The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition

The trade-off between child quantity and quality is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed already in the nineteenth century, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Furthermore, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways, based on separate instrumental-variable models that instrument fertility by sex ratios and education by landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg. Education in 1849 also predicts the fertility transition in 1880–1905.     

The political economy of urban transport-system choice

This paper analyzes the political economy of transport-system choice, with the goal of gaining an understanding of the forces involved in this important urban public policy decision. Transport systems pose a continuous trade-off between time and money cost, so that a city can choose a fast system with a high money cost per mile or a slower, cheaper system. The paper compares the socially optimal transport system to the one chosen under the voting process, focusing on both homogeneous and heterogeneous cities, while considering different landownership arrangements. The analysis identifies a bias toward underinvestment in transport quality in heterogeneous cities.     

Disagreement over the emergence of private property rights: alternative meanings, alternative explanations

This paper is an exercise in the history of thought, which compares Austrian and neoclassical theories of the emergence of private property rights, and examines, in part, the extent to which Austrians can be said to offer a commonly-agreed upon explanation that parallels Carl Menger's exemplary story of the emergence of money. We address the sources of disagreement (and apparent conflict) among emergence theorists in both schools. We try to show that some of the disagreement hinges on an unclear meaning of the term “emergence,” which is resolvable, while other sources of disagreement are fundamental at the methodological level. JEL Code B25, E40, E53     

The Emergence of Money in Commodity Exchange,or Money as Monopolist of the Ability to Buy

Abstract

Money's emergence in commodity exchange remains an unresolved issue within economic theory. Current general equilibrium models offer an explanation that rests on the economic advantages of a universally accepted means of exchange that is partly established through social custom. These models neither fully explain money's unique ability to buy, nor theorise the customary practices required for money's emergence. They are dominated by Menger's earlier analysis of money's emergence, which pays more attention to the social foundations of money but is still hampered by Austrian individualism. An alternative explanation is given here, drawing on Marx's theory of value but involving a thorough reworking of it. An analytical process is established through which money finally emerges as monopolist of the ability to buy. Particular social custom, whose determinants are consistent with the social underpinnings of commodity exchange, plays a vital role in money's emergence.     

团队信任对威权型领导涌现的作用机制——基于心理距离视角

目前关于团队领导力涌现的研究大多集中于领导者个体特质,忽略了团队内部环境对领导力涌现的影响。威权型领导作为我国企业普遍存在的一种领导方式,在实施过程中取得了一定成效,但也暴露出一些弊端,因此深入探讨威权型领导涌现机制对我国企业管理具有现实意义。以华东地区某优秀大型文化企业29个项目团队的配对数据为样本,采用层级回归分析,从团队层面探讨了信任对威权型领导涌现的影响机制。研究发现,身份信任会抑制威权型领导涌现,威胁信任会促进威权型领导涌现;心理距离在团队信任与威权型领导间起中介作用;团队信任对心理距离的影响受到权力距离的调节,当权力距离较大时,威胁信任对扩大团队心理距离的作用增强,而身份信任对缩短团队心理距离的作用减弱。     

The anatomy of emergence,with a focus upon capital formation

Emergence is a unifying theme of both evolutionary economics and complex systems theory. In spite of this centrality, emergence in economics has not been subject to an extensive critical analysis. This paper remedies this deficit. We identify several conditions that economic patterns (i.e. rule-systems, structures) must satisfy to qualify as emergent: (1) material realization (emergent patterns are realized in physical structures and processes); (2) coherence (pattern is not a mere aggregate but a systemic whole); (3) non-distributivity (pattern possesses global properties absent from its parts); (4) structure dependence (systemic properties depend upon connective structure). These four core features are common to all forms of emergence in economics. Evolutionary economic systems also exhibit extra-strength versions of emergence, which require that patterns possess one or more additional features: (5) genuine novelty; (6) unpredictability in principle; and (7) irreducibility. We introduce three basic forms of emergence that occur in economic systems—minimal, diachronic and synchronic emergence—and apply these ideas to capital formation at all levels of economic order. The economy-wide capital structure exhibits strongly emergent properties (both diachronic and synchronic) that depend on its structural and functional organization; it is not a mere aggregate of capital goods. Within the realm of capital phenomena, we also compare the distinguishing characteristics of emergent and spontaneous (self-organizing) orders. We provide a case study of the iPhone as an emergent capital pattern to illustrate conditions (1)–(7) above and the different types of emergence.     

Specialization,product development,evolution of the institution of the firm,and economic growth

This paper considers the effects of the division of labor on economic growth and welfare in a general equilibrium environment where changes in individual specialization and product development can proceed simultaneously. The nature of the dynamic equilibrium is shown to depend on the interaction of transaction efficiency, economies of specialization, and economies of complementarity. Where the dynamic equilibrium involves evolution in the division of labor, this will be associated with increased per capita real income and hence economic growth. It is also shown that the emergence of firms is an aspect of the evolution of division of labor if transaction efficiency for a producer good is lower than that for labor used to produce this good.     

