Feminist Economics: Theoretical and Political Dimensions

Feminist economics is a school of economic thought and political action that gained important visibility during the 1990s, although its origins can be dated back to the mid‐19^th century. Since then, feminist economics has developed its own concepts, analytical frameworks, and methodologies. With gender as a central category, it seeks a more integral and humane comprehension of the economy and of the processes of inclusion and exclusion taking place in it. In addition, feminist economics has grown into a political practice that aims at improving the functioning of the economic system so that all people can have access to a dignified life on the basis of equality. This article presents a general systematization of these theoretical and political dimensions, particularly focusing on the critique of the neoclassical paradigm and its political correlates. We connect the epistemological, methodological, and conceptual contributions of feminist economics, as well as its propositions for transformative action, to specific debates on economic issues, such as the ecological emergency, crisis and austerity, the commodification of life, and the liberalization of trade.     

Gender earnings gap: the role of firm specific effects

The gender earnings differential is an intensely studied issue in labour economics. However, existing studies do not examine how the wage policies of firms affect gender earnings differentials. This paper uses employer–employee linked data to address this issue. The Juhn et al. [Juhn, C., Murphy K., Pierce, B., 1991. Accounting for the slowdown in black–white wage convergence, in M.H. Kosters, ed. Workers and Their Wages, AEI Press, 107–143] decomposition methodology is extended to incorporate the decomposition of firm fixed effects. It is found that, on average, firms' wage policies are associated with a significant narrowing of the gender earnings gaps. Further analysis indicates that firms which are more likely to have narrower gender earnings gaps are those subject to strong market competition, find it easy to identify labour productivity at the individual level, and with no enterprise level wage bargaining.     

The influence of perceived management skills and perceived gender discrimination in launch decisions by women entrepreneurs

Our study answers the call for a better understanding of female entrepreneurs in Morocco and the role families play in launch decisions. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of perceived management skills and perceived gender discrimination in obtaining funds on women entrepreneurs’ propensity to start their businesses with or without family members. Drawing upon the family embeddedness and institutional economics theoretical frameworks, perceived high management capabilities are found to increase the likelihood that a female entrepreneur will set up her business with family members. However, when the entrepreneur perceives gender discrimination in obtaining funds, this will negatively moderate this relationship and will make it more likely that a woman will start her business alone or with nonrelatives. This research contributes to the literature by advancing knowledge of the socio-cultural factors, embedded in the family-oriented contextual framework, that affect women entrepreneurs’ ways of starting their businesses. Implications affecting the success of women-owned start-up businesses and public policy implications are discussed.     

《水工程经济》课程建设与改革

合格的工程人员必须要有良好的工程经济方面的意识,运用经济学的知识解决实际工程问题的能力十分重要。本文以湖南城市学院的水工程经济学课程为对象,以培养应用型人才为主要目标,从教学内容的选择,教学方法的改革,实践教学的实施,教学网络平台的建设等方面提出具体方法,提高了水工程经济的课程教学水平。通过教学实践发现,学生运用理论知识解决工程实际问题的能力得到了较大幅度的提高。     

Problem-based learning: merging of economics and mathematics

We present problem-based learning as a strategy to assist students to integrate both mathematics and economics knowledge as well as develop other skills. We present basic information about problem-based learning, provide an example of an economics problem that could be used in an early undergraduate mathematics course, and provide sources for additional economics problems and information about problem-based learning. While faculty will seldom have a class composed entirely of economics students, the examples that we provide do not require in-depth knowledge of economics but will help undergraduates develop some understanding of the economic world they live in.     

Research In Strategy,Economics, and Michael Porter*

This article links up with recent discussions of the strategy/economics nexus. In contrast to most of the proponents and opponents of economics in strategy thinking, a balanced pluralist perspective is adopted. According to this, a discipline should strike a balance between the generation of new theoretical alternatives and the selection among them. Applying this general idea, I argue that the strategy field is too pluralistic, and that the unfortunate consequences of excessive pluralism and eclecticism may be remedied by economics playing a larger role in the conversation of strategy researchers. This does not necessarily mean standard neoclassical economics or new industrial organization economics; evolutionary economics, for example, is a serious contender, too. the evolution of Michael Porter's thinking is used as a case for demonstrating some of the advantages and some of the dangers of economics in the strategy field, and for illustrating points about eclecticism and pluralism.     

