The Vested Interests and the Evolving Moral Economy of the Common People

The British historian Edward P. Thompson ([1971, 1991] 1993 Thompson, Edward P. “The Moral Economy Reviewed.” In Customs in Common, by Edward P. Thompson, pp. 259-351. New York, NY: Penguin Books, [1991] 1993. [Google Scholar]) developed the concept of “moral economy” to analyze the food riot in eighteenthcentury England. I aim to elaborate on the concept of moral economy of the common people by combining Thompson’s insights with those developed by Veblenian institutional economists. I highlight the commonalities between Thompsonian history and Veblenian economics in terms of both questions addressed and methodological principles endorsed. Finally, I emphasize the complementarities between these two bodies of work, and suggest some ways to exploit them in order to better understand the evolution of the moral economy of the common people over time.     

Countering the Power of Vested Interests: Advancing Rationality in Public Decision-Making

Seemingly Pareto-improving reforms face more opposition than they should. In earlier work, I presented an explanation: voters correctly saw reforms as part of a long-term dynamic game, and they correctly saw how the reform affected outcomes (e.g., by affecting beliefs or coalition formation). Recent advances in behavioral economics derived from insights from sociology emphasize preference endogeneity, noting that beliefs are affected by those of others with whom one identifies and need not be consistent with rationality, as conventionally defined. Thus, individuals may have beliefs about the economic system that differ from those of economists. People may support policies which economists’ analyses suggest are contrary to their interests because they believe these policies advance their interests. Based on previous analyses of the causes of these seeming perversities, I show how economists can modify policy proposals in ways that enhance likelihood of support, e.g., with contingent provisions which are operative in the states of the world that economists know (believe) are unlikely to occur, but which enhance the wellbeing of individuals with such beliefs in those states. Those selling products that are adverse to one’s health have learned how to persuade customers to buy them. Likewise, politicians who are selling policies that are adverse to society’s wellbeing have learned how to market their ideas. Economists will similarly have to learn how to persuade citizens of the desirability of the evidence- and theory-based policies that they advocate.     

Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform,Rent Management and Political Fragmentation in Developing Countries

Over the last decade, pressure to reduce subsidies for energy (especially fossil fuels) in developing countries has mounted, but reform is politically controversial. The debate on reform is dominated by a liberal narrative that employs an understanding of energy subsidies as political rent, based on public choice theory. Here, it is argued that this approach takes too static and limited a view of rent, and that engagement with theories of the state in the development process suggests a more dynamic view. The degree of centralisation of political power is also argued to be a key factor in the use and reform of subsidy. This application of the framework is then illustrated in the case of Indonesia. Finally, implications for reform strategies are drawn out.     

The Post-Apartheid Development Debacle in South Africa: How Mainstream Economics and the Vested Interests Preserved Apartheid Economic Structures

Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) were persuaded by mainstream economists and South African businesses to pursue neoliberal policies. The ANC implemented policies that made South Africa more open to international trade and financial flows along with privatization and austerity, other than a modest increase in social expenditures. After twenty-three years of such policies, we can judge their effectiveness. Unfortunately, neoliberalism worsened the inequality created under apartheid and failed to stimulate significant growth and development. This article documents the extent to which the maintenance of key apartheid-era institutions, under the guise of “market friendly policies,” undermined the prospects for long-term economic and human development in South Africa. This post-apartheid development debacle should go down in history as one of the great failures of mainstream economics and its neoliberal policy recommendations. Breaking the cycle of uneven development in South Africa will require fundamental changes in institutions, including changes in democracy, ownership structures, and the very nature of the economic system. This article offers some ideas for how an adjusted institutional structure might reconfigure the social provisioning process in South Africa to address racial divisions and lingering inequality.     

Public Policy,Vested Interest,and Common People in Brazil in the Twenty-First Century

We offer an original institutional approach to analyzing policies meant to regulate the actions of common people in the Brazilian state agenda in recent years. We also address the reactions of vested interests against this agenda. Such vested interests rely on corporations’ ceremonial encapsulation of state policies — policies that were established during the decades when Brazil’s industrialization process took place. Brazilian policies for the common people, however, are a twenty-first-century phenomenon.     

From Mass Flourishing to Vested Interests: A Conceptual Model for the Evolution of Organizational Institutions

Human flourishing requires the ability to operate from intrinsic motivation. The extent to which that can happen depends largely on how one’s surrounding institutions support a sense of autonomy, connectedness, and competence. I argue that the systematical prevalence of such conditions within an institution requires experiencing (i) exploration of the new in the emergence of the institution, and/or (ii) positive impact of its work on beneficiaries. The former is associated with the early phases of organizational evolution. The latter could be the source of flourishing in more established institutions, but hierarchies of power typically block it. Those with power are distanced from experiencing the impact of the institution on beneficiaries, structurally leading to priming through extrinsic motivations and vested interests. This leads to the need to further control those on the frontline who could experience the impact, which inhibits flourishing on their part as well.     

