Marxism,Crypto-Marxism and the Political Economy of Capitalism

ABSTRACT

This article conducts groundwork for a discussion of Marx’s influence through examining the boundaries of the specifically Marxian school of economics. This Marxian school extends well beyond the bounds of the self-identified Marxian school. Marx’s influence, Marxian themes and effectively Marxian theory can be found in several important heterodox traditions of economics, though this is often unacknowledged. A consideration of the proper boundaries of the Marxian school of economics is essential for a full understanding of Marx’s legacy and could contribute to the emergence of a more unified heterodoxy in economics.     

Tipping the (Im)balance: Capital inflows,financial market structure,and banking crises

An emerging consensus among scholars and policy‐makers identifies foreign capital inflows as one of the primary determinants of banking crises in developed countries. We challenge this view by arguing that external imbalances are destabilizing only when banks face substantial competition from securities markets in the process of financial intermediation. We assemble a dataset of banking crises covering the advanced industrialized countries from 1976 to 2011 and find evidence of a conditional relationship between capital inflows, a well‐developed securities market, and the incidence of banking crises. We further explore the impact of capital inflows on banks’ actual risk taking as indicated by their capital adequacy levels and measures of insolvency risk. Our results demonstrate that prudential capital cushions tend to decline with the combination of capital inflows and prominent securities markets. We highlight the political decisions—often made during the early days of a country's financial development—that determine the relative prominence of banks vs. non‐bank financial institutions and conclude with policy recommendations.     

Examining the effect of IMF conditionality on natural resource policy

Can International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending improve natural resource governance in borrowing countries? While most IMF agreements mandate policy reforms in exchange for financial support, compliance with these reforms is mixed at best. The natural resource sector should be no exception. After all, resource windfalls enable short-term increases in discretionary spending, and office-seeking politicians are often unwilling to forgo this discretion by reforming the oil, gas, or mining sector. I investigate how and when borrowers go against their political interests and establish natural resource funds—a tool often promoted by the IMF—in the wake of a loan agreement. Using text analysis, statistical models, and qualitative evidence from natural resource policy and IMF conditionality for 74 countries between 1980 and 2019, I show that borrowers under an IMF agreement are more likely to create or regulate a resource fund, particularly if the agreement includes binding conditions that highlight the salience of natural resource reforms. This study contributes to extant research by proposing a new method to extract information from IMF conditions, by introducing a novel dataset on country-level natural resource policy, and by identifying under what circumstances international reform efforts can help combat the resource curse.     

The political economy of participation in IMF programs: a disaggregated empirical analysis

What factors determine whether or not countries have programs with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? The existing literature suggests that a number of economic and political variables are important, but there is disagreement about their relative significance. Moreover, the fit of general participation models is not particularly good. An increasingly popular view in the recent literature is that the pattern of IMF lending is politically driven and that it reflects the interests of the Fund’s leading shareholders; the US is seen as exerting a powerful influence. Using both quantitative and qualitative techniques, and based on an informal analytical framework, we examine in detail the factors that may be at work. We cover the period from 1984 to 2008. We discover considerable variation across the nature of programs (concessional and non-concessional), income levels, geographic regions, and time periods. The degree of observed variation means that it is unsafe to use one general participation model as the basis for evaluating the effects of IMF programs. It also means that the design of policy needs to reflect the nuances that the data reveal.     

"虚拟资本主义"时代世界经济格局决定因素辨析

决定当今世界经济格局的仍然是以先进技术为核心的综合经济实力,而非虚拟资本霸权;美国的虚拟资本霸权地位是建立在第三次科技革命所保持的强大综合经济实力基础上的;正像老牌资本主义国家英国,随着经济实力的削弱,伦敦的世界金融中心地位下降.应正确理解邓小平提出的金融核心论,明确金融不是目的,而是服务于实体经济发展的核心手段.     

