Discipline Of Economics Research Articles

Shackle’s Enquiry Into Choice

Despite the several attempts to rework on his ideas, using non-mainstream approaches, George L. Shackle has remained an outsider in the economic discipline. Shackle, however, if we take seriously what he thought of economics, as a discipline concerned with a subject that is not self-contained but open-ended and impermanent, is not a man alone. Starting from an assessment of Shackle’s understanding of choice as originative and creative, the paper argues that Shackle should be rescued from the role of a nihilist where he is often relegated. In this perspective, a fundamental key to assessing the originality and anticipatory character of Shackle’s contribution can be found in the recent developments of several “friendly” disciplines such as the psychology of motivations and of self-rewarding actions, narrative as the “science” of the possible and the role of calendar time in choice theory. In fact, all these novel rethinkings can contribute to the understanding of Shackle’s main point, that human (and therefore economic) agents are active, creative enterprisers, who cut the deterministic thread by injecting the new in history to come, in making a difference in the future courses of action.

What Counts—Why Growth Economics is Failing Us

A rapidly growing body of research suggests that modern economies find themselves at existential crossroads: both prosperity and survival are a function of consumption-fueled economic growth. Prosperity seemingly depends on it; survival is made increasingly impossible by it. Economists measure economic growth by what is generally recognized as a deeply flawed yet still hegemonic economic performance indicator—GDP. This paper suggests that growth based in increased consumption is in need of reconceptualization no matter what the measure, and invites the research community of the Journal of Consumer Culture to investigate what such a research agenda might look like. Economic logic itself, this essay argues, needs to be re-embedded in science, rather than operate as a self-referential logic outside of natural boundaries. Biophysical limits force us to question economic growth as a goal. A wide range of social pathologies, furthermore, from inequality to stress to loneliness, raise deep questions about the desirability of growth. The essay is a self-conscious provocation to the discipline of economics: there is an emerging need to move beyond a conceptualization of the economy as a self-contained system of monetary market exchanges defining the relations between production, distribution, and consumption.

Analysis of the Golden Ratio Theory in Terms of Economic Theories

There is a direct relationship between the economic resources and the natural balance. Indeed, the laws of nature play a fundamental determining role as a process that directs the behavior and movements of living and non-living beings in nature. According to Adam Smith, the functioning of the economy and the formation of the general state of equilibrium occur entirely thanks to the rational human behavior called the "invisible hand". It means nature has equipped people with an instinct that directs them to serve the social interest while considering their own concerns. This approach of Smith is also accepted by Keynes. According to Keynes, while individuals make consumption and other economic decisions with the “spiritus animalis”, they try to make the best decision by acting according to their instincts, just like migratory birds. These approaches of Smith and Keynes show that the golden ratio in mathematics and the Fibonacci approaches based on it can also be evaluated in terms of the relations between economic indicators. In this study, an analysis has been tried to be made within the framework of the thesis that there is a mutual and harmonious relationship between macroeconomic indicators and the golden ratio of a country.In this context, the golden ratio theory has been evaluated from a macroeconomic perspective. Thus, it has been shown how the discipline of economics is in a logical relationship with other disciplines

Population distribution-weighting: Exploring a human-centered approach to house price statistics in German housing markets

ABSTRACT This paper suggests an improvement to the performance of existing house price indexing methods and explores a way to improve their applicability. The proposed approach takes population distribution into account by integrating it with index prices. This approach is validated with two exemplary applications in Germany at different levels of aggregation. The generated population-weighted boxplots reveal previously hidden, human-centered insights that differ significantly from methods in which only index prices are examined. This standardized approach enables effective subject-matter discourse and resilient decision-making in urban affairs. It is applicable to a broad range of price-related metrics and issues, including affordability in housing, spatial planning, building, and urban development. Its novelty lies in comprehensively integrating population distribution into house price statistics, thereby uniquely connecting the disciplines of economics and spatial planning. It also aims to initiate new conversations that remain unexplored in urban affairs and the real estate industry.

