Meta economics: generating moral economies

Purpose: The study examines to test asymmetry of income and wealth inequality on GDP growth rate in India during 1995-2023 through NARDL model. Methods: The paper applied Shin et al. (2014) model to estimate asymmetry in NARDL model, applied Dicky and Fuller (1979) model for unit root test, applied Breusch-Pagan model (1979) to test the serial correlation and heteroscedasticity tests. Stability test was done by following Page (1954). Symmetry test was applied by using Wald test (1943). The data on income inequality and wealth inequality were collected from the World Inequality Data Lab and data on GDP growth rate were collected from the World Bank. Results: The paper finds that positive and negative changes of cumulative dynamic multipliers of both income and wealth inequality impact on GDP growth favourably and adversely. Positive and negative responses diverge away from positive and negative long run limits and asymmetry lines of wealth and income inequality have no convergence. Cointegration of wealth and income inequality have negative impacts on GDP growth rate. Conclusion: NARDL model can help policy makers to conduct fiscal and monetary policy and other welfare measures in both short run and long run to ameliorate inequalities towards sustainable GDP growth rate. The model can justify how positive and negative responses of asymmetries in short and long run affect GDP growth.

Recent studies by economists such as Piketty (2013, 2019) and Atkinson (2015) have contested the well-established view that post-war redistribution policies have been successful in the long term at slowing down the rise of structural inequalities. In reality, the claim goes, they have dealt mostly with reducing inequalities of income through redistribution and have left inequalities of wealth and capital ownership uncontrolled. These, according to their studies, have now risen in the developed world and reached levels more typical of 19th Century Europe. To make matters worse, perceptions of and attitudes towards fighting inequalities as unjust that Rawls saw as based on a wide consensus of citizens' "considered judgments" (Rawls, 1999, p. 17), have changed, leading to them being accepted as the justified and even necessary price to pay for economic growth and as a reward for merit. Economic arguments based on the need for incentives for raising productivity and the "trickle-down effect" have become widely accepted as if the price of economic efficiency should be disconnected from the demands of equity. Meritocracy has provided ethical arguments too. As John Roemer says, "today the most important problem for the social sciences of inequality is understanding how electorates have come to acquiesce to policies which increase inequality… and to try revealing the logic of the I would like to thank the editors of the Special Issue on Rawls for inviting me to develop ideas that I first presented in a previous paper published in French in 2016, "L'état-providence face aux inégalités et la démocratie de propriétaires: une comparaison entre Meade, Rawls, Ackerman et Piketty," Tocqueville Review, 2/2016), as well as in another paper in English in 2018: « Self-development and Social Justice ». I hope to be able to develop these ideas in a future book on property-owning democracy and its philosophical justifications.

This chapter introduces Complex Adaptive Systems Thinking (CAST) into the domain of Intellectual Capital (IC). CAST is based on the theories of Complex Adaptive System (CAS) and Systems Thinking (ST). It argues that the CAST, combined with Intelligence Base offers a potentially more holistic approach to managing the Intellectual Capital of an organization. Furthermore, the authors extend this IC management with additional dimensions proper to a social entity such as an organization. New organizational design methods are needed and the capability approach is such a method that supports IC in virtual and real organizations. The characteristics of Intellectual Capital are discussed in the iterative process of inquiry and the Cynefin Framework, guaranteeing a holistic view on the organization and its environment.

