Institutionalism,Planning, and the Current Crisis

This article originated in a shock of recognition. In the second volume of his discourse on “Civilization and Capitalism,” Fernand Braudel muses on the “eclecticism” of “the most advanced kind of capitalism”: “As if the characteristic advantage of standing at the commanding heights of the economy … consisted precisely of not having to confine oneself to a single choice, of being able, as today’s businessmen would put it, to keep one’s options open.”¹ My colleagues and I work as venture capitalists and as investment bankers of a specialized kind, engaged in raising capital to support the growth of technologybased companies and in realizing liquidity for their founding investors—often ourselves—by managing public offerings of their shares or by merging them into much larger companies. A primary virtue of our practice is the opportunity to choose with broad discretion where to commit our own and our clients’ capital across what Braudel calls “the differential geography ofprofit.”²     

财产权利、自由和平等

绝对财产权利只能保证形式自由。对于实质自由和平等目标的实现,绝对财产权利既没有存在的必要性,也不具备存在的道德合理性。因此,为了建立实现实质自由和平等的和谐社会,必须采取措施对绝对的财产权利加以限制。     

Rereading the Affluent Society

This paper discusses public policy formation in terms of the social values of abundance, plentitude, and higher efficiency. It proposes an evolutionary framework for restructuring economic regulation for financial services consistent with those values.     

西方经济学就业理论及政策的演进

西方经济学就业理论及政策演进的轨迹是沿着古典学派的完全充分就业理论、凯恩斯学派的有效需求不足的失业理论及其需求管理政策、新古典经济学的结构性失业理论及其人力资本政策、弗里德曼的自然失业率理论及其供给管理政策、新凯恩斯主义粘性理论及其就业对策这条主线发展和演变的.这条主线反映了西方经济学就业理论及对策批判继承的关系,也反映了其就业理论与政策有很强的针对性和时效性,借鉴这些理论和对策对解决我国失业问题具有重要的意义.     

Efficiency wages, employment, and the marginal income-tax rate: A note

In the framework of an efficiency-wage model, Hoel [Journal of Economics (1990) 51: 89–99] argues that a reduction in the marginal income-tax rate reduces employment. The present note shows that this result depends on how the tax reform is assumed to change the burden per worker. If the tax payment per worker is held constant, it cannot be ruled out that a lower marginal tax rate leads to an increase in employment.     

Institutionalism and New Trade Theory: Rethinking Comparative Advantage and Trade Policy

Gomory and Baumol (2000), and Samuelson (2004) have raised concerns about international trade’s future impact on U.S. national income. The focus is how globalization may affect the size and distribution across countries of gains from trade. Though their analysis is developed using a pure trade theoretical framework, it has strands in common with institutionalist thinking. Their findings spotlight the need for a new U.S. trade policy agenda aimed at maximizing the U.S. share of gains from trade, and complementing conventional Keynesian open economy macroeconomic analysis.     

技术进步、经济增长与失业:新古典熊彼特主义经济理论的新进展

Aghion和Howitt把熊彼特主义的"创造性破坏"模型与劳动力市场搜寻匹配理论结合起来建立了一个分析经济增长与失业关系的框架.在该框架中,经济增长存在着加重失业的"创造性破坏"效应和缓解失业的资本化效应.一些学者在此框架基础上讨论了劳动力市场不完全情况下经济增长与失业的关系以及就业政策对经济增长和失业相互关系的影响."创造性破坏"的框架,把技术进步作为切入点,为认识增长与失业的相互关系提供了一个全新的分析视角.     

Layoffs,recalls and unemployment duration: evidence from Sweden

The question addressed in this paper is whether the possibility of exit from unemployment to the previous employer affects the duration of unemployment spells in Sweden. The empirical analysis is performed using an employee–employer dataset that includes a number of enterprise characteristics and provides information on individual tenure. The econometric approach employs estimation of a competing risk duration model to distinguish between exits to the previous employer and exits to a new job. The findings suggest that greater tenure raises the risk of transition to the previous employer, while high education levels increase the risk of obtaining a new job. Moreover, the impact of benefit exhaustion is observed only for transitions to new employment.     

工人离职、失业波动与失业保险文献评述

失业不仅涉及失业波动的影响,还包括在职工人的离队。为减少工人搜寻过程中产生的负外部性,应降低工人的信息成本。失业保险政策的实施又降低了失业工人再就业的激励性,应确立有效的失业保险水平,实现产出与社会福利的最大化。     

Real Minimum Wage and Growth Theory: Simulations and Some Policy Results

Abstract

A Solow type two‐sector growth model is used to examine several issues related to growth and unemployment in a minimum wage economy. By simulating the model, we demonstrate that given the same percentage increase in wage rate, an economy with a higher capital–labor ratio is more likely to decay. More importantly, a tariff policy reduces the unemployment periods by 92% provided that the current capital–labor ratio is one‐sixth of that of the steady state capital–labor ratio. We assume that the first best policy of uniform wage subsidy is not politically feasible.     

Institutionalism and the New Classical Economics

Neoliberalism has transformed markets supplying public goods. Analysis of five real-world Australian markets reveals the eligibility rules for access and ongoing participation, interaction of participants, the role of intermediaries and government, the extent of competition, complex regulatory regimes shaping and controlling these markets, and key market outcomes. Contrary to neoliberalism's free market rhetoric and the view promulgated by mainstream economics, a spectrum of market configurations and governance regimes were found along with participation being highly dependent on technology access and skills, market outcomes inconsistent with policy rhetoric, market interrelationships posing adverse cumulative impacts, and government is strongly interventionist through multiple roles.     

