The Emergence of Organizations and Markets

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Padgett ◽  
Walter W. Powell
Keyword(s):  
High Tech ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
New Organizational Forms ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Definition Of

The social sciences have sophisticated models of choice and equilibrium but little understanding of the emergence of novelty. Where do new alternatives, new organizational forms, and new types of people come from? Combining biochemical insights about the origin of life with innovative and historically oriented social network analyses, this book develops a theory about the emergence of organizational, market, and biographical novelty from the coevolution of multiple social networks. The book demonstrates that novelty arises from spillovers across intertwined networks in different domains. In the short run actors make relations, but in the long run relations make actors. This theory of novelty emerging from intersecting production and biographical flows is developed through formal deductive modeling and through a wide range of original historical case studies. The book builds on the biochemical concept of autocatalysis—the chemical definition of life—and then extends this autocatalytic reasoning to social processes of production and communication. The chapters analyze a wide range of cases of emergence. They look at the emergence of organizational novelty in early capitalism and state formation; they examine the transformation of communism; and they analyze with detailed network data contemporary science-based capitalism: the biotechnology industry, regional high-tech clusters, and the open source community.

scholarly journals Dynamic Integrated Model for Assessing Fisheries: Discard Bans as an Implicit Value-Added Tax

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Maria Da Rocha ◽  
Javier García-Cutrín ◽  
Maria-Jose Gutiérrez ◽  
Raul Prellezo ◽  
Eduardo Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Value Added ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Value Added Tax ◽  
Biological Variables ◽  
A Value ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Social ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Short Run ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIntegrated economic models have become popular for assessing climate change. In this paper we show how these methods can be used to assess the impact of a discard ban in a fishery. We state that a discard ban can be understood as a confiscatory tax equivalent to a value-added tax. Under this framework, we show that a discard ban improves the sustainability of the fishery in the short run and increases economic welfare in the long run. In particular, we show that consumption, capital and wages show an initial decrease just after the implementation of the discard ban then recover after some periods to reach their steady-sate values, which are 16–20% higher than the initial values, depending on the valuation of the landed discards. The discard ban also improves biological variables, increasing landings by 14% and reducing discards by 29% on the initial figures. These patterns highlight the two channels through which discard bans affect a fishery: the tax channel, which shows that the confiscation of landed discards reduces the incentive to invest in the fishery; and the productivity channel, which increases the abundance of the stock. Thus, during the first few years after the implementation of a discard ban, the negative effect from the tax channel dominates the positive effect from the productivity channel, because the stock needs time to recover. Once stock abundance improves, the productivity channel dominates the tax channel and the economic variables rise above their initial levels. Our results also show that a landed discards valorisation policy is optimal from the social welfare point of view provided that incentives to increase discards are not created.

Shopping for Lower Sales Tax Rates

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-250
Author(s):  
Scott R. Baker ◽  
Stephanie Johnson ◽  
Lorenz Kueng
Keyword(s):  
Shopping Behavior ◽  
Sales Tax ◽  
Fixed Costs ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Inventory Problem ◽  
Sales Taxes ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Short Run ◽  
State And Local

Using comprehensive high-frequency state and local sales tax data, we show that shopping behavior responds strongly to changes in sales tax rates. Even though sales taxes are not observed in posted prices and have a wide range of rates and exemptions, consumers adjust in many dimensions. They stock up on storable goods before taxes rise and increase online and cross-border shopping in both the short and long run. The difference between short- and long-run spending responses has important implications for the efficacy of using sales taxes for countercyclical policy and for the design of an optimal tax framework. Interestingly, households adjust spending similarly for both taxable and tax-exempt goods. We embed an inventory problem into a continuous-time consumption-savings model and demonstrate that this behavior is optimal in the presence of shopping trip fixed costs. The model successfully matches estimated short-run and long-run tax elasticities. We provide additional evidence in favor of this new shopping complementarity mechanism. (JEL E21, E32, G51, H21, H25, H71)

Wage Theft as a Legal Concept

2020 ◽  
pp. 134-150
Author(s):  
Sarah Green
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Legal Concept ◽  
Social Concept ◽  
Wage Theft ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Actus Reus ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Public Concerns

This chapter analyses the fraud offence from the perspective of ‘wage theft’. The social concept of a ‘wage theft’ encompasses a wide range of dishonest or ‘sharp’ practices: false labelling of individuals as ‘self-employed’ and hence outside the scope of the National Minimum Wage framework, failure to pay holiday pay, unlawful deductions, and an absence of transparency in relation to wage entitlements. It is linked to wider public concerns about the effective enforcement of the statutory minimum wage regime. The chapter then examines whether the social concept of ‘wage theft’ maps onto the legal definition of ‘theft’ in section 1 of the Theft Act 1968. It argues the legal label of theft is ill-suited to the constellation of practices associated with the social label of ‘wage theft’. This is because of the disjunction between the proprietary status of ‘wages’ and the offence elements of theft in English law. In short, unpaid wages will often not count as ‘property belonging to another’ at the time of the dishonest appropriation by the employer, hence there is a difficulty with identifying a complete and coincident mens rea and actus reus.