Teams, Firms and the Evolution of Profit Seeking Behavior

Even as advances in information theory over the last quarter century have cast increasing doubt on the proposition that firms successfully maximize profits, the objective of profit maximization continues to be an axiomatic feature of the neoclassical theory of the firm. This paper attempts to improve our understanding firms by treating the objective function as an open question. Specifically, an ontogenetic thought experiment is undertaken to address the question of what differentiates production teams from firms by asking why team members would sell their control rights to a principal, thereby transforming the team into a firm. What results is an account of the emergence of the objective of profit seeking. Profit seeking emerges endogenously as a more fit alternative than the objective of value maximization, which is less capable of coping with uncertainty through purposive adaptation.     

Division of Labor, Money, and Economic Progress

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to formalize Adam Smith's insight on the relationship between the division of labor, the emergence of money, and economic progress. The model demonstrates that the division of labor is the driving force behind the emergence of money, and the use of money in turn stimulates further division of labor. It also shows that the use of money substitute can improve welfare.     

Forms of emergence and the evolution of economic landscapes

Over the past two decades, the notion of ‘emergence’ has attracted increasing attention and controversy across the social science, including economics. Within this context, as economic geographers, our concern in this paper is with the usefulness of the idea of emergence for studying the economic landscape and its evolution. The paper considers in what sense geographical processes and places can legitimately be described as emergent, how such places themselves produce emergent effects, and how we should conceive of and study the ‘emergent’ space economy. To do this, we apply Deacon's (2006) models of first-order, second-order and third-order emergence, and trace through their implications for constructing an ‘emergence perspective’ in economic geography. The notion of third-order emergence is argued to be the most promising, since it focuses explicitly on emergence as an evolutionary process. What is evident, however, is that a notion developed mainly for applications in physical and biological systems requires further elaboration and exploration if it is to provide explanatory leverage in studying the evolution of economic landscapes.     

Endogenous currency formation in an online environment: The case of Diablo II

This paper presents a case study of the emergence of currency from a barter economy in an online game community. We use this case study to attempt to shed light on the relative importance of various types of frictions that lead to the emergence of money in search-theoretic models of currency formation. In particular, our study highlights the importance of exchange frictions relative to epistemic frictions. Using the records of an online message board dedicated to facilitating trades within the game, we document the emergence of currency and its stability over time.     

Value,sign, and social structure: the ‘game’ metaphor and modern social science

This exploratory paper, part of continued work on the history of game theory, seeks to illustrate certain links between von Neumann's theory of games and contemporaneous ideas in other fields. In particular, we claim that the emergence of the analytical metaphor of the ‘game’ in economics can be viewed as part of a general reconceptualization of theory in a range of disciplines. That methodological reconstitution may be described as the emergence of a Structuralist view, an approach to theorizing which treated its object – be that a text, a kinship arrangement, or an economy – as a self-contained system, with its own internal logic, subject to its own ‘laws’. In particular, individual texts, or observed social and economic arrangements, are now viewed as variations on an underlying logical theme, on a structural invariant. The latter is to be uncovered, in the case of linguistics, through the analysis of phonemes; in kinship analysis, through the rules governing the exchange of women because of the incest taboo; in von Neumann and Morgensterns game theory, through the possibilities for equilibrium coalition formation, based on the stable set. There thus emerged a tendency, across the intellectual spectrum, towards seeing things in combinatorialterms. Theoretical coherence was to be found in examining how objects ‘held together’ rather than analysing where they ‘came from’: nineteenth-century concerns with history, evolution and individual psychology give way to a distinctly modern emphasis on synchronic, formal structure, on analogical reasoning. Atomism gave way to holism, and formal elegance superceded immediate empirical content. Recourse to the metaphor of the ‘game’ was constitutive of this shift, which we examine by referring to Saussures General Course in Linguistics, to Formalism in mathematics and literary analysis, to Lévi-Strauss's analysis of kinship and myth, and to von Neumann and Morgenstern's Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour.     

Merchant guilds,taxation and social capital

We develop a theory of the emergence of merchant guilds as an efficient mechanism to foster cooperation between merchants and rulers, building on the complementarity between merchant guilds’ ability to enforce monopoly over trade and their social capital. Unlike existing models, we focus on local merchant guilds, rather than alien guilds, accounting for the main observed features of their behavior, internal organization and relationship with rulers. Our model delivers novel predictions about the emergence, variation, functioning, and eventual decline of this highly successful historical form of network. Our theory reconciles previous explanations and the large body of historical evidence on medieval merchant guilds. In doing so, we also shed novel light on the role of the guilds’ social capital, and its importance for taxation, welfare, and the development of towns and their government in medieval Europe.     

