What made Economists so Politically Influential? Governance-related Ideas and Institutional Entrepreneurship in the Economic Liberalisation of Israel and beyond

Liberal economists are known to be one of the driving forces behind economic liberalisation in various countries, but how did they become so politically influential? Constructivists generally suggest that during economic crises liberal economists persuaded decision-makers to adopt pro-market policy ideas as solutions for economic turbulence. While this answer is true, it is also only partial because it disregards the role played by governance-related ideas and institutional entrepreneurship in the political actions of liberal economists. I argue that ideas regarding decision-making mechanisms provided liberal economists with the basis for creatively exploiting pre-liberalisation institutions, such as central banks and central budget offices, through which these economists enhanced their long-term political influence. An in-depth examination of a paradigmatic case of economic liberalisation driven by liberal economists – Israel's Stabilisation Plan – exemplifies that argument. The existence of like-minded economists and similar pre-liberalisation policy-making institutions in many other countries hints that the Israeli experience is not unique.     

The road to rationalisation: A history of “Where the Empirical Lives” (or has lived) in consumer choice theory

This paper examines the different ways that economists have characterised the empirical content of modern consumer choice theory. There has been general agreement among economists that each stage in the development of the theory has been associated with an improvement in the theory's empirical content, and yet there has been no agreement about what exactly the empirical content of consumer choice theory is at any stage in the process. I call this the problem of observational ambiguity. The paper historically documents this problem, links it to various theoretical developments, and relates it to debates in contemporary economic theory.     

经济学视野中的和谐社会

社会和谐是一个社会系统的结构、功能、作用、运动、发展的一种理想的状态。文章选取了自由经济学家、马克思主义政治经济学、当代主流经济学家的主要观点,指出经济学家一般从两个层面研究社会和谐:一个是从社会和谐的经济基础或现实生产关系出发来研究;另一个是从具体资源配置和社会经济运行的层面来研究。     

On the political economy of skill in the advanced industrial nations

The importance of education and training policy is being enhanced by its increasingly high profile as a competitive strategy in the age of global capitalism. This article argues that human–capital theory, because it objectifies skill and fails to uncover its social context, offers an inadequate framework for understanding the relationship between the economy and skill systems. An adequate economic framework for understanding changes in education and training systems must be linked to a theory of institutional change in the economy. The article used one such theory, in building on the contributions of the regulation school but concludes that, contra the ideology of post–Fordism and of liberal political economists, a high–wage/high–skills strategy is only one route for capital accumulation in the 1990s, and that this route will only be achieved through conflict. The article concludes that, this used alongside other policies, a progressive education strategy which could be linked with the usage of high skills in industry would have some chance of success in the current era.     

Producer co-operatives in nineteenth-century British economic thought

Drawing on the popular radicalism of the day and his own development of the theory of the stationary state, John Stuart Mill had argued on normative and positive grounds that capitalist firms were transitional institutions and should/would evolve into producer co-operatives. In Britain, Mill's work set off a dialogue among mainstream economists. Contributors included Thornton, Fawcett, and Cairnes from Mill's “school,” as well as Jevons and Marshall who while sympathetic endorsed the less radical reform of profit sharing. Ironically, much of the socialist left, including Beatrice Potter (Webb), praised Mill's concerns, but rejected producer co-operatives in favour of nationalisation. By the early twentieth century, Mill's message resonated only with the guild socialists who kept the radical argument for producer co-operatives alive. The subtext of the paper is that modern liberals have too conveniently lost connection with this important history and its radical/liberal message of capitalism as a transitional mode.     

Information and Knowledge: Austrian Economics in Search of its Uniqueness

The Austrian School of Economics since WWII has increasingly claimed a unique position within the scientific community of economists. This paper argues that the most persuasive way to make this claim to uniqueness is to focus on the distinction scholars in the Austrian tradition place between information and knowledge in their work. In other words, it is the epistemic-cognitive turn that the Austrian school took in the wake of the socialist calculation debate that separates the school from other branches of neo-classicism within economic science that constitutes its best case for analytical uniqueness.     

