1,721,125 research outputs found
Introduction to property theory - the fundamental theorems
Full text linkThe market system consists of a price mechanism, built on the foundation of a system of property, and contract. In many developing, and transition economies, the market system functions poorly. In many cases, if not most, the malfunctioning is not simply in the price system (for example, anti-competitive activities), but in the underlying property system (such as contracts being breached, and externalities in the sense of transfers not covered by contracts). Economic theory tends to take the functioning of the system of property, and contract for granted, and focuses on the operation of the price mechanism. Property theory focuses on the underlying system of property, and contract. In this paper, the author inaugurates the mathematical treatment of property theory.In contrast with earlier work in"law and economics", and the"new institutional economics", this approach uses principles drawn from jurisprudence, and does not attempt to reduce"law"to"economics"in the sense of efficiency considerations, such as the minimization of transaction costs. The main results are the two fundamental theorems of property theory that are analogous to the two fundamental theorems of price theory that, in essence, state that: 1) A competitive equilibrium is Pareto optimal. 2) Given a Pareto optimal state, there exists a set of prices such, that a competitive equilibrium at those prices would realize that Pareto optimal state.Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Housing and Land,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Municipal Housing and Land,Land and Real Estate Development
On Property Theory
Full text linkA theory of property needs to give an account of the whole life-cycle of a property right: how it is initiated, transferred, and terminated. Economics has focused on the transfers in the market and has almost completely neglected the question of the initiation and termination of property in normal production and consumption (not in some original state or in the transition from common to private property). The institutional mechanism for the normal initiation and termination of property is an invisible-hand function of the market, the market mechanism of appropriation. Does this mechanism satisfy an appropriate normative principle? The standard normative juridical principle is to assign or impute legal responsibility according to de facto responsibility. It is given a historical tag of being "Lockean" but the basis is contemporary jurisprudence, not historical exegesis. Then the fundamental theorem of the property mechanism is proven which shows that if "Hume's conditions" (no transfers without consent and all contracts fulfilled) are satisfied, then the market automatically satisfies the Lockean responsibility principle, i.e., "Hume implies Locke." As a major application, the results in their contrapositive form, "Not Locke implies Not Hume," are applied to a market economy based on the employment contract. It is shown the production based on the employment contract violates the Lockean principle (all who work in an employment enterprise are de facto responsible for the positive and negative results) and thus Hume's conditions must also be violated in the marketplace (de facto responsible human action cannot be transferred from one person to another—as is readily recognized when and employer and employee together commit a crime)
Voucher privatization with investment funds : an institutional analysis
Full text linkCommon wisdom among post-socialist reformers has beento use voucher investment funds to provide the corporate governance needed to restructure newly privatized enterprises after mass privatization efforts. The idea has been that mass privatization would spread the ownership too wide and make corporate governance difficult. The author examines the likely institutional behavior of voucher funds and the possible effects of their development on a transition economy. Since most policy advice has been in favor of voucher privatization with investment funds, the author can be seen as playing the devil's advocate, but his argument is institutional, not statistical. Policymaking requires insight and foresight into how institutions will tend to function. He concludes that voucher funds will introduce a bias in the economy away from the real industrial sector toward an ersatz"financial sector"that will have little if any positive financial role but will be well-protected by friendly regulators. One long-term consequence of voucher privatization with investment funds, according to this view, is a de facto"industrial policy"of real sector decapitalization in favor of short-term rent-seeking by fund managers through board sinecures and lucrative side deals with portfolio companies and through financial market manipulation and paper entrepreneurship in the"financial sector."Without strong corporate governance from the funds and without stable ownership of their own, many enterprise managers will exploit the post-socialist version of the"separation of ownership and control"to grab what they can in the form of salaries, bonuses, perquisites, and side deals. The most likely results of the strategy of voucher privatization with investment funds may be a two-sided grab fest by fund managers and enterprise managers -- together with the accompanying drift, stagnation, and decapitalization of the privatized industrial sector.Economic Adjustment and Lending,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Adjustment and Lending,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research
