Pareto and contemporary economic theory

This paper provides explanations for Pareto’s apparently contradictory approach to demand theory in simultaneously insisting that measurability of utility is not needed to explain the equilibrium of consumers in competitive markets, and embracing concavifiability and thus measurability of utility when this implies restrictions on consumers’ behavior such as the law of demand. It also treats his method of calibrating an aggregate demand function by employing his law of income distribution, so as to reproduce “Gregory King’s law”. Finally, some disputed issues are dealt with concerning the nature of Pareto’s contributions to welfare economics. (JEL: B13, D11, D60).     

Adam Smith's theory of economic history and economic development

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to show that Smith has a theory of economic history grounded in a politico-economic modeling (as well as a sort of economic theoretical modeling). In terms of the politico-economic approach, in the Wealth of Nations (Book III.ii–iv) Smith tried to offer a systematic account of economic development from feudalism to capitalism in Europe. These lead to suggest that the seeming internal inconsistency between the natural and the actual courses of progress in Book III may be resolved, and that Smith may be treated as a precursor of Douglass North, who stressed an inextricable link between the polity and the economy in economic history.     

产业融合理论及其经济效果

产业融合是信息化进程中呈现的一种产业新范式,是21世纪产业发展的新趋势.国内外许多学者从各个角度对这一经济现象进行了论述.本文主要阐述了产业融合内涵,介绍了产业融合过程中出现的主要产业融合类型,并分析了产业融合对社会经济发展的影响.     

Rights and relations in modern economic theory

The paper is the 1980 Böhm-Bawerk-lecture given at the University of Innsbruck. Starting from Böhm-Bawerk's book. ‘Rights and relations from the point of view of the economic theory of goods’ the paper tries to evaluate rights and phenomena like goodwill from the perspective of innovation. A framework of three levels of economic activity is developed. The three levels are: consumption (the lowest level), production and innovation (the highest level). Rights are interpreted as instruments of protection of higher level activity from lower level activity. Focus of attention are industries with very high rates of technical progress and innovation. There the most important positive externality of innovation is the increased potential for even more innovations. It is argued that competition policy, as a rule of thumb, must foster competition by innovation and must discourage competition by imitation.     

产业融合理论及其经济效果

产业融合是信息化进程中呈现的一种产业新范式，是21世纪产业发展的新趋势。国内外许多学者从各个角度对这一经济现象进行了论述。本文主要阐述了产业融合内涵，介绍了产业融合过程中出现的主要产业融合类型，并分析了产业融合对社会经济发展的影响。     

An economic theory of leadership turnover

In an infinite-horizon stochastic model, a coup not only disciplines a dictator's policy towards a group of “kingmakers”, but also enables a kingmaker to become a dictator. Greater competition for the dictator's position, a lower impact of the dictator's policy on the kingmakers, or lower risks of staging a coup raises the benefit of a coup relative to its opportunity cost and so raises the probability of a coup. Since periodic shocks affect the efficacy of the dictator's policy, a bad enough shock makes it too costly for even talented dictators to avert a coup. More talented dictators are able to survive more negative shocks, so the worst shock in a dictator's reign is informative about the probability of a coup. Conditional on the worst shock, the probability of a coup is independent of a dictator's duration in office. The unconditional probability declines with duration.     

Endogenous change and the economic theory of regulation

This paper extends the economic theory of regulation to include endogenous regulatory change. It outlines conditions under which endogenously rising deadweight costs of regulation can alter the policy equilibrium, even if those rising costs are fully anticipated. Within this framework, alternative wealth redistribution mechanisms can alter the equilibrium path if they bias interest groups' organization costs asymmetrically. The history of natural gas regulation is broadly consistent with this theory.     

Schumpeter and the theory of capitalist economic development

This paper gives a centenary appreciation of the contributions to economic thought of Joseph A. Schumpeter, with special focus on his work, The Theory of Economic Development (TED) it proceeds, first, by providing (in section 1) an overview of Schumpeter's life and works; second, by giving an interpretative exposition of the main themes of TED (in section 2) and Schumpeter's broader ‘economic sociology’ (in section 3) in terms of the place of these ideas in the history of economic thought; third, by examining the reception to TED and the impact of it and Schumpeter's dynamic methodology on the discipline (in section 4).     

Budget constraint of a firm and economic theory

Summary Firms in reality are subject to budget constraints which general equilibrium theorists have paid little attention. Using Morishima (1950, 1992) model, this paper deals with firms that are subject to budgets pertaining to sales and investment decisions, and proves the existence of a general equilibrium. We show that an economy with firms subject to budgets does not necessarily satisfy the efficiency proposition, and clarify how the total profit maximum condition in the Arrow-Debreu (1954) type economy ensures an efficiency in a limited dynamic sense.The author is grateful to Professors J. Iritani, H. Nagatani, and K. Urai who gave useful comments on occasions of Saturday Workshop on Economic Theory and Mathematics. He is also grateful to Professor M. Kaneko for his useful comments on an earlier version of the paper Kuga (1993), to which this article is closely related.     

Micro foundations for meso and macro economic theory

The natures of rational thought and rational lives are described as the basis of an adaptive economizing theory which presents an alternative microeconomic foundation contrasting with but complementary to optimal control theory for modeling mesoeconomic order. Contrastingly, that micro foundation seems to imply the inappropriateness of representing macro data as an optimal economic agent. Rather, direct representation of the emergent causal order in the macroeconomic data is suggested.

The theory of economic price and quantity indicators

Summary. This paper develops the theory of economic price and quantity indicators, being the difference analogue of indexes. The properties of indicators and indexes are compared. Observable bounds for the indicators will be derived, as well as two exactness results for Bennet (1920)-type price and quantity indicators.Received: 3 January 2002, Revised: 2 December 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: C43Previous versions of this paper were presented at the Economic Measurement Group Workshop 2001, School of Economics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 March 2001, and at a seminar at the School of Economics, University of New England, Armidale NSW, 7 September 2001. The authors thank Erwin Diewert for helpful comments on a previous version. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect any policy of Statistics Netherlands.