The market as a social space: On the meaningful extraeconomic conversations that can occur in markets

Prominent economic sociologist Richard Swedberg has argued that economists have failed to develop a theory of the market that recognizes it as a “social phenomenon in its own right.” While this may be true of mainstream economics, the Austrian school’s theory of the market is much richer than the standard view. For Austrians, the market has always been a central concern. And Austrians have always argued that the market is a social structure where both exchange and competition occurs. Still, Austrians give little more than scant attention to the noneconomic sociality that occurs in markets. The market, however, is both a conversation and an arena where meaningful conversations can occur. This paper is an effort to focus attention on the market as a social space where social activity (beyond competition and exchange) takes place and where noneconomic relationships and economic relationships develop.     

Pluralism,the Lucas Critique,and the Integration of Macroeconomics and Microeconomics

Mainstream macroeconomics has pursued ‘micro founded’ models based on the explicit optimization by representative agents. The result has been a long and wasteful detour. But elements of the Lucas critique are relevant, also for heterodox economists. Challenging common heterodox views on microeconomics and formalization, this paper argues that (i) economic models should not be based purely on empirically observed regularities, (ii) heterodox economists must be able to tell an integrated story about goal-oriented micro behavior in a specific macro environment, and (iii) relatively simple analytical models have an essential role to play.     

The unresolved problem of gratuitous credit in Austrian banking theory

Ludwig von Mises called gratuitous credit, the ability banks have to create new credit, the chief problem in a theory of banking. This paper traces how Mises and succeeding generations of Austrian-school economists have grappled with this problem, but have failed to find resolution. The result is that Austrian economists disagree on a variety of issues in banking and business cycle theory, such as whether there is an endogenous business cycle under free banking, or cycles only occur under central banking. Before a resolution can be attempted, current thinking must be clarified. This paper divides Austrian economists into five schools of thought. It points to a possible resolution in the economic development writings of Joseph Schumpeter.     

经济增长理论发展中的人力资本研究的方法论探析

在经济增长理论的发展中,由于新经济增长理论没有注意到新制度经济学的制度分析方法,人力资本理论研究陷入困境.分析其根源,在于受分析方法的局限,人们无法将制度纳入分析体系,从而比较客观地分析制度的影响和功能.制度学派的制度分析为经济增长理论发展提供新的思路和方法,但也存在过于绝对、片面地理解制度的决定作用的缺陷.人力资本与制度的辩证关系是人力资本起决定作用,制度起影响作用,因此,运用制度分析对于人力资本理论研究具有方法突破和政策意义.     

试论政府干预区域经济差距的缘由

改革开放以来,我国区域经济差距呈现不断扩大的趋势.面对区域差距,新古典主义学派与循环累积增长学派之间存在自由放任与政府干预之争.文章认为尽管市场存在某种自发的区域均衡机制,但这只是一个长期趋势;而且,报酬递增、迁移成本、制度性障碍等因素都对这种均衡机制产生抑制作用.因此市场并不能在短期内自动缓解区域差距,有必要引入适度的政府干预,纠正在区域协调发展问题上的“市场失灵”.     

Why Schumpeter has had so little influence on today’s main line economics, and why this may be changing

While Schumpeter’s broad theory of how capitalist economies worked articulated in his Theory of Economic Development received strong attention in his lifetime, it was neoclassical economic theory that took hold of the profession in the last half of the twentieth century, and today few economists even read Schumpeter. The first part of this essay considers the reasons why Schumpeter largely has been ignored. However, recent developments have increased the interests of economists in innovation and in innovation driven economic activity, and the time now may be ripe for a renaissance of Schumpeterian economics. The second part of this essay provides a sketch of what an economics text-book, written from a Schumpeterian perspective, might look like.     

现代经济学的基本分析框架与研究方法

本文讨论了现代经济学研究人类经济行为和经济现象所采用的基本分析框架和研究方法。一个规范经济理论的分析框架有五个基本组成部分:( 1 )界定经济环境;( 2 )设定行为假设;( 3 )给出制度安排;( 4)选择均衡结果;( 5)进行评估比较。基本的研究方法包括提供研究平台、建立参照系、给出度量标尺,及提供分析工具。本文也讨论了区分充分条件与必要条件的重要性;正确理解经济理论的作用,一般性与相对性;数学在经济学中的作用等。     

The Complementary Relationship Between Institutional and Complexity Economics: The Example of Deep Mechanismic Explanations

Analyzing economic systems from an evolutionary-institutional or a complexity perspective are two complementary approaches to economic inquiry. I discuss three arguments in favor of this hypothesis: (i) eminent institutional economists have examined the economy as what today could be considered a complex system; (ii) complexity economists lack meta-theoretical foundations which could be provided by institutionalist theory; and (iii) institutional economists could benefit from using methods of complexity economics. In this context, I argue that scholars considering the economy to be complex should seek to explain it by discovering social mechanisms instead of focusing on prediction. In order to distinguish between alternative explanations, scholars should refer to the deepness of an explanation, rather than to Occam’s razor.     