经济学理论对会计学研究的渗透

在现代会计研究领域,会计学研究与经济学理论的连接越来越密切。从经济学角度解释会计目标和全面收益理论、用经济学观点研究会计准则、以经济学立场剖析会计诚信缺失以及将经济学的实证方法用于会计学研究等等,经济学对会计学研究的支持加深了会计学研究的深度,会计学研究对经济学的应用拓宽了会计研究的广度。正确处理会计学研究与经济学理论的关系,有助于进一步提升和推进会计理论研究,更好地为会计实务服务。     

The Changing Relationship Between Economic Sociology and Institutional Economics

A bstract In his early work. Talcott Parsons severely criticized Old Institutional Economists like Thorstein Veblen and Clarence Ayres. Parsons'main objection was that institutional economics had a misconceived view on the scope of economics: institutions, being the embodiment of values, were the proper subject of sociology rather than economics. By arguing for a clear-cut division of labor between economics and sociology. Parsons legitimated the divide between the two disciplines that came into being in the years to follow. Recently however, the relationship between economic-sociology and institutional economics has changed dramatically. New Economic Sociology (advocated by scholars like Mark Granovetter and Richard Swedberig) rejects the division of labor proposed by Parsons. By-providing substitutes rather than just complements to economics, it tries to counter economic imperialism. This creates significant similarities between New Economic Sociology, Old Institutional Economics and the recent return of institutionalism in economic theory. However, the quest for a division of labor between economics and sociology remains unfinished.     

WHAT'S TO KNOW ABOUT LABORATORY EXPERIMENTATION IN ECONOMICS?

Abstract Experimental economics has grown as a discipline from near non‐existence 50 years ago to a full‐fledged field within economics in the present. Much of experimental economics research involves experimental methods as a tool, applied to problems in other fields of economics. However, some of this research is inward looking, focusing on questions of the methodology of experimental economics. In this note, I briefly discuss two methodological issues in experimental economics that might benefit from meta‐analysis: the pool from which experimental participants are drawn (university undergraduate students versus other populations) and the scale of monetary incentives faced by participants (large, small or hypothetical).     

VARIETY OF METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH IN ECONOMICS

Abstract.  It has been argued by some that the distinction between orthodox economics and heterodox economics does not fit the growing variety in economic theory, unified by a common methodological approach. On the other hand, it remains a central characteristic of heterodox economics that it does not share this methodological approach, but rather represents a range of alternative methodological approaches. The paper explores the evidence, and arguments, for variety in economics at different levels, and a range of issues which arise. This requires in turn a discussion of the meaning of variety in economics at the different levels of reality, methodology, method and theory. It is concluded that there is scope for more, rather than less, variety in economic methodologies, as well as within methodologies. Further, if variety is not to take the form of 'anything goes', then critical discussion by economists of different approaches to economics, and of variety itself, is required.     

From Heterodoxy to Orthodoxy and Vice Versa: Economics and Social Sciences in the Division of Academic Work

The term “heterodox economics” has been in existence for several decades. Recent revival of heterodox economics can be regarded as a growing criticism of economists within the own profession of economics. Modern economics is designed as a one‐world‐capitalism without history and without regional specifications, without institutions, and without real human agents. Heterodox approaches have the aim to underline that different institutions matter, including religion, language, family structures and networks, systems of education, and industrial relations. Taking the discussion within a broader framework of the history of science acknowleges divergencies and convergencies between different approaches in economics that are also in permanent recomposition. The discussion comes up with the interpretation that recent academic developments provide chances for new modes of intellectual reintegration of formerly disparate areas.     

The Economists of Tomorrow: The Case for Assertive Pluralism in Economics Education

This article presents the case for “assertive pluralism” in economics education and proposes how to achieve it, illustrating the point with reference to the U.K. Subject Benchmark Statement in Economics (SBSE). It proposes a revision of the benchmark, prioritizing the role of controversy in the teaching of economics, combined with pluralistic principles that uphold and guarantee critical and independent thinking. This reform is a necessary response to what Colander et al. (2009 ) term the “systemic failure” of economics—the inability of the profession, taken as a whole, to anticipate and understand the financial crash and recession of 2008. Failure on this scale testifies to a more deep‐seated weakness in economics than commonly recognized. It arises from what Turner ( Tett 2009 ) terms the regulatory capture of the economics profession by narrow financial interests. The public, and the economics profession, require specific protection against the pressures that have produced this systemic failure. This requires a rethink of the relation of economics to society, founded on a rejection of the idea that the function of economics is to provide a single, unequivocal solution to every problem of policy. Instead, the article explains, good economics should be constrained to evaluate the full range of relevant solutions to any given policy issue, leaving the decisionmakers accountable for the decisions they make on which solution to adopt.     