The indirect approach
Full text linkAid and conditionalities are the"carrots and sticks"of the conventional, direct approach to fostering economic development. The economic theory of agency is the most sophisticated treatment of the direct carrots-and-sticks approach to influencing human behavior. Considering the outcomes of the conventional approach, it might be worthwhile to explore alternative indirect approaches that focus on enabling clients to act more autonomously, rather than try for fuller control of clients'actions (or"agents"behaviors) with improved carrots and sticks. Are there inherent limitations in the direct approach that will not be addressed with better crafted"agency contracts"or closer monitoring of the agents? The author traces the intellectual history of indirect approaches from Socrates to modern thinkers, such as Wittgenstein, Gandhi, and McGregor. One theme of his survey is that constructivist and active-learning pedagogies constitute an indirect approach in which the teacher does not directly transmit knowledge to the learner, through training, and instruction. These pedagogies - translated into social and economic development as learning writ large - from the basis for an alternative indirect approach to fostering development. Actions have motives, just as beliefs have grounds, concludes the author. In the wide spectrum of human endeavor, there is only a fairly small"bandwidth"in which motives can be supplied by the carrots, and sticks of the direct approach (including agency theory, and market-driven activities as special cases of the direct approach to affecting behavior). Outside that spectrum, trying to use direct methods in a controlling manner, contradicts the motives for actions (and the grounds for beliefs) - like trying to"buy love."For higher activities, motives must come from within. Helpers can at best use an indirect approach to bring doers to the threshold; the doers have to do the rest, which makes the results their own.Public Health Promotion,Teaching and Learning,Curriculum&Instruction,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Educational Sciences,Educational Sciences,Teaching and Learning,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,General Technology,Curriculum&Instruction
Policy research on migration and development
Full text linkThis is a survey and analysis-with commentary-of migration issues and the related development policies for the sending countries."Migration and development"is considered an unsettled and unresolved area for good reason. The policy issues are surprisingly deep and run to basic issues such as the nature of development as opposed to simple poverty reduction. North-north migration (between industrial countries), south-south migration (between or within developing countries), and north-south migration (from developing to industrial countries) are all covered although the paper focuses on the north-south variety. Attention is paid to the question of the dynamic mechanism underlying migration being one of convergence or divergence. Very often the policy issues push one outside what would be narrowly considered as"migration studies."For example, policies to reduce the brain drain go directly to the issue of educational reform in developing countries while policies to increase the developmental impact of remittances quickly carry one into the nature of business development itself. Ronald Dore's ideas on educational reform are outlined as a policy approach to the brain drain problem. Jane Jacobs'ideas on development are outlined in greater length as they are little known in development economics and yet directly address the policy issues raised by migration and development.Banks&Banking Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Banks&Banking Reform,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement,Municipal Financial Management
Transforming the old into a foundation for the new - lessons of the Moldova ARIA Project
Full text linkThis paper is a case study of what is recognized as one of the more successful projects in any country in the Europe and Central Asia region, not to mention in the poorest country of the region-Moldova. The ARIA project shows new ways to attack some of the most intractable problems of private sector development in Europe and Central Asia: how to facilitate reorganization and liquidation bankruptcies; how to promote small and medium enterprise spin-offs and new start-ups; and how to promote new learning at the enterprise level, both in the form of"Marshall Plan"programs with more advanced post-socialist countries, as well as continuous improvement programs (such as those adapted from Japanese programs). The prime mover for these programs is the quasi-public restructuring agency, ARIA, which was established as part of the Moldova Private Sector Development I loan. ARIA was structured to try to combine private sector entrepreneurship with a public function in the process of restructuring and bankruptcy. The study tries to account for the strategies and innovations that lead to results. And it tries to connect the ARIA strategy to past development literature by viewing the study through Albert Hirschman's work on social learning and change.Enterprise Development&Reform,Public Health Promotion,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Small Scale Enterprise,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Banks&Banking Reform,Small Scale Enterprise,Microfinance,Private Participation in Infrastructure
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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