Keynes,investment, unemployment and expectations

In Keynes’ General Theory, investment determines effective demand, which determines unemployment and the labour market plays a negligible role. In New Keynesian models, labour market institutions determine the natural rate of unemployment and the speed at which unemployment adjusts to it. Investment is mostly ignored as a key variable behind the problem of high unemployment, despite a strong empirical association between investment and unemployment. We discuss the evolution of the ‘Keynesian’ model, and how in the process of domesticating the General Theory, the central relationship between unemployment and investment and the role of the state of confidence was bred out of the model. We then present some evidence of the centrality of investment and expectations to the long‐term evolution of unemployment in OECD countries. We also argue that recent results in finance, which find that individuals do not behave rationally and, moreover, that there may be no basis for rational calculation, provides support for Keynes’s notion that animal spirits play a central role in investment.     

Equilibrium unemployment, search behaviour and unemployment persistency

Unemployment persistency and high equilibrium unemployment isoften assumed to be caused by rigidities and low search efficiencyin the labour market, especially in European welfare stateswith generous income replacement schemes. These arguments aretested on data from Sweden, an old welfare state with a longperiod of full employment that has changed into a situationwith high unemployment. Data show a clear and very strong unemploymentduration dependency, but it is not possible to prove that thisis a result of low employability among the long-term unemployed.Getting a job is most of all associated with relative qualifications,recall expectations and local labour market conditions, andnot with search behaviour or high wage demands. It is arguedthat unemployment duration when unemployment is high can bestbe understood as a selection process rather than a search process,and that econometric estimations of equilibrium unemploymentare too pessimistic about the potential for an expansive economicpolicy. It is also argued that an active labour market policyis a more efficient compliment to such a policy than changesin income replacement ratios.     

Institutionalism and the State: Founding Views Reexamined

Economists in the institutional tradition have spent a great deal of time dealing with the notions of governance and the state. Yet that school of thought has yet to develop a complete unified theory of either governance or the state. In the work Commons and Veblen we see very different levels of analysis and commentary on these issues. Both authors are recognized as founding thinkers in the Institutional school yet they differ on how they use their methods and they have differing ideas about the usefulness of the state. Still, considered together they present a fairly complete and useable set of ideas about how governance and the state work. This essay summarizes, clarifies, and somewhat expands on the views held by Commons and Veblen with the view of moving towards a clear and concise institutional theory of the state.

Appropriation,migration, and unemployment

This article builds general equilibrium models to explore the relationship among appropriation, rural–urban migration, the minimum wage and unemployment. We find that the proportion of appropriated capital plays a key role in the effects of appropriation on unemployment and rural–urban migration. When the proportion of appropriated capital is large, a stronger control on appropriation by the government results in a lower unemployment rate and more rural–urban migrants, and vice versa. In the extended models, the conclusion may be different when the plundered factor changes from capital to land. In the situation with the agricultural sector employing unskilled labour and capital, appropriation has no impact on unemployment, and the effect on migration remains the same. We also discuss the implications of the minimum wage, and find that under plausible conditions, the rise of the minimum wage can alleviate appropriation and reduce unemployment. The situation of migration is ambiguous due to the impacts of two opposite factors.     

Wage bargaining, labor-tax progression, and welfare

This paper analyzes the effect of labor-tax progression on employment and welfare in an economy with a unionized labor market. The government influences wage bargaining through its tax policies. Wages can be reduced by increasing the marginal labor-tax rate. If there are no restrictions on profit taxation, a first-best optimum with full employment is realized; this first-best optimum can always be implemented by a progressive tax schedule. If profit taxation is restricted, unemployment may arise. For this case, we show that the welfare-maximizing degree of tax progression is influenced by a variety of factors, in particular the wage elasticity of labor demand, the distribution of bargaining power, and the existence of unemployment benefits. Examples are given for both progressive and regressive tax structures. Comparative-static analysis reveals that a decline in union bargaining power, an increase in unemployment benefits, and an increase in the overall work force reduce the efficient degree of tax progression.     

Wage,productivity and unemployment: microeconomics theory and macroeconomics data

We confront microeconomics theory with macroeconomics data. Unemployment results from two main micro-level decisions of workers and firms. Most of the efficiency wage and bargaining theories predict that over the business cycle, unemployment falls below its natural rate when the worker’s real wage exceeds the reservation wage. However, these theories have weak empirical support. Firm’s decision predicts that when the worker’s real wage exceeds the marginal product of labour (MPL), unemployment increases above its natural rate. Accounting for this microeconomic decision helps explain almost all the fluctuations of US unemployment.     

Suicide mortality,long-term unemployment,and labor-market policies: Evidence from European countries

Using data from 25 EU countries spanning the period 1999–2017, this paper examines the relationship between working-age suicides and changes in long-term unemployment and tests for mitigating effects through the implementation of labor-market policies. The estimates suggest higher suicide risks following a rising rate of long-term unemployment. Passive support policies have a suicide-decreasing impact. Among active policies, a significant suicide-decreasing effect is found for training and direct job creation. The results have important policy implications in that they suggest that strong commitment of governments to passive or to certain types of active labor-market policies can, on average, contribute to social stability and the welfare of populations.