Discipline Of Economics Research Articles

Learning Strategies in Mathematics for Related Study Programs Focusing on Cooperative Education in Germany – Viewed from the Perspectives of the Academic Disciplines, Economics and Engineering, as well as Gender

AbstractCognitive learning strategies are seen as a central element for successful learning. Acquiring knowledge about its worth, can support persons in sophisticated groups in attaining academic success. Consequently, the authors are interested in domain-specific learning strategies for mathematics in the academic disciplines of economics and engineering in cooperative tertiary education, in addition to determining gender-specific preferences for particular learning strategies. Data from a cross-sectional design with N = 565 cooperative students from Germany are used. A 2 × 2 analysis of variance, with one repeated measure, show the impact of academic disciplines and gender on seven specific cognitive learning strategies in mathematics. Taken together, these results show the complexity of cognitive learning strategies in higher education learning.

Exploring the role of identity in pro-environmental behavior: cultural and educational influences on younger generations.

It is of paramount importance to gain an understanding of pro-environmental behavior if we are to successfully tackle the climate crisis. The existing body of research provides evidence that identity influences pro-environmental behavior. However, such research is often over-generalised and researchers are challenged to conduct robust analyses with regard to specific local, cultural and educational factors. The present study aims to investigate whether personal or social identity has a distinct effect on three different dimensions of pro-environmental behavior, using the principles of self-categorisation theory. Additionally, the study seeks to determine whether one of these two factors, the individual or the social factor, is predominant over the other. The study group consisted of cooperative students in Germany, typically a group with high professional ambitions. The data was collected in a cross-sectional survey with a total of 568 cooperative students from academic disciplines in engineering and economics. The reliability of the scales is satisfactory (ω = 0.76-0.88), and the hypotheses are tested by estimating structural equation models. Our research demonstrates that while social identity exerts a stronger influence on activist behavior than personal identity, personal identity has a more pronounced effect on consumer behavior than social identity. Nevertheless, no general statement can be made regarding the relative strength of the effects of personal and social identity on pro-environmental behavior dimensions.

The discipline of economics: ambivalent epistemologies and the foreclosure of critique in elite economics education

AbstractThis article interrogates relations between dual senses of economics as ‘discipline’: as a form of knowledge and as a form of training. Scholars have suggested that economics performatively brings homo economicus into being. Yet this has been often posited as a singular figure, while eclipsing the unequal forms of personhood and sociality it instantiates. Through ethnography of elite undergraduate economics education in the United Kingdom, I ask how the ‘representative agents’ of homo economicus are considered ‘representative’, and how they relate to the forms of ‘agency’ that students cultivate. I argue that ambivalent epistemologies in economics oscillate between a‐realism and what I term ‘brutal realism’, which appeals to epistemic prowess yet normalizes the partial perspective of a detached elite masculinity. Students are encouraged to foreclose critique to stabilize these unstable models; thus the multiplicity of representative agents paradoxically contributes to their traction. Meanwhile, students cultivate ethics of efficiency that facilitate this wilful blindness, shaping their trajectories into finance. I demonstrate that the authority of economics emerges through distinct affective, pedagogical, and epistemological forms, and there are multiple mirrors between these forms and the content of economics education.

Analysis of the Implementation of As-Salam Contract in White Garlic Purchase Transactions between Retailers and Distributors: Case Study White Garlic Industry Supply Chain in Medan City

Purpose: This study aims to analyze the application of the As Salam contract in the purchasing system of garlic between retail traders and importers in Medan, Indonesia. Research Methodology: The research utilizes a qualitative approach, employing observation and structured interviews with key participants in the garlic trading industry. The instruments include interview guides and observational checklists to gather detailed insights into the contract negotiation and execution process. Results: The findings indicate that the trading practice involves detailed contract agreements, including specific terms on quantity, quality, and delivery schedules. The principles of the As Salam contract are strictly adhered to, ensuring clarity and minimizing the potential for disputes. Prepayment is an integral part of the contract, facilitating efficient stock planning and delivery logistics. Limitations: The study is limited to the garlic trade within the Medan region, which may restrict the broader applicability of the findings to other commodities or regions. Contribution: This research contributes to the discipline of Islamic economics by providing practical insights into the implementation of As Salam contracts in commodity trading, offering a model for ensuring fairness and transparency in accordance with Islamic law.