A study of the performance of Developmental Studies students in the principles of economics

This study assesses the performance of Developmental Studies students in the principles of economics. The null hypothesis is that once demographic and academic variables are taken into account, completion of a developmental studies course(s) contributes nothing to the probability of success in a principles of economics course. The study analyzes a sample of 1,053 principles of economics students during the 1989 academic year. A logit regression model is used to estimate the probability of successfully completing a course in the principles of economics. The study finds that the completion of the Developmental Study Skills course is an important determinant of the probability of success in the principles of economics courses.     

论制度经济学与中国经济发展

本文介绍了马克思主义制度经济学和西方制度经济学的发展和主要理论,并与中国经济发展结合,从制度经济学的角度研究了中国经济在进一步发展中应该重点关注的问题。     

When Heterodoxy Becomes Orthodoxy: Ecological Economics in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Modern ecological economics emerged in opposition to mainstream economics as a scientific approach with many key heterodox features. Among these are an open systems perspective, transdisciplinarity, and radical criticism of the conventional representation of economic process. The term “ecological economics” was included internationally in the second edition (2008) of The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, the most prestigious and widely used dictionary of economics. In our view, however, the entry does little to facilitate understanding of the heterodox features, and theoretical and methodological controversies that have developed in ecological economics over the last two decades.     

The impact of knowledge diversity: Integrating two economic perspectives through the dynamic capability approach

This paper analyzes the two economic perspectives underlying the contradictory results of existing studies regarding the relationship between diversity and performance and integrates them using the dynamic capability approach. Transaction cost economics suggests that knowledge diversity has a negative impact on cost-saving performance, whereas evolutionary economics suggests that knowledge diversity has a positive impact on value-creation performance. According to the dynamic capability approach, the perspective of transaction cost economics is shown to relate to ordinary capabilities, whereas the perspective of evolutionary economics is shown to relate to dynamic capabilities. The former should be pursued in subservience to the latter.     

Jan Tinbergen's statistical contribution to economic policy

In this article I claim that the Nobel Prize in Economics has not only set the economics discipline on a path‐dependent trajectory, but is itself an apotheosis of a development of what I would like to refer to as ‘the statistical turn in economics’. The case of Jan Tinbergen illustrates the argument and sketches the stages within the statistical turn in economics. The Nobel Prize in 1969 acknowledged this character of economics, and justified the continuation of this approach for the generation to come.     

The New Classical Economics

Classical economics was thought to have been displaced by Keynesianism. Professor Patrick Minford, of the University of Liverpool, outlines a new classical economics that shares the economics of Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' but refines it in modern terms with the insights of rational expectations and demonstrates its importance for policy in the 1980s.     

Libros: Reseñas críticas

Gender and civil society: Transcending bounderies . Obra dirigida por Jude HOWELL y Diane MULLIGAN. The economics of work and family. Obra dirigida por Jean KIMMEL y Emily P. HOFFMAN. Kids at work: The value of employer sponsored on‐site child care centers. Por Rachel CONNELLY, Deborah S. DEGRAFF y Rachel A. WILLIS. Fighting for time: Shifting boundaries of work and social life. Obra dirigida por Cynthia FUCHS EPSTEIN y Arne KALLEBERG. Telework and social change: How technology is reshaping the boundaries between home and work. Por Nicole B. ELLISON. Leaving welfare: Employment and well‐being of the families that left welfare in the post‐entitlement era. Por Gregory ACS y Pamela LOPREST. Helping working families: The Earned Income Tax Credit. Por Saul D. HOFFMANN y Laurence S. SEIDMAN. The scientific reproduction of gender inequality: A discourse analysis of research texts on women's entrepreneurship. Por Helene AHL. Nuevas publicaciones de la OIT: Amârica Latina . Negociaciân colectiva y equidad de gânero. Obra dirigida por Laâs Abramo y Marta Rangel. Employers' organizations taking the lead on gender equality: Case studies from 10 countries Igualdad de gânero y trabajo decente. Buenas prâcticas en el lugar de trabajo .     

现代经济学对企业管理学发展的影响与启示

在经济学的投入—产出模型中,不仅仅体现了经济学的"效率",更重要的是投入产出过程中的管理过程,带来了组织的"绩效"。现代经济学对企业理论的发展、企业管理的过程及管理学的研究方法带来了深刻的影响,由此也给我们带来了启示。