The Nature of the State and the State of Nature: a Comment on Grady & McGuire's Paper

In 'The Nature of Constitutions', Mark Grady & Michael McGuire provide a model of the evolution and purposes of constitutions as arising to minimize appropriation by dominants of subordinates. This Comment builds on Grady & McGuire's article in three ways. First, it supplements their analysis by operationalizing a model of constitutional evolution that views constitutions as arising out of the conflict of competing high-ranking individuals to preserve their own authority. From this clash of self-interest of dominant individuals, constitutions are born. This predicts that constitutions will not simply tame all forms of appropriation, but will also hard-wire some forms of appropriation behavior into the permanent constitutional structure. Second, it examines the American constitution in light of this model to show how that constitution reflects the mixture of appropriation and appropriation-taming behavior. Third, this Comment argues that the breakdown of constitutionalism in the United States this century can be explained by a failure to fully appreciate the purposes of constitutionalism in a biological framework.     

Evolution of the Corporation in the United States: Stabilized Scarcity and Vested Interests

The widening of markets beginning in the late nineteenth century in the United States involved changes in the financial and legal institutions supporting production for large-scale markets. The evolution of the corporation under these circumstances reflects the role of the legal system in formulation of formal rules which favor vested interests. As Thorstein Veblen said, “A constitutional government is a business government.”

This article examines the co-evolution of the legal system and the economic system as they relate to the merger movement at the turn of the twentieth century, the increased use of the corporate form, and the emphasis on pecuniary values over production to secure stabilized scarcity in the midst of cutthroat competition and deflation. The resultant financialization of the economy which continues today was reinforced by such legal rules as the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of property, including intangible property, and the Rule of Reason accommodating some instances of monopolization. These stabilization policies have secured the rentiers’ return at the cost of the long term health of the national economy. John R. Commons’ observations on artificial selection and the use of law to make capitalism better offer a solution through laws regulating the detrimental aspects of financialization.     

Globalization and Income Gap from the Perspective of Developing Countries

Using political economic theory, this paper analyzes the impact of economic globalization on international income distribution, including the income gap between developed countries and developing ones, the income gap among the developing countries. The paper states that because the economic globalization is the globalization of capitalism manufacture style and developed countries dominates the process, the income gap between developing countries and developed one is difficult to be narrowed, and the income gap in developing countries will enlarge.     

Endogenous Entry and Exit in Common Value Auctions

We develop and experimentally test a model of endogenous entry, exit, and bidding in common value auctions. The model and experimental design include an alternative profitable activity (a safe haven) that provides agentspecific opportunity costs of bidding in the auction. Each agent chooses whether to accept the safe haven income or forgo it in order to bid in the auction. Agents that enter the auction receive independently-drawn private signals that provide unbiased estimates of the common value. The auctioned item is allocated to the high bidder at a price that is equal to the high bid. Thus the market is a first-price sealed-bid common value auction with endogenous determination of market size.     

Growth and conflict in the developing world: Neo-liberal narratives and social-economy alternatives

The last quarter of the 20th century saw an increase in violent conflicts across the globe. With connections between growth, poverty and conflict increasingly difficult to ignore, research has begun examining economic dimensions of conflict. This paper reviews and critiques this new research, much of it conducted by the World Bank. The research argues that war results from poverty, and poverty from misguided economic policies, so that reducing conflict requires redoubling efforts to promote growth via neo-liberal reforms. I criticize the conceptual underpinnings of this argument, including its overemphasis on individual incentives and its claim that social and economic injustices do not contribute to violent conflicts. Instead I argue that social economics provides valuable alternative perspectives on conflict that take seriously its social dimensions, especially problems of economic justice and the common good.     

Emerging Consensus on Labour Market Institutions and Implications for Developing Countries: From the Debates in India

Abstract

This paper makes a critical intervention to on-going theoretical and policy debates in the economic analysis of labour market institutions (LMIs) in the context of recent debates in India. It focuses on the internal inconsistency of mainstream economic analyses of LMIs, in particular those based on the new institutional economics (NIE) approach, and what appears to be an emerging policy consensus on LMIs within the World Bank and the International Labour Organization (ILO). The paper draws out the possible ideological parallels in these two developments, despite different intellectual origins and intentions of those engaged in these debates. A corresponding modification in policy debates in India is observed in the shifting perspectives from the Second National Commission on Labour (SNCL) to the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS). The apparent emerging consensus in both the theoretical literature and policy debates reveals the tendency for researchers to focus on labour market outcomes and phenomenal forms of LMIs rather than the structures, processes, agencies and relations that underpin them. While this can be seen as an advancement from the traditional distortionist-institutionalist dichotomy, the tendency of this consensus to explain the persistence of seemingly inefficient institutions within the micro-level choice theoretic framework and its appeal to policy agendas on good governance, social capital, trust and civil society, render it vulnerable to appropriation by the mainstream. The paper argues that the emerging consensus on LMIs is an inadequate framework to inform effective policy propositions, and highlights the scope and opportunity for a political economy alternative.     