Minorities, Women, and Radicals in the Discipline of Economics

The discipline of economics is informally managed in the United States by the American Economic Association (AEA). The AEA’s management of the economics community however was challenged starting in the 1960s by blacks, women, and radicals. Blacks, women, and radical economists each adopted a different strategy towards achieving greater empowerment in the discipline. Black economists created the Caucus of Black Economists and participated in the AEA’s Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession to encourage that steps be taken towards affirmative action and create a space for the publication of black economic research. Women economists participated in the AEA’s Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession in 1971 to document the number of women in the economics profession, create a network of women economists and those supporting their work, and publish a newsletter containing statistics on representation within the profession and a listing of job openings and candidate availability. Radical economists created the Union for Radical Political Economics in 1968 to serve as a scholarly home for those holding non-mainstream beliefs and undertake the publication of a research journal, and sought some degree of solace from the AEA’s Committee on Political Discrimination. In the documentation of the different approaches taken by these groups, it becomes clear that there is no optimal inclusion strategy and that the barriers to being a recognized economist remain 50 years later.

Judy Yates and Housing Economics

ABSTRACTThis editorial captures the history of immense contributions that Judy Yates AM has made to the discipline of housing economics. It traces her legacy and combines notes of personal appreciation by two international colleagues that Judy worked closely with during her lifetime.

What Makes History Nobel Prize Worthy? Claudia Goldin and the Relevance of History of Education

AbstractIn 2023, Claudia Goldin received the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking research in economics. In this article, I use Goldin’s research to reflect on the role of history of education in academic research. I argue that Goldin’s remarkable achievement underscores the need for historians of education to reach a wider disciplinary audience in the humanities and social sciences. Goldin’s success lies not in isolating her focus to a subfield, but in connecting historical research to wider concerns in the discipline of economics. Goldin’s research thus reminds us of the skills required of historians of education: to understand the research interest and terminology of other research fields, and to use historical methods to address the key problems that those research fields explore. That is, we need to learn how to apply historical methods to what are essentially nonhistorical problems.

Unequal exposure: An inclusive approach to teaching environmental justice

Environmental justice issues have been absent or downplayed in most environmental economics textbooks and classes. This omission is a lost opportunity to teach and extend core economic concepts while attracting a diverse set of students. In this article, the authors share different perspectives and teaching materials to introduce an environmental justice module into an environmental economics course. Their approach combines traditional economic concepts and methods with case studies and insights from other disciplines. This approach is proposed in the hope of advancing two goals. First, the approach aims to create a module accessible and appealing to a broader set of students than is traditionally represented in the economics discipline. Second, the materials help convey the relevance of economic ideas and analysis to real-world issues.

Overcoming alphabetical disadvantage: factors influencing the use of surname initial techniques and their impact on citation rates in the four major disciplines of social sciences

This study investigates the factors influencing surname initial techniques in academic publications and their impact on citation counts. Focusing on the disciplines of Economics, Psychology, Political Science, and Sociology, we utilized data from the top 500 universities listed in the Shanghai List. Examining 70.377 academic publications from 2.278 academics published between 2011 and 2020, the study reveals that alphabetical ordering is more prevalent in Economics and Political Science. Academics with surnames placed at the beginning of the alphabet in these fields experience increased visibility and recognition. Conversely, those with surnames placed at the end of the alphabet face disadvantages and often employ strategies such as changing surname initials, using hyphenated surnames, or adding prefixes to improve their positioning in the author list of the article. These strategies, influenced by factors like the number of authors, country of origin, gender and whether the advantage is gained or not in positioning of author list, help mitigate the unfairness caused by alphabetization and positively contribute to authors’ citation statistics.

On the notion of value. A comparative analysis between economic and biophysical approaches

The plurality of dimensions and topics covered by the SDGs reflects the need to assess the value of organizations, cities, and societies using a holistic approach that considers different dimensions and criteria. It is much needed to shift towards inter-disciplinary, multi-criteria and integrated perspectives, opening the door to views able to consider different scientific points of view when assessing the most “valuable” pillars in human societies. This need highlights a controversial question: “what do we mean when we refer to a concept so broad such as the one of “value” and its measurement”? The concept of value and welfare have changed throughout the years, also in relation to the historical context and societal structure and needs of the time. But time has not been the only factor in differentiating value theories. While most organically structured definitions of value have originated, as expected, from the developments of the economic discipline, this issue has also been addressed by scientists belonging to the biophysical realm. In this paper, a comparative overview of the main economic and biophysical value theories, developing from very different epistemological backgrounds, is provided. Results suggest the need to foster inter-disciplinary communication on the notion of value, which is an abstract construct at the root of our societies and economies.

