18,382 research outputs found
ADAM SMITH'S OPTIMISTIC TELEOLOGICAL VIEW OF HISTORY
No full textAdam Smith's four-stage theory provides the framework for his writings on history. The fourth stage is the commercial epoch; the culmination of history in this stage is a key component in the conventional interpretation of Adam Smith as a prophet of commercialism. In two historical case studies Smith shows the capacity of commercial society to regenerate itself. This potent capacity suggests that commercial society is inevitable. At a certain point in time it also overcomes the major obstacles to its permanence. Smith's philosophy of history anticipates the end of history views of Kant and Hegel.Political Economy,
How Might Adam Smith Pay Professors Today?
No full textAdam Smith’s proposal for paying professors was intended to induce increased faculty knowledge. If students have imperfect information about what they learn, and universities can only imperfectly measure the input of faculty time in student learning, publications may be used to measure faculty knowledge. If professors’ ability to publish is positively related to their ability to produce student learning, which universities can imperfectly measure, publications may be necessary to attract more able professors. Since research signals faculty knowledge, schools that do not value publications per se could require higher publication standards and pay higher wages than schools that value only publications.
Firm Policy in a Multipartite Economy: Sources of Strategic Investment, Risk Discovery, and Input Valuation
No full textThis dissertation studies how the interconnectedness embedded in a firm���s economic environment shapes a variety of corporate policies, including (1) strategic investment, (2) discovery of sources of risk and its dissemination to shareholders, and (3) valuation of labor inputs utilized in production. I frame the firm���s economy as a multipartite graph, wherein corporate directors, executive officers, companies, and product spaces represent different classes of nodes. Section 1 discusses competitive interaction of company nodes induced by shared connections to product space nodes. I examine conditionally random shocks to a firm���s financial flexibility and measure the strategic investment responses by rival firms sharing a common product space via a causal indirect treatment effect estimator novel to the finance literature. Section 2 then looks to information flow across companies through shared connections to director nodes. I study the permeation of conditionally random cybersecurity events across a director���s current board appointments to investigate the role of director human capital in monitoring, identifying, and disclosing sources of firm risk. Section 3 focuses within a company instead of looking across companies, and is coauthored with Shane Johnson, Adam Kolasinski, and Steve Boivie. We investigate the interaction of executive officer nodes within a firm by analyzing the effect of a chief executive officer���s narcissism on his or her valuation of employee human capital
ADAM SMITH'S VIEW OF HISTORY: CONSISTENT OR PARADOXICAL?
No full textThe conventional interpretation of Adam Smith is that he is a prophet of commercialism. The liberal capitalist reading of Smith is consistent with the view that history culminates in commercial society. The first part of the article develops this optimistic interpretation of Smith's view of history. Smith implies that commercial society is the end of history because 1) it supplies the ends of nature that he identifies; 2) it is inevitable; and 3) it is permanent. The second part of the article shows that Smith has some dark moments in his writings where he seems to reject completely such teleological notions. In this more civic humanist mood he confesses that commercial society does not supply the ends of nature, nor is it inevitable, nor is it permanent. Both views exist in Smith and the commentator is forced to choose between passages in Smith's work in order to support a particular interpretation of the former's view of history.Political Economy,
Two Essays in Banking and Corporate Finance
No full textThis dissertation attempts to address two research questions. In the first essay "Bank Regulation, Cost of Borrowing, and Product Market Predation on Borrowers", I study the effect of bank regulation on the microeconomic behaviors of industrial firms. Using a regulatory change by the Federal Reserve Board in 2014, a shock that radically modifies requirements for Foreign Banking Organizations (FBOs), relative to domestic Bank Holding Companies (BHCs), and a difference-indifferences approach, I find this new rule causes FBOs to significantly raise loan spreads, relative to domestic BHCs, during the post period. Such actions by FBOs have effects on the investment decisions and financial performance of their borrowers. To deter predation behaviors by their rivals, FBO borrowers cut prices to maintain sales growth. They also cut SG&A expenses and Capex to maintain operating profitability. Despite the strategic adjustments, FBO borrowers in highly competitive markets are still more vulnerable to predation by rivals, as evidenced by a higher probability of being acquired by either rivals or private equity firms. These findings show that bank regulation can have unintended consequences in shaping industry structure through product market competition channel.
In the second essay, "How does lender health affect covenant-violating borrowers?", co-authored with Adam C. Kolasinski and Jack Bao, we study the causal impact of lender health on covenant violating borrowers. Using the Emerging Market Debt Crises of the late 1990s, a shock that directly impacted some U.S. banks but not their domestic borrowers, and difference-in-differences, we find that banks exposed to the crises become relatively more likely to be stringent with covenant violators. Such stringency has real effects, as covenant violators become more likely to suffer a distressed delisting if their lenders are crisis-exposed. We also find effects for lender health on borrower investments, but these effects are not specific to covenant-violating borrowers
Adam Smith and Roman Servitudes
No full textThis essay is a preprint of an article that appeared at: Tijdschrift voor Rechstsgeschiedenis, 72 (2004), 327–57.This essay discusses Adam Smith historical jurisprudence and his use of Roman law materials in his Lectures on Jurisprudence. It argues that Smith found it difficult to maintain his theory of legal development in the face of a highly developed body of Roman law literature
THE THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF ADAM SMITH'S WORK
No full textThe paper will discuss the theological foundation to Smith's writings. Teleology, final causes and divine design were initially seen as central to understanding Smith's writings. Over time, this view fell out of fashion. In the period after World War II, with the rise of positivism, commentators tended to overlook or downplay this interpretation. In the last decade, or so, teleology has started to be restored to its former position as an essential element in understanding Smith. After spelling out Smith's teleology and his view of final causes, divine design and the ends of nature, we try to explain the Panglossian nature of the 'new theistic view' of Smith. While our view differs somewhat, we agree with the essence of the 'new view' claim: a theological view exists in Smith which underpins his moral and economic theories.Political Economy,
Interview. Matthew Joseph with Adam Gussow, musician and author
No full textInterview in which Adam Gussow discusses hill country blues musi
Książę Adam Jerzy Czartoryski i jego stronnicy w świetle historiografii ukraińskiej
No full textIn 1937, the Warsaw historian Marceli Handelsman published a work entitled Ukraińska polityka
ks. Adama Czartoryskiego przed wojną krymską [Ukrainian politics of Prince Adam Czartoryski
before the Crimean War]. So far, this book has been used by historians as the primary source of
information on the Ukrainian issue in the views of the Hotel Lambert’s leader. The author of this
text has decided to collect Ukrainian works referring to the topic inaugurated by Handelsman. Unfortunately, no larger study has been prepared on the Ukrainian side. However, a number of articles
and encyclopaedic notes showing Prince Adam and his Eastern policy (especially during his stay
at the court of Tsar Alexander I Romanov) has been published. Ukrainian authors paid much more
attention to Czartoryski’s associates, who tried to put his ideas into practice. Ukrainian researchers
wrote mainly about Michał Czaykowski (Sadyk Pasha) organizing the Cossack troops in the Ottoman Empire, about Hipolit Terlecki striving for the union of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic
Churches, and finally about the ethnographer and writer Franciszek Duchiński clearly separating
Ukraine from Russia in his writings
- …
