12,298 research outputs found

    The Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson Effect: A Survey of Empirical Evidence

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    The paper surveys empirical evidence on the Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson effect. The survey encompasses the published empirical work on the phenomenon since its (re)discovery in 1964. In total, 58 empirical papers are examined within a specialized analytical framework. The body of empirical evidence is synthesized through four major elements. The analysis starts with the ongoing controversy related to the name of the theory. This is followed by a presentation of the evolution of the theoretical and econometric model. It ends with an analysis of the results of the surveyed empirical studies. Results of the survey indicate that growing body of evidence definitely points towards professional rethinking about the significance of the Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson effect.Harrod Balassa Samuelson effect, real exchange rate, purchasing power parity, productivity

    The Political Economy of Textbook Writing: Paul Samuelson and the making of the first ten Editions of Economics (1945-1976)

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    Over the past two decades, numerous contributions to the history of economics have tried to assess Paul Samuelson’s political positioning by tracing it in the subsequent editions of his famous textbook Economics. This literature, however, has provided no consensus about the location of Samuelson’s political ideas. While some authors believe that Samuelson has always had inclinations toward interventionism, others conclude that he more often acted as a pro-business advocate. The purpose of this paper is not to argue for one of these two interpretations but to depict the making of Economics itself as a political process. By ‘political’ it is not meant the conduct of party politics but the many political elements that a textbook author has to take into account if he wants to be published and favorably received. I argue that the “middle of the road” stance that Samuelson adopted in the book was consciously constructed by the MIT economist, with the help of his home institution and his publishing company, McGraw-Hill, to ensure both academic freedom and the success of the book. The reason for which the stance developed is related to pre-McCarthyist right-wing criticisms of the textbook and how Samuelson and the MIT department had to endure the pressures from members of the Corporation (MIT’s Board of Trustees), who tried to prevent the publication of the textbook and threatened Samuelson’s tenure at MIT as soon as 1947 – when early manuscripts were circulated. As a result, it was decided in accordance with both the Corporation and McGraw-Hill that the Readings volume would be published to balance conflicting ideas about state intervention. Following these early criticisms, the making of the subsequent editions relied on a network of instructors and referees all over the US in order to make it as successful and consensual as possible. This seemed to work quite well in the 1950s and for a good portion of the 1960s, until Economics became victim of its own success and was seen, in an ironical twist of fate, as a right wing text by younger, radical economists. From now on, Samuelson will try to have his book sent as often as possible to the radicals for referring process, with mixed results. Eventually, the book became criticized from both its left and its right.Paul Samuelson, Economics, Textbook, Politics, Economic Education

    Ohlin Versus Stolper-Samuelson?

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    This paper examines Bertil Ohlin's analysis of trade policy and factor rewards in the context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century United States. A leading question of the day was whether labor could benefit from protection. Ohlin suspected that labor could benefit from protection and his writings helped spawn the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, which was different from but consistent with Ohlin's approach. This paper seeks to find evidence on whether U.S. tariffs on imported labor-intensive manufactures helped enhance the income of labor at the expense of capital and land. The answer is unclear: vastly different conclusions arise from a calibrated general equilibrium Ohlin-style model and a factor content of trade calculation indirect evidence from lobbying and voting patterns over the tariff are also ambiguous.

    Economic Theory and Economic Thought: Essays in honour of Ian Steedman

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    Ian Steedman is recognised internationally as one of the leading economic theorists of his time and has made major contributions to the development of economic theory and economic thought, as substantiated by his work on Marx, Sraffa, Marshall, Jevons and Wicksteed. His contributions to economic theory include his work on time, international trade, capital theory and growth and distribution. This collection reflects the wide ranging interests of Ian Steedman and is a tribute to his outstanding contributions. This edited collection brings together twenty two new essays by distinguished economists from around the world. The papers cover a wide range of topics including; international trade - an area in which Steedman has made significant contributions; Sraffa, the history of economic thought and theoretical papers - including Faustian Agents and market failure in waste production. The essays in this book will be an invaluable source for economists interested in economic theory or in the evolution of economic thought. It will also be of interest to postgraduate and research students in economic theory and the history of economic thought. John Vint is Professor of Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. J. Stanley Metcalfe is Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester, UK. Heinz D. Kurz is Professor of Economics at the University of Graz, Austria. Neri Salvadori is Professor of Economics at the University of Pisa, Italy. Paul Samuelson is Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