A NOTE ON OPTIMAL DEBT REDUCTION POLICIES

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (7) ◽  
pp. 1850-1860 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide la Torre ◽  
Simone Marsiglio
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Real World ◽  
Optimal Policy ◽  
Social Costs ◽  
Social Planner ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reduction Problem ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Over Time

We analyze the optimal debt reduction problem in an uncertainty context. The social planner has a finite horizon and seeks to minimize the social costs associated with debt repayment by taking into account not only the short-run costs of the policy, but also the long-run costs associated with the outstanding level of debt. We characterize the optimal policy and the dynamics of the debt-to-GDP ratio, showing that it will decrease over time if economic policy is effective enough. We characterize how the evolution of the debt-to-GDP ratio depends on the main parameters and we present a simple calibration based on Greek data to illustrate the implications of our analysis in real-world setups.

The Social Embeddedness of Marketing

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-49
Author(s):  
Stefan Schwarzkopf
Keyword(s):  
Historical Case ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
Marketing Activities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Driver ◽  
Cultural Intermediaries ◽  
New Consumer

In both premodern and modern capitalist societies, marketing emerged as a key driver behind consumption patterns and as a facilitator of new consumer goods and services. This chapter uses historical case studies to highlight how marketing and consumption practices co-developed over time and in response to socioeconomic and technological changes. The historical evidence shows that marketing activities have never followed a narrow economic and utilitarian calculus; instead, they have always existed within and helped to maintain a wide range of relations between businesses, consumers, cultural intermediaries, and lawmakers. A key tension that runs through the history of marketing and consumption is the coexistence of efforts to control consumer behavior and attempts to provide consumers with the space needed to create entirely new kinds of consumption experiences.

scholarly journals New empirics of monetary policy dynamics: evidence from the CFA franc zones

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simplice Asongu
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Granger Causality ◽  
Money Supply ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Cfa Franc

Purpose – A major lesson of the European Monetary Union crisis is that serious disequilibria in a monetary union result from arrangements not designed to be robust to a variety of shocks. With the specter of this crisis looming substantially and scarring existing monetary zones, the purpose of this paper is to complement existing literature by analyzing the effects of monetary policy on economic activity (output and prices) in the CEMAC and UEMOA CFA franc zones. Design/methodology/approach – VARs within the frameworks of Vector Error-Correction Models and Granger causality models are used to estimate the long- and short-run effects, respectively. Impulse response functions are further used to assess the tendencies of significant Granger causality findings. A battery of robustness checks are also employed to ensure consistency in the specifications and results. Findings –H1. monetary policy variables affect prices in the long-run but not in the short-run in the CFA zones (broadly untrue). This invalidity is more pronounced in CEMAC (relative to all monetary policy variables) than in UEMOA (with regard to financial dynamics of activity and size). H2. monetary policy variables influence output in the short-term but not in the long-run in the CFA zones. First, the absence of cointegration among real output and the monetary policy variables in both zones confirm the neutrality of money in the long term. With the exception of overall money supply, the significant effect of money on output in the short-run is more relevant in the UEMOA zone, than in the CEMAC zone in which only financial system efficiency and financial activity are significant. Practical implications – First, compared to the CEMAC region, the UEMOA zone’s monetary authority has more policy instruments for offsetting output shocks but fewer instruments for the management of short-run inflation. Second, the CEMAC region is more inclined to non-traditional policy regimes while the UEMOA zone dances more to the tune of traditional discretionary monetary policy arrangements. A wide range of policy implications are discussed. Inter alia: implications for the long-run neutrality of money and business cycles; implications for credit expansions and inflationary tendencies; implications of the findings to the ongoing debate; country-specific implications and measures of fighting surplus liquidity. Originality/value – The paper’s originality is reflected by the use of monetary policy variables, notably money supply, bank and financial credits, which have not been previously used, to investigate their impact on the outputs of economic activities, namely, real GDP output and inflation, in developing country monetary unions.

scholarly journals Truth as a sociocultural phenomenon: modern interpretation

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-22
Author(s):  
Marina G. Volnistaya ◽  
Eka D. Korkiya ◽  
Agamali K. Mamеdov
Keyword(s):  
Science Research ◽  
Correspondence Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Epistemology ◽  
General Outline ◽  
Artistic Creation ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