On Political Economy and its Fallacies: Why Critiques and Rethinking Matter

This article is the 10th anniversary lecture of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, delivered in 2021. It provides a reflection on key issues and fallacies that lie at the origins of political economy. It is argued that, as regards the problem of knowledge production, the formulation of factually and logically incorrect theories begins with English classical political economy. Political economy as developed in England in the second half of the eighteenth century—a period which saw a rapid increase in its trade especially with its colonies of conquest, while also making the transition to factory production—proceeded on the basis of verbal and material fallacies and silences which have been reproduced in historiography and the discipline of economics to this day.

Dress codes written for dietetics education programs: A Foucauldian discourse analysis

Organized in the US in 1917, dietetics emerged from the discipline of home economics as an “acceptable” area of study for women. Since its inception, dietetics has lacked diversity; most dietetics professionals identify as white, cisgender, heterosexual, middle to upper-middle-class women. In the supervised practice setting, interns are expected to dress “professionally” and follow health/safety protocols. Given the field’s history, it is reasonable to suspect that dress codes—rules/expectations regarding what employees/participants can/cannot wear—for dietetics programs may be problematic. To explore this, we conducted a discourse analysis using a Foucauldian feminist approach, drawing on the notion of governmentality. Eighty-five dietetics dress codes, supplemented with survey questions, from US-based accredited dietetics education programs were analyzed. Three primary discursive effects were identified: “Invisibilizing” informs dietetics students/interns how to be professional and modest. “Protecting” highlights dress to promote health and safety. “Normalizing” privileges conforming to thin, cisgender, white European women of higher SES. These findings show how the dress codes reify a “model” dietitian and privilege/oppress/discipline some bodies over others, supporting criticisms of dietetics dress codes as discriminatory and oppressing/privileging select societal groups. Recommendations are provided to address biases and prevent dress codes from negatively impacting diversity/inclusion in the profession.

Allyn Young’s Role as a Critic: Criticism as a Method to Advance Theory

Allyn Young’s wide knowledge of the economics literature placed him in an ideal position to critically review the work of others. His own attitude was that the discipline of economics was wide open for criticism, improvement, and refinement. He reviewed (or commented on) many authors such as William Stanley Jevons, Alfred Marshall, Arthur C. Pigou, Ralph G. Hawtrey, Irving Fisher, Francis Y. Edgeworth, Thorstein Veblen, Joseph Schumpeter, and John Maynard Keynes. Young used criticism as a method to advance and refine economic theory. For example, he criticized Marshall’s notion of consumers’ surplus and Pigou’s on social cost. He engaged in a long correspondence with Fisher on the theory of index numbers. He disagreed with Fisher that the general price level needed stabilizing. Young agreed with Veblen that economics needed an evolutionary approach and could be more fruitfully studied in terms of disequilibrium and cumulative causation, but disagreed that the discipline was based on a hedonistic psychology.

Public administration and political science: From monogamous marriage to professional partnership

Public administration and political science: From monogamous marriage to professional partnership

A STUDY ON STUDENT MOTIVATION AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL

The present paper explores how student motivation changes over time at university level based on the students’ perspectives. A purposive sample of nine students was interviewed from the Economics Discipline of Khulna University. The paper reveals that the loss of motivation can occur at any stage of a student’s university life: some may start university with low motivation, yet others may be caught in it at the middle stage or even at the very end. While a small number of students sustain good motivation level throughout their student life, most students experience some swings between high motivation and low motivation and majority of them tend to end the university life with a frustrated mindset. It is also found that some factors play a positive role and can drive a number of students more to academic tasks. In addition to providing insights and explanations about what factors work behind to shape the motivation level of students at the university, the present paper reveals how the provision of certain interventions is related to them and thus relevant to the existing setting.

Bridging the Divide in Cultural Capital? A Tale of Two Capitals

More critical approaches are required in understanding the dynamics of creative economy and the interplay between its social, political and economic dimensions. Among the key contributions to the economic analysis of the creative economy are economist David Throsby, including his concept of ‘cultural capital’. This concept provides new ways of thinking of culture and value, primarily within a defined economic discourse. We also consider the work of Pierre Bourdieu on cultural capital and suggest that some form of synthesis of the two approach opens up possibilities. For one, such an exercise opens up debates within the academic discipline of economics, and secondly it allows fruitful interaction between economics and other social science discourses both disciplinary and transdisciplinary. It also provides us with understanding of the workings of the global economy and at a more abstruse level, to the ways in which contemporary capitalism is structured within the global economy.