Protecting Property: The Politics of Redistribution,Expropriation, and Market Openness

This paper develops a formal model to disentangle the competing political incentives for redistribution, expropriation, and market openness. Although redistribution and expropriation are both types of government extraction, redistribution re‐allocates wealth within the citizenry, while expropriation re‐allocates wealth from citizens to the government. Representative political institutions increase redistribution and reduce expropriation. Market openness changes these incentives, as foreign investors prefer reductions in both redistribution and expropriation. When political institutions are representative, the government will rely more on reducing expropriation, rather than limiting redistribution, to attract foreign investment. Under representative institutions then, openness partially reinforces the preferences of voters rather than undermining them. In addition, market liberalization occurs only when the policy changes needed to attract foreign investment are relatively small. If existing policies are satisfactory to foreign investors, moves toward openness may be accompanied by greater redistribution and expropriation, as governments are tempted by a larger base for extraction. Thus, openness has ambiguous effects on economic policy, at times encouraging and at times constraining extraction.     

The Universal Capitalism Movement in the United States

Ideas on how to make the fruits of capitalism more braodly enjoyed are not new. A rich body of thought exists advocating a redefinition of socioeconomic mechanisms to this end within the context of private property. This article traces the evolution of this thinking within the United States from before the American Revolution to the present. The culmination of this intellectual tradition is the universal stock ownership plan (USOP). The means of, and prospects for, experimenting with such an initiative are discussed.     

The Political Economy of Brexit and the Future of British Capitalism First Symposium

The political economy of Brexit generates new challenges for the UK’s national business model and for European capitalism more broadly. Two symposia examine the implications of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU in key economic policy areas. These symposia contribute to two main bodies of academic literature: the political economy literature on varieties of capitalism, with a specific focus on the UK, and the political economy literature on key economic policy areas of the EU. This short introduction to the first symposium first outlines the key features of the British variety of capitalism and highlight the main questions raised by Brexit in that respect. It then summarises the main findings of the papers of the first symposium and tease out some common themes.     

Salvation by good works? Offshoring,corporate philanthropy,and public attitudes toward trade policy

American consumers are routinely reminded of the fact that the products sold by American companies are often manufactured abroad. We use a survey‐based priming experiment to explore whether and when those reminders depress Americans’ enthusiasm for free trade. We consider in particular that offshoring's effects on policy preferences may be linked to negative perceptions of the offshoring firm, such that portraying the offshoring firm in a positive light might mitigate that effect. We also consider that offshoring's effect may be exaggerated among individuals whose position in the labor market makes them especially sensitive to trade‐related labor market disruption. Our experiment suggests support for both propositions.     

国际贸易和国际直接投资一体化的理论基础探析

传统的新古典国际贸易理论否定国际直接投资的存在空间,但经济全球化的迅速发展现实则表明国际贸易和国际直接投资是相互促进发展的。本文回顾了国际贸易和国际直接投资理论融合的历史和现状,着重分析了内在规模经济（内在比较优势）的理论渊源,探讨了贸易投资一体化的理论基础是基于内在规模经济的国际分工。     

Remittances and incumbency: Theory and evidence

By raising household income, remittances lower the marginal utility of targeted electoral transfers, thus weakening the efficacy of vote buying. Yet, remittances make individuals wealthier and believe the national economy is performing well, which is positively attributed to the incumbent. Building on these insights, I show that the confluence of these divergent channels generate a surprising result that at increasingly higher levels of dissatisfaction with the incumbent, a remittance recipient is more likely to vote for the incumbent than a non‐remittance recipient. These predictions and their underlying mechanisms are substantiated across 18 Latin American countries.     