Inequality has been a major problem facing many countries, with Ghana not being an exception. The enormous problems of inequality have engendered worldwide fight (both physical and intellectual) towards its elimination. Unfortunately , the debate on inequality and its decomposition has often beenbased on income or consumption inequality with little attention onwealth inequality. To get the complete picture of the inequality levels in Ghana, it is appropriate to look at inequality from the wealth angle and then compare the two. Using the Ghana Living Standards Survey of 2006/07 and 2012/13, this study sought to compare the patterns and trends of income and wealth inequality, decompose the Gini coefficient by subgroup and by source, find the marginal effects and then finally look at the effect of economic dependency on income and wealth. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to calculate the wealth index and the Gini coefficient was used to calculate both wealth and income inequality. The Theil index was used to decompose both income and wealth inequality across all the geographical areas, gender, age, income and asset. The Gini coefficient was further decomposed and their partial derivatives used as marginal effects. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) was used to find the effect of economic dependency on income and wealth. Using the Gini coefficient, it was realized that there was a decrease in wealth inequality whereas income inequality increased between 2006 and 2013. However, there were still wide disparities across the geographical areas in terms of either income or household assets. The source component decomposition analyses suggest that income inequality in the urban, rural, male and female have increased over the study period while that of the female has reduced. Asset inequality on the other hand, decreased in the urban but increased around rural, male and female. The study also shows that economic dependency reduces income but increases household assets. This study therefore advocates for policies that will address the needs of the deprived areas through creation of jobs and provision of basic social amenities in order to close the income and the asset inequality gap in Ghana. Keywords: Income, Asset, Inequality, Dependency, Ghana

Editorial

Background Previous research established a positive association between national income inequality and socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent health, but little is known about the extent to which national level inequalities in accumulated financial resources (i.e. wealth) are associated with these health inequalities. Therefore, we examined the association between national wealth inequality and income inequality and socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent mental wellbeing. Methods Data were from 17 countries participating in three successive waves (2010, 2014 and 2018) of the cross-sectional Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. We combined individual-level data on adolescents' life satisfaction, psychological and somatic symptoms and socioeconomic status (SES) with country-level data on income and wealth inequality (n = 244771). We performed time-series analysis on a pooled sample of 48 country/year groups. Results Higher levels of national wealth inequality were associated with fewer average psychological and somatic symptoms, while higher levels of national income inequality were associated with more psychological and somatic symptoms. No associations between either national wealth inequality or income inequality and life satisfaction were found. Smaller differences in somatic symptoms between higher and lower SES groups were found in countries with higher levels of national wealth inequality. In contrast, larger differences in psychological symptoms and life satisfaction (but not somatic symptoms) between higher and lower SES groups were found in countries with higher levels of national income inequality. Conclusions Although both national wealth and income inequality are associated with (socioeconomic inequalities in) adolescent mental wellbeing, associations are in opposite directions. Further research is warranted to gain better understanding in the role of national wealth inequality on (socioeconomic inequalities in) adolescent health. Key messages This is one of the first studies to examine if socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent mental wellbeing are associated with national wealth inequality independently from national income inequality. Opposing effects of national wealth inequality and income inequality on socioeconomic inequalities in adolescents’ mental wellbeing warrant further research before policy recommendations can be made.

The integration of natural and social sciences has been recognized as a key aspect of Earth System (E.S.) research, a cross-disciplinary field involving the study of the geosphere, the biosphere, and society (IGBP, 2006; Leemans et al., 2009; Pfeiffer, 2008; Reid et al., 2010; Young, 2008). Because of societal and political correlates between environmental change and socio-economic development, the study of the Earth System has been increasingly ascribed social and political dimensions emphasizing the need for greater collaboration between the social and natural sciences (Beven, 2011; Kates et al., 2001; Leemans et al., 2009; Reid et al., 2010; Saloranta, 2001; Shackley et al., 1998). The problem of inter-disciplinary articulation between the social and natural sciences is not specific to E.S. research, and its challenges can be traced back to the very origins of the notions of science and social science (e.g. Comte, 1830-1842; de Alvarenga et al., 2011; Latour, 2000, 2004). To a degree, these challenges could be explained in terms of the increasing gulf between two cultures – those of the sciences and the humanities – as suggested by C.P. Snow (1905-1980) in an instigating essay (Snow, 1990 [1959]), due to the high specialization in science and education, and, not less important, to a “tendency to let our social forms to crystallise” (Snow, 1990: 172). More to the point, the increasing importance attributed to the problem has motivated a growing number of analyses concerning the high level of specialization and fragmentation of science and university education (e.g. de Alvarenga et al., 2011; Moraes, 2005; Snow, 1990), but also the societal and political questions concerning research agendas (e.g. Alves, 2008; Kates et al., 2001; Latour, 2000, 2004; Schor, 2008), the disparities between developed and developing countries not just in affluence level, but also in research capacity (Kates et al, 2001; Pfeiffer, 2008; Schor, 2008), and, finally, from a more methodological point of view, the multiplicity of theoreticomethodological perspectives admitted by the social sciences (e.g. de Alvarenga et al., 2011; Floriani et al, 2011; Giddens, 2001; Leis, 2011; Moraes, 2005; Oliveira Filho, 1976; Raynaut & Zanoni, 2011; Weffort, 2006). Yet, in the E.S. field the problem of bringing together social and natural sciences has been a permanent and still unresolved challenge (Alves et al., 2007; Alves, 2008; Geoghegan et al.,