Assessing proxies for market prices of thinly traded assets with scheduled cash flows

Pseudo-market prices of infrequently traded assets with scheduled cash flows – commercial real estate appraisals and matrix prices of commercial mortgage backed securities – are compared against a VAR model to assess the extent to which these widely-used proxies are grounded in economic fundamentals. Property appraisals fail to fully incorporate the economic fundamentals underlying commercial real estate transactions. During the financial crisis, CMBS matrix prices captured underlying economic fundamentals and exhibited little pricing bias. However, matrix prices no longer exhibited such economic discipline after the financial crisis. Incorporating VAR forecasts considerably improves the predictive ability of appraisals and matrix prices.

A bibliometric analysis of economic freedom: current status and future research directions

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine and identify the predominant themes in the literature on economic freedom. The paper also highlights the key journals, leading authors, top countries and organisations in the literature on economic freedom.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses the Scopus database to examine 1,512 articles covering the disciplines of economics, finance, business and social sciences from 1942 to 2022. Vosviewer software is used for creating bibliometric networks.FindingsThe findings suggest that significant growth in the economic freedom literature has occurred in the last ten years. Considerable attention has been devoted to examining the relationship between economic freedom and growth. The paper also finds that most of the research on economic freedom has been undertaken in the context of developed countries.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first attempts to undertake a bibliometric analysis of economic freedom. The article also highlights the less-researched areas in the literature and thus provides directions for future research.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2023-0690.

The contribution of qualitative methods to economic research in an era of polycrisis

This article argues that the considerable socio-economic and political challenges posed by the polycrisis can be better understood through the application of qualitative methods in economic research as quantitative methods fall short in this context. We argue that the integration of qualitative methods into economic research is crucial for two main reasons: first, from a philosophical point of view, a more comprehensive perspective on economic phenomena increases the epistemic quality of economic knowledge, and second, for political reasons, more pluralism in economics increases the democratic quality of capitalistic societies. We provide a review of the literature of the use of qualitative methods in economics and its philosophical underpinnings. Using specific examples of the application of qualitative methods in economic policy research, we show how valuable such perspectives are in facilitating a deeper understanding of the polycrisis. We address concerns against qualitative research in the economic discipline and how our analysis serves to mitigate some of these concerns in the context of the polycrisis. We conclude with a discussion on the potential role of qualitative methods in economic research.

Mediating Role of Perceived Behavioral Control on the Relationship Between Financial Knowledge and Saving Intention

Young people, particularly university students, are often believed to desire a lifestyle associated with complete enjoyment, leading to money saving issues. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of financial knowledge on the saving intention of Generation Z university students majoring in business and economics in Vietnam, as well as the mediating role of perceived behavioral control in this relationship. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The primary data was collected from respondents (N = 625) majoring in business and economics and in Vietnam and analyzed. The results indicated that while financial knowledge did not exert a direct influence on saving intention, perceived behavioral control mediated the relationship between financial knowledge and saving intention. Additionally, there were differences in saving intention among demographic groups, namely, gender, income, financial support from family, and household living arrangement. The results have relevance for educational institutions, financial organizations, and individuals, especially students in the disciplines of business and economics.

Ceremonial Economics: A Social-Institutional Analysis of Universities, Disciplines, and Academic Positioning

What is the future of the university? Many have attempted to unpack what emerging technologies, political pressures, and social scrutiny can do to the status and innovative capacity of universities. While much of the literature has focused on either documenting innovation over practice in research/teaching techniques, or critical reflections on how university business models and academic labor are under threat, less has been debated on the impacts and processes of such changes from a systemic institutional perspective. This article develops a three-fold social-institutional framework to explore the process, purpose, and positioning of changes in knowledge production. I use the case of the economics discipline to explore how institutional ceremonial values, the policing of knowledge creation, and academic cultures as a hierarchical system of prestige can indicate potential structural change. Existing tensions between instrumental innovations and traditional ceremonial aspects that permeate both the university system and the economics discipline suggest two hypotheses to understand future change: (i) a ceremonial encapsulation of new technologies by old structures, exacerbating existing inequalities and monopolies within expertise positioning; or (ii) the rise of new and inclusive cultures within the principles of epistemic democratization and pluralism, co-existing with a new economic and social model of knowledge

History of Economics in the Light of Meghnad Desai’s Poverty of Political Economy

The article discusses some of the major theoretical and practical matters that the discipline of Economics has been grappling with from the times of Adam Smith down to Keynes. The publication of Meghnad Desai’s Poverty of Political Economy turns out to be an occasion or inspiration to revisit these ideas—the article is organised as a review article of the book. JEL Codes: B0, B1, B2, B3