Everything Old is “Neo” Again

This article sets out the contours of a Marxist hermeneutic approach to political economy. It begins by outlining how such a critique of political economy would function, with a particular emphasis on approaches which understand the discipline of economics as theory. It further claims that critique is over-reliant on the concept neoliberalism; that the categories proper to economic critique are value, time and space and that the innovation of a hermeneutic approach would be to reintroduce a sphere for antagonism through the analysis of the relationship of economic theory to value. To substantiate this argument, I offer an analysis of some important trends in recent scholarship on neoliberalism, notably the regulation school and the work of Wendy Brown. The article concludes by arguing that a reorientation towards value is timely and necessary, given the serious global recession precipitated by the Coronavirus and the economic reorganisation which will ensue.

Women Economists and the Changes in the Discipline of Economics in Germany (1895-1961)

In Germany, women could attend universities as regular students only in the twentieth century. However, in the 1890s the female pioneers of economics and the social sciences attended seminars as guests. Their research was published in the journals of their supervisors. The changes in the (higher) education system and the discipline of economics are the background to the presentation of four generations of female economists in this paper. Selected biographies and the research of the respective economists are analyzed and the developments of the broader context reflected on this background. The selected works span the time period between 1895 and 1961. Starting with the historical-ethical school the analysis also sheds light on the evolution of the discipline of economics in Germany and the approach towards the Anglo-American mainstream beginning after World War I.

Travail et attention des femmes. Le cas de deux « Manifatture » (manufactures) : La manufacture de San Michele a Ripa et la manufacture italienne de tabac

This paper is part of the history of gender economics, adopted a microeconomic approach to study household economic decisions, labor, extended by the new discipline of gender economics in order to study gender differences and their economic implications, especially in the labor market. The present contribution intends to examine how the gender difference and the wage difference were present in the modern age and, in this regard, we want to deepen an emblematic case in the heart of Italy, that of the eighteenth-century Manufacture of San Michele a Ripa Grande and that of the nineteenth-century Italian Tobacco Factory. The two case studies have been identified because, even if in different periods, they represent for the Roman case, two important examples for the work of women in industry, because they represented, in the long term, the two most important manufactures and industries in Rome (which compared to the European capitals has never been an important industrial center). The sources used were found in the State Archives of Rome and little-used economic sources were also used, as well as the sources used for the Tobacco Factory found in the library of the Ministry of Finance are original.

Household cooking in the context of carbon neutrality: A machine-learning-based review

About 6.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions is caused by household cooking activities and thus it is of significance to identify research gaps between current studies and future directions in the context of carbon neutrality. To this end, the Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic model is used to review a total of 1440 household cooking studies from international journals written in English between 1983 and 2021. The textual mining technique helps to identify 20 topics in machine-learning sense, involving 8 research disciplines. In addition to energy field, household cooking is most relevant to disciplines of Multidisciplinary, Clinical Medicine, Chemistry, Economics and Business, and Geosciences. Energy ladder hypothesis and energy poverty are the most prevalent topics and asymmetric dependence relationships are unveiled among the 20 topics. Almost all cooking topics focus on health risk elimination and the transition to cleaner fuels while the target of carbon neutrality has not been adequately considered. The practical cooking fuel transition pathway, health co-benefits, impacts of the shift in cooking methods and practice on cultural diversity and human society driven by carbon neutrality constitute potential research directions. The machine-learning literature review research framework used in the study can be generalized in era of big data.

On the modernity of Carl Menger: criss-cross views. Roundtable conversation*

From different perspectives regarding the History of Economic Thought, the contributions to this roundtable highlight different aspects and levels of the modernity of the founder of the Austrian School of Economics, and of his importance for the development of social theory and the discipline of scientific economics. This is complemented by discussions of ambiguities and multiple meanings of modernity.

