Property and Economic Power as Issues in Institutional Economics

In the first part of this two-part paper, I presented an "irenic" reconciliation of the three apparently contradictory definitions of "institution" within original institutional economics (OIE), employing the methodology of critical institutionalism. The critical institutionalist reconciliation of these definitions conceptualizes institutions as an emergent process by which the internal and necessary relations of social structure as collective action, mediated through agency, results in the control, expansion, and liberation of the individual action of social actors in transactions. In short, an institution is the emergent process of social structure actualized in transactions (social action). Institutions, therefore, not only have a structural existence, but also an actual existence as they are the process of the emergence of the actual (in transactions) from the structural. Institutions are multi-level processes and cannot be reduced to structures, actions, behaviors, or patterns of behaviors. In this part, I demonstrate the significance of this reconciliation in two areas. The first is its ability to further differentiate the institutional definition of economics as "the science of social provisioning" from the mainstream definition of economics as "a relationship between ends and scarce means" by decomposing the institutional definition into its productive and distributive processes. The second is its usefulness in modeling the interaction of non-economic social institutions with economic institutions at varying levels of detail. I also introduce critical institutional analysis, and use as a method, for model-building and use it to build models of communal, feudal, and industrial capitalist economies.     

Dilemmas of Social Reform (Poverty and Community Action in the United States)

During the last thirty years, one of the most remarkable trends in Western Europe and North America has been the increase in women’s labor force participation rates. However, there has been considerable variation among countries; rates in Southern European countries are markedly lower than in other regions. Standard welfare state regime typology is unable to explain this outcome. This paper tackles the issue by examining the institutional determinants of employment decisions in Spain. Family policies and tax policies greatly influence the labor force participation of women by either promoting or discouraging the employment of mothers. However, these policies do not affect women in the same way. Of particular importance is whether women can claim benefits on the basis of their citizenship, or whether their status as wives or mothers is the link to benefits. By pursuing this line of analysis, the paper explains the low female labor force participation in Spain, providing an important contribution to the welfare state regime literature.     

Foundations of an Institutional Theory of Regulation

Although the work of Clarence Ayres is held in high regard within the tradition of American Institutionalism, it has made little impact upon the study of technology more generally. Moreover, even within the Institutionalist tradition, his work is seen to embody a tension - on the one hand his dichotomy between technology and institutions is too strict, but to the extent that it is "softened," his main contributions are undermined. This paper argues that Ayres' work does have something to contribute to current technology debates, but that this contribution cannot be made if his conception is "softened" in the way that recent contributions suggest.     

The Emptiness of Peasant “Rationality”: “Demirationality” as an Alternative

This article discusses consumption as a social process that is part of social provisioning and is in an evolutionary interplay with other social processes. The analysis provides grounds for a context-specific research that explores consumption in the context of a culture-nature life process, and draws on material from various disciplines. The article seeks to contribute to the literature on social provisioning as an organizing concept in heterodox economics. The first section explains what is meant by social process and delineates its elements. The second section formulates a categorization of social processes, and locates a consumption process within a system of culture-nature life processes. The rest of the article delineates the elements of the consumption process, providing illustrations based on literature from various disciplines. Specifically, the third section discusses consumption activities. The fourth section discusses institutions and systems of provision of goods and services. The fifth section applies the concept of habits of life and thought to the consumption process. Finally, the article concludes that the formulated analysis transcends dualisms such as social-economic, cultural-material, society-nature, and micro-macro, and draws implications for heterodox economics.     

The Future Be Damned: Economists’ Optimism and Nuclear Proliferation

Lower income households make much heavier use of costly financial services, such as payday loans, check cashing services, auto title loans, and many more. These services are crafted for, targeted to, and distributed through outlets in lower income neighborhoods. In other words, there are extensive provisioning systems designed specifically to deliver such products and services to these households. Such marketing aimed at lower income groups reduces both their wealth and welfare relative to upper and upper middle groups.     

The Information Society: Implications for Economic Institutions and Market Theory

The extraordinary growth and reduction in inequalities achieved between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s by the High Performing Asian Economies (HPAEs) — namely Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan (collectively called "the four tigers"), Japan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand — has been discussed at great length in the economic literature. However, no clear explanation has been suggested for the poor performance of other Asian economies, like India, which share the HPAEs geographical proximity and similar economic structures. This paper shows that the stark contrast between the high growth rates and declining income inequalities of HPAEs on one side, and low growth rates and stable (or rising) income inequalities of India and other Asian countries on the other side, may at least in part be explained by the different role that human capital has played in those economies between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s.     

An Illustration of the Bias of OLS for Yt = λY t-1 + U t

Using longitudinal data on undergraduates from 463 American colleges and universities from 1994–99, the authors examine how majoring in economics affects student opinions on 13 social, political, and economic issues. Economics majors were found to begin and end their college tenure with differing opinions on several issues when compared to other majors, and studying economics was found to be related to changes in several opinions. On the whole, studying economics appeared to increase beliefs in favor of personal freedom and decrease support for government intervention in markets. However, the authors find little evidence that economics majors leave college more united on their opinions when compared to the general student population.     

我国的政府教育支出与经济增长——基于1980—2011年的数据分析

对于政府教育支出与经济增长的关系实证研究并没有确定的结论。本文利用我国1980-2011年的时间序列数据分析了政府教育支出对经济增长的影响。实证研究表明,无论是在长期还是短期内政府教育支出都对经济增长具有正的显著的影响,即我国的政府教育支出能够促进经济增长。 Granger因果检验表明,我国的政府教育支出与经济增长之间存在双向因果关系。另外,长期中政府教育支出对经济增长的影响效果大于短期。这说明政府教育支出对经济增长的影响是个长期的累积过程,因而教育投入不应该是一种短期行为。目前我国政府的教育支出仍处于相对较低的水平,具有较大的提升空间,从而具有推动经济增长的巨大潜力。因此,为保持经济的持续增长,在近期和长期内不断加大政府对教育的投入、优化教育资源的配置应是一项极其重要的教育政策。     

Journal Articles of Interest from Other Disciplines

The authors describe the present state of economic education in Japan. There is a larger number of undergraduate students who major in economics, but their purpose of studying economics and their economic literacy differ. Precollege economic education is regulated by the course of study and limited by the poor ability of teachers to teach the economics content.     

Social economy and employment – the case of Sweden

Recent research has shown growing shares of employment in the social economy (or non-profit sector) both in the European Union and in the United States. In the EU, there seems to be growing hopes that the social economy will be capable of contributing to local progress on the unemployment issue in crisis regions. This paper analyses employment in certain entrepreneurial forms, usually considered belonging to the social economy, in Sweden during the 1990s. The results show considerable regional differences of employment in the social economy, but also that its share of the labor market is very limited. The effect of social-economic organizations on employment, therefore, is probably mainly indirect in as much as they function as platforms for cooperation between firms or else as embryos for enterprises by strengthening local entrepreneurship and helping to nurture a deposit of social capital which has visible effects on private business and jobs. However, these effects need more detailed examinations.