解读演化经济学的兴起——兼论演化经济学的现状与未来发展

演化经济学的兴起主要有三个原因:西方主流经济学的范式危机;自然科学的发展;社会科学领域演化思想的积累与发展.演化经济学最近的前沿研究集中于进行演化建模,对复杂性进行测量,讨论技术与制度的协同演化等几个方面.拓展对多时期动态过程的研究,将演化经济学与制度经济学、马克思主义经济学、博弈理论等进行创造性综合,更多关注学科语言的凝炼和理论建模工作是演化经济学的未来发展方向.     

文化价值与冲突管理模式：四国一地跨文化对比

通过对四国一地（美国、阿曼、土耳其、中国、中国澳门）5个不同文化集团成员核心文化价值体系和冲突管理策略的调查，本研究发现了文化价值与冲突管理策略之间的基本关系趋势。研究结果显示，集体主义在中国大陆样本中发生了一定程度的弱化现象。对冲突管理策略的分析，虽然得出了几个不能得到合理解释的混合结果，但文化价值与冲突管理策略之间的基本关系仍然没有发生质的变化。本研究为完善跨文化冲突管理理论提供了新的视角，同时也为我国跨文化交际研究提供了方法上的借鉴。     

战略贸易政策新进展与发展中国家贸易政策

通过对战略贸易政策在贸易的政治经济学、不确定性、不完全承诺和不完全信息等四个方面的新进展进行讨论,得出结论:新贸易理论的新进展使得脱胎于发达国家的战略贸易政策更加接近发展中国家市场经常失灵的现实,从而对发展中国家的贸易政策有重要的指导意义。     

后发优势：发展中国家对外直接投资新诠释

发展中国家对外直接投资时主要有两种优势可以利用，一是比较优势，另一种是后发优势。目前，学术界大多重视比较优势的作用，而对后发优势的理论研究及其实践价值缺乏深入地探讨。因此，将后发优势理论应用于对发展中国家对外直接投资问题的分析，把后发优势作为发展中国家对外直接投资的一种理论解说，可以在相当程度上弥补以比较优势为核心的西方国际直接投资理论的不足，从而指导发展中国家对外直接投资的发展。     

Privatizing Monopolies in Developing Countries: The Real Effects of Exclusivity Periods in Telecommunications

Many developing countries have given newly privatized incumbent network utilities, especially telecommunications, exclusive rights to serve particular markets. Research to date has explored privatization, competition, and to a lesser extent, regulation. We know little, however, about the effects of the privatization transactions themselves and, in particular, how these exclusivity periods matter. I use original data to investigate this approach to privatization. I find that exclusivity periods are associated with significant increases in the firms sale price. Exclusivity periods are also, however, correlated with a significant decrease in the incumbents investment in the telecommunications network, payphones, mobile telephone penetration, and international calling.JEL Classification: L1, L5, L96, O12I am grateful for the thoughtful comments and suggestions of Luke Haggarty, Tom Hazlett, Phil Keefer, Roger Noll, Russ Pittman, Greg Rosston, David Sappington, Mary Shirley, Lixin Colin Xu, and two anonymous referees. I thank Troy Kravitz for research assistance. I am solely responsible for all mistakes.     

Telecommunications Investment and Traffic in Developing Countries: The Effects of International Settlement Rate Reforms

In 1997 the FCC ordered sharp decreases in international settlement rates (bilaterally negotiated telecommunication rates) between the U.S. and other countries. Developing countries, which received about $35 billion in net settlement payments from U.S. carriers between 1985 and 1998, claim that payments finance telecom investment and that reduced rates, and therefore payments, will harm investment. Using a panel dataset of 179 countries from 1985–1998, I find settlement rates negatively correlated with international telecom traffic, suggesting that reduced rates will stimulate traffic. I also find no evidence that payments finance investment as measured by telephone penetration and telecommunications equipment imports.     

Sharing Common Resources in Patriarchal and Status-Based Societies: Evidence from Tanzania

ABSTRACT

In rural African societies, socioeconomic differentiation linked to gender and social status exerts an important influence on the distribution of common-pool resources. Through a behavioral experiment conducted in 2008 in rural Tanzania, this contribution examines the influence of gender and social status on distribution behavior of users of self-governed common watersheds. It finds that men and women with low social status distribute water equally when water is abundant but keep larger shares when water is scarce, although low-status women try to be as fair as possible at the expense of their returns from irrigated agriculture. Men of high social status keep more than half of the available water for themselves, both in abundance and scarcity, and deprive others from sizeable returns from irrigated agriculture. Women of high social status share altruistically when water is abundant and equally when water is scarce, giving up on returns from irrigated agriculture.     

发展中国家绿色贸易壁垒的特点与发展趋势及对我国的启示

随着国际贸易的发展,绿色贸易壁垒越来越成为国际贸易中的重大障碍.发展中国家的绿色贸易壁垒在产生中存在很强的被动性,绿色贸易壁垒的法律体系和程序不健全且缺乏必要的透明度,在实施绿色贸易壁垒的过程中协调性也差.应当促使发展中国家广泛参与国际合作,完善自己的绿色贸易壁垒,缩小与发达国家差距的趋势.同时借鉴它们的经验,完善我国的绿色贸易壁垒体系,积极应对国外的绿色贸易壁垒挑战.