Behavioral Biases Influencing Individual Investors Decision Making in Bearish Trend at Nepse

The discipline of financial economics has seen a paradigm shift over the past 25 years, moving from traditional finance to a new area of the study known as behavioral finance. Due to a multitude of behavioral biases and emotional attachments, professional investors make bad financial decisions that hinder their investing performance. Due to the increase in individual investors over the past several years, which is predicted to continue in the years to come, the problem of behavioral biases may become more and more important. Overconfidence bias, representativeness bias, disposition bias, loss aversion bias, herding bias and market factors are the independent variables, whereas investment decision making is the dependent variable. Questionnaires were used to collect primary data. 200investors were sampled using the convenience sampling technique, and data obtained was subjected to regression analysis. The SPSS was used to analyze data collected in order to generate descriptive statistics for the study. The extent to which the dependent variables could be explained by the independent variable was described using regression analysis. The study thus suggests that individual investors be educated how to avoid poor investment outcomes caused on by behavioral biases. Furthermore, individual investors should seek the advice of stock brokers/fund managers to guide them accordingly in terms of performance of a specific security in which an investor would wish to invest in.

Stable destabilising? Rethinking images of temporality

This article explores our sense of stability and instability. For example, is contemporary life governed by uncertainty, fluidity and sociotechnical acceleration, or do relative stability or inertia still represent the predominant experience in many domains? In particular, can stabilities and instabilities represent symbiotic processes, the one interwoven with the other? Furthermore, are theories conventionally treated as antagonistic more intimately related than we tend to consider, such as those favouring historical sedimentation over performativity and the assembly of the ‘new’? In comparing stabilisation and destabilisation, the article considers divergent theses of temporality, such as acceleration and refeudalisation, and the way that social theory appears peppered with images of stability and instability. To explore the symbiosis between stabilising and destabilising processes, it considers the social science disciplines of economics and accounting. In so doing, it addresses debate surrounding critical realism, historical sedimentation, governmentality and performativity, with attention to the argument of Abbott, Bourdieu, Callon, Elias, Neckel and Rosa. It also examines micro–macro relations, and the implicit theories of the self that inform the macroanalytical portrayal of stabilisation and destabilisation. Rather than seeing stability and instability as ‘opposites’, it argues that we should be open to the possibility that they may often be closely interrelated.

One Health Economics: why and how economics should take on the interdisciplinary challenges of a promising public health paradigm.

In this perspective paper, we argue that Economics could and should contribute to the development and implementation of the One Health approach currently emerging as a relevant interdisciplinary framework to address present and future infectious diseases. We show how proven tools from Health and Environmental Economics, such as burden evaluation, can be extended to fit the One Health multisectoral perspective. This global health framework could also benefit significantly from Economics to design efficient schemes for prevention and disease control. In return, adapting Economics to the challenges of One Health issues could pave the way for exciting developments in the Economics discipline itself, across many subfields.

CORE Econ: a Neoclassical Synthesis for the twenty-first century?

This paper provides a critical review of CORE Econ’s The Economy and associated materials. It argues that there is a need for reworked economics textbooks and that CORE Econ’s approach to this project – to replace mathematical abstractions with relevant real-world economics and to overcome the free market bias of introductory economics course – is well-founded. It is argued that The Economy contains a wealth of material which, in the hands of a sophisticated teacher, could form the basis of excellent introductory and intermediate economics modules. Despite this, however, the paper argues that the newly charted path through the economics discipline – using game theory and market imperfections as the entry point – is not easy to traverse. The demotion of Marshallian supply and demand is welcome and overdue, but its replacement is not yet fully formed. The CORE Econ authors’ claim that they present a unified model in which microeconomics and macroeconomics are coherently integrated – a new Neoclassical Synthesis – is overstated. In particular, the paper argues that students who do not have substantial access to tutoring and mentoring will find the text hard. Those students with only limited guidance and support – due to large cohorts, outside commitments or other reasons – are likely to struggle to learn directly from the text. For this reason, The Economy may favour stronger students and elite institutions over those further down the academic hierarchy. Most fundamentally, it is argued, the issues that surface in The Economy go beyond the specific implementation of a textbook, and reflect problems with the discipline itself. The Economy reflects the view that all economic problems can ultimately be understood in terms of individual optimisation. This assumption is highly controversial. A deeper rethink of how we teach undergraduates in economics is needed.