The history of science in any of its transformations and metamorphoses is, in fact, a search for and definition of the truth. As an example, I. Kant’s famous four questions start with the question «What can I know?». Thus, the search for truth as a subject of research has been a dominating force throughout human history. Of course, sociology as a social meta-science is also involved in this topic. A simple assertion of the existence of three concepts of truth, namely accordance, agreement and advantage, does not fully answer the prerequisites of contemporary discourse. The present article analyses a new discourse on the study of truth in contemporary science. We give a brief retrospective analysis of the main fields of truth interpretation. At the same time, these directions are not just listed but linked into the general outline of contemporary epistemology. Of course, a greater bias is made towards the sciences of the social and humanitarian profile. That, however, does not exclude the necessary portion of the data of natural science research. In the article these data are not used as demonstrations, but as independent meta-scientific research. We give various examples of the complementarity of different branches of science. In particular, we show the scope and relative limitation of such concepts as correspondence theory, evolutionary epistemology, socio-humanitarian cybernetics, adaptationism and neo-adaptationism. A significant place in the article is occupied by the problem of truth in artistic creation. We also give sustainable conclusions about the polyphonicity of truth and its flickering character.

Welfare Economic Principles of (Urban) Rail Network Pricing

2016 ◽  
pp. 161-171
Author(s):  
Jörg Schimmelpfennig
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Surplus ◽  
Welfare Economic ◽  
Railway Network ◽  
Rail Network ◽  
Marginal Costs ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Pricing Rules ◽  
Urban Rail ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Definition Of

The purpose of this chapter is to rectify the at best unprofessional intermingling of objectives and constraints and present a proper theory of first-best and second-best pricing in urban rail networks. First, in view of the flaws of both Dupuit's – though nevertheless ingenious idea of – consumer surplus as well its cannibalized version found in most of today's economics textbooks, a proper definition of economic welfare resting on Hicks'sian variations instead is provided. It is used to derive efficient pricing rules that are subsequently applied to specific questions arising from running an urban railway network such as overcrowding, short-run versus long-run capacity or competing modes of transport like the private motor car. At the same time, another look is taken at economic costs, and in particular economic marginal costs, differing from commercial or accounting costs. Among other things, it is shown that even with commercial marginal costs being constant first-best pricing might not necessarily be incompatible with a zero-profit budget.

scholarly journals FISCAL AUSTERITY MEASURES: SPENDING CUTS VS. TAX INCREASES

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 501-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Glomm ◽  
Juergen Jung ◽  
Chung Tran
Keyword(s):  
Open Economy ◽  
Risk Premium ◽  
Small Open Economy ◽  
Welfare Effects ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Welfare Losses ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Fiscal Austerity

We formulate an overlapping-generations model with household heterogeneity and productive and nonproductive government programs to study the macroeconomic and intergenerational welfare effects of risk premium shocks and government debt reductions. We demonstrate that in a small open economy with a high level of debt, a small increase in the risk premium of the interest rate leads to a substantial contraction in output and negative welfare effects. We then quantify the effects of reducing the debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio using a wide range of fiscal austerity measures. Our results indicate trade-offs between short-run contractions and long-run expansions in aggregate output. In the short run, spending-based austerity reforms are worse than tax-based reforms in terms of lost income. However, in the long run, spending-based reforms produce higher output than tax-based reforms. In addition, welfare effects vary significantly across generations, skill groups, and working sectors. The current old and middle-aged generations experience welfare losses, whereas future generations are beneficiaries of the reforms.

Taxation of robots – what would have been the view of Smith and Marx on it?

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Maik Huettinger ◽  
Jonathan Andrew Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Labor ◽  
Short Run ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Economic

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to approach the issue of taxation of robotic process automation (RPA) through an interpretive lens provided by both Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Both scholars have affected the understanding and attitudes of generations of economists, and their ideas have considerable influenced modern economic policy. It will be argued that Smith and Marx have much to offer to help contemporary economists understand the taxation of RPA, and their writings on machines, automation, and their impact on the human labor force will be discussed from their primary texts. Design/methodology/approach The paper interprets the works of Marx and Smith in relation to contemporary debates on automation, particularly, proposals to tax technological innovations to offset the social costs of automation’s displacement effects. Findings In the case of Adam Smith, there is not enough evidence to suggest that he would support a specific taxation of RPA; however, he very well might agree with a modest taxation of capital goods. Marx would very likely support a taxation in the short-run, however, would be inclined to caution that the ownership of robots should in the long run be transferred to society. Originality/value This paper uses primary texts from the discipline of history of economic thought to spark a discussion about compensating the externalities of technological innovation.

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