Power,Intergroup Conflicts and Social Stratification in the United States: What has the Global Crisis Taught us?

Abstract

Drawing on early sociological analyses of how power and intergroup conflicts can affect the development of modern economies, this paper investigates how the recent Global Crisis (GC) has affected the stratification of the US society. The paper argues that the consumerist society has reinforced the historical stratification of social identities with white men in high-paid, high-social status managerial and financial occupations at the top, and black women in low-paid, low-status service occupations at the bottom. This paper calls for a deconstruction of the neoliberal individual into a unique combination of identities in a stratified capitalist society in order to reveal how social stratification has evolved during the GC. The paper finally concludes on the importance of heterogeneous identities in reflecting the diversity of societal and economic interests in order to address the issues of financial stability and sustainability at the corporate and societal levels.     

Wall Street and Main Street: the macroeconomic consequences of New York bank suspensions, 1866–1914

Before the formation of the Federal Reserve, banking panics were routine events in the United States. During the most severe episodes, banks in cities across the country would often suspend or restrict the par convertibility of their demand deposit liabilities. In diagnosing the causes of the Great Depression, Friedman and Schwartz famously regard these local initiatives as a second best solution, which in the absence of an effective lender of last resort would have prevented the rash of bank failures during the early 1930s and their dire monetary and real impacts. Recent research in macroeconomics though has raised the possibility that banks’ suspension of payments might also have negative real effects albeit through changes in aggregate supply such as the financing of working capital. We would expect to observe these negative shocks during the pre-Fed era, because the decentralized, private interbank payments network was especially vulnerable to systemic disruptions such as suspensions by New York and other money center banks. Reports in national trade periodicals and local newspapers during suspension periods offer many accounts of factories closing because of the inability to obtain currency for weekly payrolls and “domestic exchange” to finance internal trade. We corroborate these observations with more systematic econometric evidence at the national and regional levels. Our results show that controlling for the overall contraction and bank failures, suspension periods were associated with a statistically significant and quantitatively large decline in real activity, on the order of 10–20 %.     

来博弈吧!

正经济学家长久以来一直在用博弈论理解世界。如今,工程师和计算机科学家也正在用这个理论重新构思他们的工作。你和一同犯下重大抢劫案的同伙都被警察抓获了,并且被关进不同的房间进行审问。如果你们两个都对犯罪保持沉默,就会被以较轻的罪名判处一年徒刑。如果你们两个都坦白交代,就都会坐5年牢。但是,如果你     

Explaining UK wage inequality in the past globalisation period, 1880–1913

The current era of globalisation has witnessed a rising premium paid to skilled workers resulting in increasing wage inequality in most OECD countries. This pattern differs from that observed during the past globalisation period (1880–1913), in which wage inequality decreased in most of the Old World countries. The present debate over wage inequality focuses on the implications of globalisation, technological change, the role of labour market institutions and education. Similar factors were at work in the past globalisation process. In order to disentangle the main factors that contribute to wage inequality, we calibrate a general equilibrium model for the UK economy in the past globalisation period. The results show that a trade shock and a skilled-biased technology shock increased wage inequality. However, education and emigration had a more significant impact and led to a decrease in wage inequality.