Openness,productivity and growth in the APEC economies

The 1980s and 1990s have witnessed the emergence of many Asian economies as important traders in the world. How has openness to trade and investment affected productivity and growth performance in those economies? This question is often tackled with the traditional growth regression method. However, the findings in the existing literature are still inconclusive. This paper proposes an alternative approach which is employed to examine the impact of openness on the sources of productivity and growth in the APEC economies. Specifically, the proposed technique distinguishes technological progress (innovation) from efficiency changes (catch-up) and attempts to isolate the influences of openness on these two distinct factors. The findings in this study may help gain fresh insight into the relationship between openness and productivity and growth performance in the APEC economies.First revision received: July 2001/Final revision received: May 2003The author thanks two anonymous referees for very helpful comments.     

从资源、环境、风险透析负价值范畴

从资源环境等损失的实证研究可看出,负价值是个客观存在,是正价值的负值。负价值主要是由“有用劳动”的缺陷性、局限性和某些破坏性形成的。正负价值的产生并非取决于劳动的量,而是取决于劳动的质,体现效用与费用的统一,在发达市场经济下是同科技主导作用和正负效应制衡机制以及可持续发展规律相关。负价值的研究有利于立体地深化劳动价值论,有利于解决一系列经济质量、安全、节约和生态问题。     

Targeting biomed cluster from a mature pharma industry: the Medicon Valley experience

This paper analyses the emergence and development of the Medicon Valley biomedicine cluster from an evolutionary perspective. We focus on the co-evolution and synergies among the drivers of the cluster's emergence. Targeting biomed involves some challenges and complexities, which are particularly strong in this case, owing to its specificities (bi-national nature, predominant context of horizontal policies, pre-existent pharma industry). The main aim is to analyse the role of the different institutional players in this policy process. The study suggests that targeting emerges from regional coordination bodies. It also reveals a smart specialisation strategy ‘avant la lettre’ and shows a number of critical insights for the implementation of this policy approach.     

可占有性战略、技术柔性与主导设计形成:比较案例研究

基于企业层面和技术层面双重视角，以激光光盘行业BD、HD DVD和移动操作系统Android、iOS的标准竞争作为比较案例，考察了技术发起者可占有性战略如何影响主导设计形成。研究发现：①技术发起者对技术标准采取更加开放的战略，一方面有助于吸引更多组件生产商，扩大标准联盟规模并提高标准联盟多元性，另一方面，技术发起者鼓励组件生产商参与技术标准开发与商业化，有助于改进技术标准，而技术标准性能改善将进一步吸引更多组件生产商。标准联盟规模与标准联盟多元性之间的自我强化效应最终促进主导设计形成;②技术柔性不仅受到可占有性战略的影响，也受到技术发起者在标准开发过程中所确立的技术规范内在特征的影响。柔性程度较高的技术标准往往能够得到更多改进，从而有助于弥补特定技术标准存在的初始设计缺陷。     

Bulgaria’s hyperinflation in 1997: transition,banking fragility and foreign exchange

This article has two objectives: to study the 1997 episode of hyperinflation in Bulgaria, and to compare and contrast this analysis with the post-Keynesian theoretical approach. This approach highlights the role of three components observed simultaneously in order to understand the emergence of hyperinflation: a virulent distributive conflict; the presence of indexing mechanisms; and finally, flight from domestic currency into one or more foreign currencies. The article reveals that a transitional economy like that of Bulgaria in the 1990s may generate hyperinflation in the absence of any violent distribution conflict: the transition and the banking crisis engender inflation. The foreign exchange rate is decisive in the emergence of hyperinflationary dynamics (and therefore mistrust of domestic currency). This interpretation of hyperinflation is confirmed by an econometric analysis.     

企业家精神与南昌众创空间涌现--基于演化经济地理学视角

众创空间大量涌现是近年来新的空间经济景观。文章基于演化经济地理学,研究了企业家精神在南昌众创空间和创客项目形成过程中的作用机制。采用访谈与问卷方法,对6家众创空间进行了访谈,对创客项目发放了45份调查问卷。研究发现,对众创空间而言,创办者社会关系本地嵌入、房产资源的沉没投入是他们在南昌创办众创空间的重要原因;金融资本对企业家在南昌创办众创空间的影响由弱到强。对创客项目而言,尽管创业者的创业知识可能来自外地,但创业者社会关系本地嵌入是他们选择在南昌创业的重要原因;金融资本对创业者的影响也由弱到强。文章还研究了政策对众创空间涌现的影响。与通常默认"双创"政策对众创空间与创客项目涌现具有重要推动作用不同,文章认为政策对众创空间涌现的作用主要为信息杠杆与政策背书,而财政、货币激励主要对政策套利型众创空间涌现产生较强作用。