical development of neoclassical economics who self-consciously attempted to combine, to paraphrase Schumpeter, a neoclassical head with a social economics heart: Alfred Marshall.     

The origins of meso economics

The paper starts from Schumpeter’s proposition that entrepreneurs carry out innovations (the micro level), that swarms of followers imitate them (meso) and that, as a consequence, ‘creative destruction’ leads to economic development ‘from within’ (macro). It is argued that Schumpeter’s approach can be developed into a new—more general—micro-meso-macro framework in economics. Center stage is meso. Its essential characteristic is bimodality, meaning that one idea (the generic rule) can be physically actualized by many agents (a population). Ideas can relate to others, and, in this way, meso constitutes a structure component of a ‘deep’ invisible macro structure. Equally, the rule actualization process unfolds over time—modelled in the paper as a meso trajectory with three phases of rule origination, selective adoption and retention—and here meso represents a process component of a visible ‘surface’ structure. The macro measure with a view to the appropriateness of meso components is generic correspondence. At the level of ideas, its measure is order; at that of actual relative adoption frequencies, it is generic equilibrium. Economic development occurs at the deep level as transition from one generic rule to another, inducing a change of order, and, at the surface level, as the new rule is adopted, destroying an old equilibrium and establishing a new one.     

女性主义经济学与中国经济学的本土化

经济学研究的是具体社会关系下人的理性行为以及人类行为造成的经济现象,因而具有强烈的人文性;而且,随着经济学研究领域的不断拓宽,人们已经开始引入了制度、文化等社会性因素,经济学的人文性已日益明显.正是基于这种人文性特征引发了人们对具体社会中人之理性的重新审视,以及对社会中人之行为的关注,并导致20世纪80年代之后女性主义经济学的勃兴;经济学领域的性别差异又进一步引发了社会性的思考,从而引发了对经济学本土化的探讨.事实上,不同社会文化下的经济学是有差异的,经济学本质上无法像自然科学那样科学化、客观化和通用化,而是具有强烈的本土化的色彩;而且,如果经济学理论没有本土化,就没有根植性,也就没有创新性,当然也就没有现代性和世界性.     

The economics of harvesting predator-prey systems

The economics of harvesting a renewable natural resource is well-developed in a framework where environmental conditions of the species looked at are kept constant. For the case of two interacting species as a prey-predator relationship the economics of harvesting one of the two species is analyzed. Questions of existence, uniqueness, and stability are looked at. Applying optimal control theory, a modified golden rule of harvesting is derived.     

A history of post-Keynesian economics

John King, in his A History of Post Keynesian Economics Since1936, raises the question of whether there exists a body ofwork which can be called, collectively, post Keynesian. Thispaper presents some criteria for addressing this question, beginningwith the vision and the origins of some of the post-Keynesianideas, leading to an examination of certain features of thevarious groups, including their methodology and their approachesto uncertainty, their pricing theories and their growth theories.It is concluded that, although there is much diversity in thevarious groups, they are reconcilable when seen as referringto different aspects of the economic process and at differinglevels of abstraction.     

Viewpoint: Replication in economics

Abstract.  This examination of the role and potential for replication in economics points out the paucity of both pure replication – checking on others' published papers using their data – and scientific replication – using data representing different populations in one's own work or in a comment. Several controversies in empirical economics are used to illustrate how and how not to behave when replicating others' work. The incentives for replication are examined, and proposals aimed at journal editors and authors are advanced that might stimulate an activity that most economists applaud but few perform.     

Austrian economics at the cutting edge

Austrian economists today have a valuable opportunity to rejoin the mainstream of the economics profession. As Colander, Holt, and Rosser have argued, neoclassical orthodoxy is no long mainstream. What I call the “heterodox mainstream” is an emerging new orthodoxy. The five leading characteristics of the emerging new orthodoxy are bounded rationality, rule following, institutions, cognition, and evolution. When listed in this order, they suggest the acronym BRICE. The Austrian school is also an example of BRICE economics. The shared themes of BRICE economics create an opportunity for intellectual exchange between Austrians and other elements of the heterodox mainstream. Although Austrians should engage the heterodox mainstream energetically, they should also defend the essential elements of an early version of neoclassical economics, elements at risk of becoming half-forgotten themes of an earlier era. These elements are supply and demand, marginalist logic, opportunity-cost reasoning, and the elementary theory of markets. JEL Codes A14, B50, B53 This text is an edited version of a talk given in Washington, D.C. on 19 November 2005 at the SDAE annual dinner. I thank persons present at that time for a helpful discussion. I also thank William Butos, Roger Garrison, Steven Horwitz, and Peter Lewin for useful comments on an earlier draft.     

The hermeneutical invasion of philosophy and economics

This article is adapted from a paper delivered at a Conference on Recent Trends in Philosophy and the Social Sciences held by the London Academic and Cultural Resources Fund and the Institute of Philosophy of the Jagellonian University of Krakow at Krakow, Poland, in April 1987.     

Kantian dignity and social economics

Many social economists endorse the ethics of Immanuel Kant, specifically his emphasis on the dignity of humanity and the equal respect due all persons. Based on these tenets, Kant mandates a social outlook in which concern for others, characterized by negative duties of respect and positive duties of beneficence, are broadly required of all rational agents. However, some of the positions that social economists derive from Kantian dignity actually violate it, such as support for a welfare state and opposition to the institution of wage employment. I will show that both of these positions are inconsistent with the traditional understanding of Kantian dignity, suggesting that social economists should either ground their positions on a different concept of dignity, or revise them to remain consistent with Kant's specific sense of dignity. For helpful comments and criticism I thank John Davis, Charles Wilber, David Ellerman, and the rest of the participants in the “Economic Philosophy and Theories of Justice” session at the 2003 meetings of the Association for Social Economics, as well as two anonymous referees. All remaining errors are my own.     

Challenges in teaching large economics classes

Large classes require special preparation and organization to ensure an excellent learning experience. The challenge is to motivate students, answer questions, and offer frequent evaluation of progress, in spite of class size. The challenge can be met with appropriate lectures complemented with small weekly discussion sessions led by graduate students or senior majors. This paper draws on the author's experience at Princeton University teaching classes with more than 300 students.     

Coase on the nature of economics

Recent writings on Coase's methodology largely focus on method,at the risk of underappreciating his substantive view of economics.That economics has as its subject matter the working of thereal world economic system is Coase's main methodological messageand is also the key to understanding Coase's other methodologicalconcerns. Coase's methodological position is illustrated inthis paper by comparing him with other economists in terms oftheir differing research programmes informed by their methodologicalstances. Along the way, this paper outlines the new institutionaleconomics, a research programme inspired by Coase's methodology.