An Emancipatory Interpretation of Property-Owning Democracy:

The rapid increase of wealth inequality in the past few decades is one of the most disturbing social and economic issues of our time. Studying its origin and underlying mechanisms is essential for policy aiming to control and even reverse this trend. In that context, controlling the distribution of income, using income tax or other macroeconomic policy instruments, is generally perceived as effective for regulating the wealth distribution. We provide a theoretical tool, based on the realistic modeling of wealth inequality dynamics, to describe the effects of personal savings and income distribution on wealth inequality. Our theoretical approach incorporates coupled equations, solved using iterated maps to model the dynamics of wealth and income inequality. Notably, using the appropriate historical parameter values we were able to capture the historical dynamics of wealth inequality in the United States during the course of the 20th century. It is found that the effect of personal savings on wealth inequality is substantial, and its major decrease in the past 30 years can be associated with the current wealth inequality surge. In addition, the effect of increasing income tax, though naturally contributing to lowering income inequality, might contribute to a mild increase in wealth inequality and vice versa. Plausible changes in income tax are found to have an insignificant effect on wealth inequality, in practice. In addition, controlling the income inequality, by progressive taxation, for example, is found to have a very small effect on wealth inequality in the short run. The results imply, therefore, that controlling income inequality is an impractical tool for regulating wealth inequality.

Introduction

Background. Literature indicates that in academic writing, authors are expected to demonstrate a noticeable stance so that they can make their meaning clear. Therefore, differences between native and non-native writers along with cross-disciplinary academic writing assume great significance. Purpose. The interactional, dialogic, and reflective nature of academic writing requires writers to utilize stance-establishing tools in their writing, the most prominent ones being stance nouns. In addition, the that-clause construction plays a vital role in conveying the author’s stance. Studies that compare L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers regarding academic writing are rather scarce. As such, the present paper aims to analyze L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers in eight disciplines from natural and social sciences in terms of the use of stance nouns in that-clause constructions. Methods. The study employs Jiang and Hyland's (2016) functional classification model in exploring the nominal stance in cross-disciplinary writing of L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers. To this end, journals with high impact in eight disciplines from social and natural sciences were scanned and a total of 320 articles were included in the corpus. The social sciences included in the present study cover applied linguistics, history, psychology, and sociology while the natural sciences cover medicine, engineering, astronomy, and biology. In total, a corpus of 2.232.164 words was formed. Results and Implications. The study found significant differences not only in terms of natural and social sciences but also in terms of L1/L2 distinction. In addition, a secondary purpose of the study was to see whether writers in social and natural sciences differed in terms of empiricist and interpretive rationality. The results indicated that writers in social sciences tended to use more status and cognition nouns, indicating that they tend to be more interpretive. With significant differences between Turkish and English writers from a cross-disciplinary perspective, the present study offers important insights into how writers weave their stance in academic writing. Moreover, the present study also confirmed that writers in social sciences, whether L1 or L2, tend to use more stance nouns compared with writers in natural sciences.