区域间劳动力迁移对地区差距的影响

新古典经济理论认为,劳动力从欠发达地区向发达地区迁移会导致显著的收敛效果,但国外的经验研究表明,有些国家的区域间劳动力迁移缩小了地区差距,而有些国家劳动力迁移反而扩大了地区差距,对这一经济理论与实证研究结果的矛盾("迁移谜题")目前还缺乏很好的解释。本文在新经济地理学的框架下通过引入资本的外部性、劳动力的不完全流动性以及城市经济学中的拥挤效应,建立了一个两区域经济增长模型,证明了由于存在"资本追逐劳动"的现象,区域间的劳动力迁移可能缩小、也可能扩大地区差距,这主要取决于资本的外部性和拥挤效应的相对大小,以及农村和城镇居民的技能差异,从而为"迁移谜题"提供了一个较合理的理论解释。本文的模型说明劳动力流动并不一定能自动缩小地区差距,因此政府必须采取进一步的积极措施促进区域协调发展。     

发展经济学结构转型分析方法的演进与评价

结构主义发展经济学家在探讨发展中国家的结构转型问题时,所使用的结构分析方法,被认为是持这一思路的发展经济学家对发展经济学做出的最重要的贡献之一。在结构分析方法的演进过程中,传统的统计方法和投入—产出法,由于存在无法刻画产业间关联或因假设产业间关联呈刚性等缺陷,而逐渐被可计算一般均衡模型所取代。鉴于可计算一般均衡模型拥有更加适合于分析那些实行市场导向改革的发展中国家等优势,因而该模型具有更为广泛的应用前景。     

Calls for change. The scientific status of economic theory and the future of democracy: A review of three recent contributions

Abstract

After the last financial crisis, economic theory and economists have largely lost their credibility. Not having been able to foresee and explain the recession, they have clearly shown that a deep methodological reform of the discipline is necessary. With its restrictive assumptions and the self-referentiality of formal models, mainstream economics has indeed become highly unrealistic and therefore unable to face the deep and evident problems of capitalistic society. The books reviewed in this paper try to criticize economic theory from three closely related points of view: the technical drift that has endangered democracy and annulled the role of citizens in public choices, the sometimes obscure role of economists and the way through which articles of low scientific relevance are published, and finally the decisive role of the Nobel Prize in economics to legitimize the market turn begun in the 1970s. Considering such a discouraging picture, it is necessary to ask whether there is still hope for reforming economics and if, possibly returning to the classics of economic thought, it is still possible to carry out a struggle based on ideas and not on dogmatic prejudices.     

Austerity and repressive politics: Italian economists in the early years of the fascist government

The historical forerunners of contemporary austerity are still largely unexplored. This essay considers the “liberal phase” of Fascist Italy (1922–1925) as a case study to explain austerity as a full-blown rationality, that is intrinsically, and simultaneously, theory and practice, encompassing the moral, the economic and the political. My explanation moves beyond the interpretation of austerity as the post-1980, neoliberal recipe of price deflation and budget cuts. The Italian case draws attention to a neglected connection: that between austerity and repression. Austerity was the guiding principle of the Fascist economic agenda during the 1920s. It served to extinguish the effects of the democratisation process of the post-WWI years. The paper examines the work of four distinguished economists, Maffeo Pantaleoni, Luigi Einaudi, Alberto De Stefani and Umberto Ricci, who – in different roles as professors, journalists, advisors, and policy-makers – can be considered the source, the guardians and the enforcers of Fascist austerity.     

The neglect of replacement investment in keynesian economics

Abstract

This article describes Keynes's early analysis of replacement investment and his subsequent neglect of the subject, especially by his followers. It goes on to explain how this deficiency helped to mislead later economists who attempted to use Keynes as a guide for economic policy and theory and the consequences of the errors of these economists.