自由经济与国际分工：剖析全球城市个案

经济全球化的相关进程促使世界各个大城市生化联结而成一个相对有机的体系,令城市产生新的经济活动特征和产业结构调整,并使城市的中枢地位与影响力变得更突出。＂全球城市＂的衍生是全球经济发展与全球化进程深化的结果。全球城市既是国际经济全球化的空间依托、区域经济集团的支撑点、各类＂经济圈＂的核心,也是国家实现与国外经济联系的桥梁和基地,故此对＂全球城市＂的形成及其发展进行研究便具有积极意义,也将对＂全球化＂现象具体作用于经济实体的过程提供一个独特的诠释视角。据此,尝试检视＂全球城市＂这一概念框架,继之指出香港正是全球化时代中的一个全球城市,并进而剖析香港城市衍生为＂全球城市＂的背后动力因素。     

当代中国马克思主义政治经济学新境界——学习习近平中国特色社会主义政治经济学

习近平中国特色社会主义政治经济学思想是开拓当代中国马克思主义政治经济学新境界的理论结晶,回答中国特色社会主义经济发展的时代之问,构建出中国特色社会主义政治经济学的学说体系,并把其理论、方法运用于指导中国特色社会主义现代化发展的伟大实践,是历史逻辑、理论逻辑、实践逻辑的统一,是源于实践又回到实践的科学创造.     

当今国际劳工迁移现状、特点和政策趋向

国际劳工迁移是国际政治经济和人口发展不平衡的结果，由于劳动力的相对短缺，许多发达国家和发展中国家都积极从国外引进本国所需要的劳动力。本文在对主要地区和国家的国际劳工迁移的现状分析后，发现当今国际劳工迁移呈现出众多特点。为避免国际劳工迁移给本国社会经济带来负面影响，一些国家对国际移民政策进行了调整，并采取了一些行之有效的对策和措施：大力开发国内劳动力市场，积极采用新技术，将劳动密集性产业和低附加值的产品布置在劳动力资源丰富的邻国，大力引进高技术人才等。     

The democratic (dis)advantage: The conditional impact of democracy on credit risk and sovereign default

Many have argued that democracies are able to make credible commitments to repay their debts and consequently enjoy higher sovereign credit ratings. In contrast to this expectation, I argue that the advantage of democracies in credit ratings is conditional on the countries' level of financial vulnerability and adjustment needs. Because democracies have more diffuse decision-making and are more accountable to the public, they encounter greater difficulty than autocracies in passing unpopular economic adjustment measures. Thus, I argue that democracies with high debt levels and low foreign reserve assets experience worse credit outcomes, whereas democracies with low vulnerability experience more positive outcomes. In a sample of up to 96 developing countries, I show that democracies have worse credit ratings and CDS Spreads and are more likely to default than their autocratic counterparts when foreign reserves are low relative to external debt. Notably, I also show that large debt burdens increase credit risk mainly in more democratic countries. I further test the causal pathway of the democratic advantage by constructing democracy scores of “market-friendly” and “adjustment-difficulty” democracy, finding that democracy worsens debt outcomes due to adjustment difficulty. These findings help to revise and clarify the causal logic surrounding the democratic advantage hypothesis.     

Trade liberalization and political support in transition economies

Most transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe have rather surprisingly resisted protectionist pressures-at least during early stages of reform-and pursued fairly liberal trade policies. In this paper, trade policy during transition is explained from a political economy perspective. It is shown that pursuing liberal trade policies can be a rational strategy of reform politicians, maximizing the probability of electoral success.     

中国多种经济成份并存中的国家资本主义

本对中国目前各种经济成份中的国家资本主义进行了全方位、多视角的分析与探讨。     

From endogenous growth to stationary state: The world economy in the mathematical formulation of the Ricardian system

We analyse international trade in a Pasinetti–Ricardo growth model in the world economy scenario in which several small trading countries coexist and international commodity prices are determined by the interplay of supply and demand amongst them. We demonstrate that all the trading countries eventually reach the stationary state, though this process is not monotonic and the dynamics of capital and population may actually push some countries towards the stationary state and others away from it. We also use our model to assess an argument which Malthus employed in the second edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population (1803) to support a policy of agricultural protectionism.