Planetary health is a concept that focuses not only on human health but wider - on the health of our planet. Health is not only a privilege of human beings. Planetary health emphasizes the interconnected nature of human health and environmental health. This also makes a shift in the direction from human anthropocentricity to a more fair approach - health of the whole planet. Human well-being is dependent on the health of the planet, including clean air, water, and food sources. Paradigm shift towards planetary health promotes a holistic view of health that encompasses social, economic, and environmental factors. It considers the complex interactions between humans, animals, plants, and ecosystems. Planetary health insists on a preventative approach by addressing root causes such as pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss. We should be aware of human responsibility linked to terrible symptoms of our Planet like heat waves, fires, droughts, floods... Planetary health approaches underline the importance of sustainable practices that protect the environment, promoting human health, but also actions to achieve that. By adopting sustainable lifestyles, industries, and policies, we can ensure the well-being of current and future generations. Planetary health calls for global collaboration, interconnecting nature, environment and human health challenges. By prioritizing planetary health, we show that we can be less selfish and that we respect nature and the environment. Planetary health insists on a paradigm shift towards a more integrated and sustainable approach using social and nature sciences in a holistic approach. But, we should also use Planetary health concept as a call for peace, which is a condition for all other achievements.

We scrutinise the role of institutional, market, and financial freedoms within the occurrence of wealth and income inequalities, thus attempting to corroborate the Kuznets curve hypothesis by using general and decomposed measures. To this end, we apply an auto-regressive fixed effect framework with Driscoll Kraay standard errors to analyse the panel time series data for twelve Post-Communist economies. Our empirical results highlight that the overall economic growth provides two different implications for the income and wealth inequalities. Economic growth fosters income inequality up to a threshold point, afterwards it declines with further economic growth, thereby validating the Kuznets curve hypothesis. The decomposed analysis confirms that further economic growth surpassing the threshold level re-distributes income from the top 10% class to the bottom 50% and middle 40% classes.

This study aims to examine how uneven distribution of income and assets impacts economies and societies at large, exploring its causes, such as biased tax policies and global economic shifts that occur all around the world. Some consequences due to this issue are social unrest, reduced economic growth and diminished opportunities for the poor. It should also highlight that while wealth inequality is typically more extreme than income inequality, both are crucial indicators of economic disparity and are often addressed through policies like wealth taxes and investments in public service. The data to be taken here is from the time frame of 1991 to present day, by studying the two variables [ wealth and income inequality] the study aims to determine how the concept of income inequality correlated to the wealth in our country, it uses correlation analysis to draw an inference between the two variables. The rise of top-end inequality has been particularly pronounced in the period between 2014-15 and 2022-23. It is also important to note that by 2022-23, top 1% income and wealth shares are at their highest historic level [1990]

Arien Mack Editor’s Introduction WHEN I FIRST BEGAN TO DISCUSS THE THEME OF “ERRORS” WITH MY coeditor for this special issue, Gerald Holton, the question arose as to whether the kinds of “fruitful” mistakes that occur in the natural sciences also occur in the social sciences. While the degree of resem­ blance between the natural and social sciences has long been the subject of discussion within the social sciences themselves, I do not think the question has been much discussed in these particular terms. Since this issue ofSocialResearch attests to the presence of fruitful errors in the natural sciences, we invited several distinguished social scien­ tists to address the question of whether such errors occur in the social sciences. Many of the social scientists from whom I initially requested advice pointed out that, unlike physical laws in the natural sciences, “laws” in the social sciences—if there are any—are often contin­ gent and change as the social and cultural contexts change. In addi­ tion, two of the respondents pointed out, I think correctly, that the prim ary problem in the social sciences is not so much the validity of the claims of social scientists, which may or not be correct, but rather the consequences of those claims for social policies. An obvi­ ous instance of this was Cyril Burt’s claim about genetic differences in intelligence, which led to discriminatory immigration rules and other bad social policy. Fortunately for us at Sodal Research despite the general consen­ sus that “fruitful” errors were not characteristic of the social sciences, several distinguished social scientists agreed to explore the question of social research Vol 72 : No 1: Spring 2005 xl errors in the social sciences and have written interestingly about it for this issue. These articles stand as illuminating complements to the arti­ cles by historians of the natural sciences that also appear, and clarify one more dimension on which the social and natural sciences differ. Arien Mack xii social research ...