    South African responses to Open Access publishing: a survey of the research community

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    Open access publishing offers wide benefits to the scholarly community and may also afford relief to financially embattled academic libraries. The progress of the open access model rests upon the acceptance and validation of open access journals and open archives or institutional repositories by the academic mainstream, particularly by publishing researchers. To what extent are the key actors in the South African research system aware of the advantages of open access? This article reports on the findings of a recent survey undertaken to assess the current awareness, concerns and depth of support for open access amongst local researchers, research managers and policy makers in South Africa. The study focuses on issues of quality, article or author charges and the established academic reward system. It concludes that within the prevailing framework, there is little prospect that academics would choose to publish within open access journals. Recommendations for advocacy by the library community are proposed

    Author Co-Citation Analysis (ACA): a powerful tool for representing implicit knowledge of scholar knowledge workers

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    In the last decade, knowledge has emerged as one of the most important and valuable organizational assets. Gradually this importance caused to emergence of new discipline entitled ―knowledge management‖. However one of the major challenges of knowledge management is conversion implicit or tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. Thus Making knowledge visible so that it can be better accessed, discussed, valued or generally managed is a long-standing objective in knowledge management. Accordingly in this paper author co- citation analysis (ACA) will be proposed as an efficient technique of knowledge visualization in academia (Scholar knowledge workers)

    Relative (pa,pb,pa,pa−b)-difference sets in p-subgroups of SL(n,K)

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    AbstractIn this note, we study relative (pa,pb,pa,pa−b)-relative difference sets in certain p-subgroups of SL(n,K), K=Fq, where q is a prime power

    Unemployment and Portfolio Choice: Does Persistence Matter?

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    We use a life cycle model of consumption and portfolio choice to study the effects of social security on the investment decisions of households for the European case. Our model is mainly based on the one developed by Cocco, Gomes, and Maenhout (2005). We extend it by unemployment risk using Markov chains to model the transition between different employment states. In contrast to most models in the life cycle literature, our model allows for three different states, namely employment, short-term as well as long-term unemployment. This allows us to examine the effects of persistence in the unemployment process on portfolio choice. Our main findings are, first, that in case of short-term unemployment only, social security systems as those established in the EU are able to offset the negative impact of unemployment risk on the portfolio-share invested in risky assets. Second, the simulation results reveal that when allowing for long-term unemployment the equity-share is suppressed, especially for young investors. We show that this negative effect of unemployment is mainly driven by its persistence.Precautionary savings, unemployment insurance, long-term unemployment, income uncertainty

    Open access self-archiving: An author study

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    This, our second author international, cross-disciplinary study on open access had 1296 respondents. Its focus was on self-archiving. Almost half (49%) of the respondent population have self-archived at least one article during the last three years. Use of institutional repositories for this purpose has doubled and usage has increased by almost 60% for subject-based repositories. Self-archiving activity is greatest amongst those who publish the largest number of papers. There is still a substantial proportion of authors unaware of the possibility of providing open access to their work by self-archiving. Of the authors who have not yet self-archived any articles, 71% remain unaware of the option. With 49% of the author population having self-archived in some way, this means that 36% of the total author population (71% of the remaining 51%), has not yet been appraised of this way of providing open access. Authors have frequently expressed reluctance to self-archive because of the perceived time required and possible technical difficulties in carrying out this activity, yet findings here show that only 20% of authors found some degree of difficulty with the first act of depositing an article in a repository, and that this dropped to 9% for subsequent deposits. Another author worry is about infringing agreed copyright agreements with publishers, yet only 10% of authors currently know of the SHERPA/RoMEO list of publisher permissions policies with respect to self-archiving, where clear guidance as to what a publisher permits is provided. Where it is not known if permission is required, however, authors are not seeking it and are self-archiving without it. Communicating their results to peers remains the primary reason for scholars publishing their work; in other words, researchers publish to have an impact on their field. The vast majority of authors (81%) would willingly comply with a mandate from their employer or research funder to deposit copies of their articles in an institutional or subject-based repository. A further 13% would comply reluctantly; 5% would not comply with such a mandate
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