Economic Surplus,Social Reproduction,Nurturance and Love

This paper examines the contributions of James Ronald Stanfield to social and political economy. We start the analysis with Stanfield’s contribution to institution building through his education of PhD students, building a graduate program in political economy, and through the associations of social and political economy. Then we go on to scrutinise his creative developments and applications of the notions of economic surplus and social reproduction. This is followed by his extensive work on Karl Polanyi and the disembedded economy. Finally we explore his path-breaking analysis of the great capitalist restoration, the nurturance gap and love. Stanfield was one of the greatest institutionalists and social economists of the last hundred years, and these four areas of energetic creativity are his prime achievements in the area.

     

Insider trading and stock prices

We examine the informational content of insider trades and its value to market investors using a US dataset. Overall, our results support the view that insider actions have positive predictive power for future returns. However, these results may come with some caveats. First, it is not the actions of all insiders (directors, officers and large shareholders) that have predictive power for future returns, but typically only those of directors and officers (senior management). Second, while director actions have predictive power for firm of all sizes, officers only have predictive power for small firms. The signal emanating from buys is stronger than the signal emanating from sells. Finally, the trading actions of directors, and to a lesser extent, officers have significant effects on the trading behaviour of other groups of insiders.     

The widow’s offering: Inheritance, family structure, and the charitable gifts of women

Researchers and commentators have compared men and women’s charitable giving patterns and have concluded that one sex was more generous than the other. Most research based on modern data has found women to be more philanthropic than men. In this article, I compare charitable donations of unmarried men and women in a sample of wills from 17th Century England. I find that men are more likely to make donations than women and make larger average donations. This difference in giving can be explained by differences in wealth and family structure and should not be ascribed to differences in charitable impulses.     

Stocks of information in personal consumption: a network model with non-rival borrowing and content overlap

Stocks of information that cumulate in personal consumption and other non-market contexts have unrecognized welfare implications through properties that include non-rival borrowing and relatively low obsolescence rates. Although non-rival borrowing is emergent in agent interaction, it is typically not included in agent heuristics. Properties such as non-rival borrowing are best studied in networks. Computational studies of both regular networks and small world networks indicate the clustering that these networks tend to. In spite of its cited welfare relevance to distributional inequality, clustering in small world networks has only been examined in terms of the remoteness parameter of the network. We extend a network model of the stock of information to more explicitly represent efficiency-reducing effects that clustering can have through content duplication or overlap and demonstrate the significance these effects can have in computational results. These studies also show the efficiency-increasing effects of non-rival borrowing that continue to be evidenced and the overlap reducing effects that increasing network remoteness can have.     

Socialist economic reforms and enterprise finances: Hungary, 1950–1971

Zusammenfassung Die finanziellen Aspekte der T?tigkeit sozialistischer Unternehmungen vor und nach den Wirtschaftreformen in Ungarn 1945–1969. — In dem vorliegenden Aufsatz werden diejenigen Aspekte der T?tigkeit von Unternehmungen in Ungarn diskutiert, die von finanzieller Bedeutung waren und als ein wesentlicher Bestandteil des Gesamtfinanzplans angesehen werden k?nnen. Besonderer Nachdruck wird auf die T?tigkeit des staatseigenen Sektors, haupts?chlich der Staatsunternehmungen gelegt. Die Er?rterung der Investitionsfinanzierung bildet einen wichtigen Gesichtspunkt dieser Abhandlung, die in zwei Hauptteile gegliedert ist. Teil I untersucht die wichtigsten Erfahrungen vor der Einführung der Reformen, Teil II besch?ftigt sich mit denjenigen Aspekten der Reformen, die eine wesentliche Auswirkung auf die finanziellen Transaktionen der Unternehmungen hatten.

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Resumen Los aspectos financieros de la actividad de empresas socialistas antes y después de las reformas economicas en Hungría, 1945–1969. — El autor discute aquellos aspectos financieros que pueden considerarse como parte integrante del plan financiero general. Presta especial atención a la actividad del sector público y principalmente de las empresas estatales y se interesa particularmente por la financiación de inversiones. En la primera parte se estudian las experiencias hechas antes de la implementatión de las reformas; la segunda parte está dedicada a aquellos aspectos de las reformas que tuvieron un impacto considerable sobre las transacciones financieras de las empresas.

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Résumé Les aspects financiers des opérations d’entreprises socialistes avant et après les réformes économiques en Hongrie 1945-1969. — Dans cet article, sont discutés les aspects des opérations des entreprises en Hongrie, qui furent de nature financière, et qui pouvaient être considérées comme une partie intégrale du plan financier général. On examine surtout les opérations du secteur public, et particulièrement celles des entreprises de l’Etat. La discussion du financement de l’investissement constitue un aspect important de cette étude, qui est divisée en deux parties majeures. Dans la première partie, on examine les expériences les plus importantes, faites avant l’introduction des réformes; dans la deuxième partie, on s’occupe des aspects des réformes qui eurent une influence notable sur les transactions financières des entreprises.

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Riassunto Gli aspetti finanziari dell’attività di imprese socialiste prima e dopo le riforme economiche in Ungheria, 1945–1969. — Nel presente articolo sono discussi quegli aspetti dell’attività di imprese in Ungheria che ebbero significato finanziario e che possono essere considerati una componente essenziale dell’intero piano finanziario. Speciale vigore è posto sull’attività del settore délia proprietà di Stato. L’esame del finanziamento degli investimenti forma un punto di vista importante di questo saggio che è articolato in due parti principali. La prima parte esamina le più importanti esperienze prima dell’introduzione delle riforme, la seconda parte si occupa di quegli aspetti delle riforme che ebbero una sostanziale ripercussione sulle transazioni delle imprese.

     

The missing component in the ‘greening’ of tourism: The environmental performance of the self-catering accommodation sector

The self-catering accommodation sector has witnessed substantial growth for well over 20 years due to a range of factors, including increases in second home and holiday home ownership and property investment. During this time, debate has arisen over the impact of such ‘holiday homes’ on local communities and rural economies. However, today they are also a substantial element of tourism supply in the self-catering accommodation category in many rural areas, which has largely been ignored and particularly so in the context of the ‘greening’ of tourism and environmental performance (EP) of tourism enterprises. This article aims to address this paucity of attention. First, the background to the ‘greening’ of tourism and tourism enterprises is established and the significance of this to self-catering accommodation. Subsequently, the main findings of a survey into the EP of self-catering accommodation undertaken in the Lake District National Park are discussed.     

Does Maternity Leave Induce Births?

Alleviating the tension between the conflicting responsibilities women may face as mothers and as workers is a topic of current policy interest. Expansion of guaranteed maternity leave to all employed women in the United States is suggested as one possible “family-friendly” solution. Controversy surrounding the issue of increased maternity leave centers around the potential cost to firms of widespread access to leave. One specific concern is that the availability of maternity leave will actually increase births among eligible working women. In this paper we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the impact of maternity leave on fertility. We explore two possible routes through which maternity leave may influence fertility. We first estimate the impact of desired fertility on the probability of being in a job offering maternity leave. We then estimate the impact of maternity leave and desired fertility on the probability of a birth. We find no evidence that women sort by fertility desires into firms on the basis of their maternity leave policy. We do find that the probability of a birth increases as a result of maternity leave, and that the fertility effect of maternity leave increases with birth parity.