THE ANTI-OLIGARCHY POPULAR CONSTITUTION

THE ANTI-OLIGARCHY POPULAR CONSTITUTION

The Queen of the Social Sciences: The Reproduction of a [White] “Man's Field”

Abstract Economics reproduces itself as a [white] man's field through resistance to demographic and epistemic diversity. Although some resistance is expressed by anonymous individuals, they are neither the sole nor the primary source. Resistance is internal to the discipline; it is structural. It is present in the vertical organization of the profession, the seemingly neutral forms of evaluation that institutionalize gender bias, and the marginalization of certain topics and critical perspectives. Because resistance is structural, even if individuals do not discriminate, the discipline will remain resistant to diversity. The conceptualization of work as paid employment alone reflects gender ideology and plays a key role in the devalorization of unpaid work—those who do it and research about it. Concepts and methods from feminist political economy link the orthodox conceptualization of work, and the value system underpinning it, to the experiences of women economists between 1970 and the present. I find that economics remains a “man's field” through structural resistance to women economists, through interpreting women's economic activities as marginal to the “real business” of economics, and by delegitimizing feminist research about those activities. The delegitimization of feminists' paid work as economists functionally devalues women's unpaid work in economic thought. Because economic thought is influential outside the economics discipline, the delegitimization of feminist economic research devalues women's unpaid work outside the discipline as well. Efforts to “fix” structural resistance to diversity without addressing the devalorization of the gendered work required to reproduce people are likely to have limited impacts. They may contribute to demographic diversity, but demographic diversity will not automatically translate into theoretical diversity in a discipline that marginalizes critical thought. Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts should ensure that nonwhite and nonmen economists have pathways to advancement with scope for academic freedom. This is especially necessary when their intellectual contributions challenge the value systems and the unequal power relations that economic orthodoxy reinforces.

A LINKAGE BETWEEN THE FINANCIAL AND THE REAL ECONOMY

The aim of this paper is to present a linkage between the real economy (micro and macro) and the financial economy. This relationship is obtained from the non-arbitrage valuation of equities framework. The paper also investigates if this theoretical relationship is actually observed. For this purpose, it proposes and tests an empirical model for excess returns that includes the linkage as a crucial element. The actual observation of the linkage could be of special importance for the financial economics discipline, since it presents several features that are not usually seen in other asset pricing or macro-finance models: (a) the relationship is explicit and does not depend on the estimation of free parameters; (b) it is derived under arbitrage free arguments and does not introduce subjective concepts as utility function or risk aversion; and (c) it explains the observed level of equity risk premium without entering in contradiction with its theoretical foundations. The conclusions of the performed tests are in favor of the concepts provided by the framework, meaning that further research could offer an alternative understanding of the behavior of financial markets and their connection with the real economy.

Rural Women, Higher Education, and the Mixed Legacies of Early 20th Century Domestic Science Initiatives

Today, institutions of higher education enroll rural students, and specifically rural women, at rates lower than their urban counterparts (Flora et al., 2018). Additionally, the disciplines of teaching and home economics continue to dominate the curricular choices of rural women. As higher education scholars continue to explore these phenomena, a historical understanding of the relationship between rural women and education in the United States can provide an important context for scholarship about these educational patterns.This article explores the mixed legacies of three educational programs/policies implemented in the early 20th century and the ways in which they shaped educational practices for rural women in the United States: (a) the formalization of home economics as a post-secondary academic discipline, which set the stage for legislative developments; (b) the passage of the Smith-Lever Act, which institutionalized extension programs housed at land-grant colleges and universities; and (c) the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act, which brought vocational training, inclusive of home economics, to the lower schools. Collectively, these programs and policies provide insight into the complexity of the relationship between rural women and higher education, highlighting why some rural women participated in post-secondary education while others were not heavily present on college and university campuses but were still engaged in specific educational practices, often led by colleges and universities.

Effects of Multiple Financial News Shocks on Tourism Demand Volatility Modelling and Forecasting

Even though both symmetric and asymmetric conceptions of news impacts are well-established in the disciplines of economics and financial markets, the effects of combining multiple news shocks on the volatility of tourism demand have not yet been delved into or gauged in any tourist destination. This work hypothesises and verifies that the news impact curve (NIC), conditional heteroscedastic volatility models, and multiple news shocks are suitable for forecasting the volatility of the Malaysian tourist industry. Among them, three primarily volatility models (GARCH, EGARCH, and GJRGARCH) are used in conjunction with five financial news shocks (FFNSs), namely the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI), the United States Dollar Index (DXY), the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges (S&P500), Crude Oil (CO), and Gold Price (GP). Among the most significant findings of this study are the demonstration of monthly seasonality using conditional mean equations, asymmetry effects in EGARCH-FFNSs, and GJRGARCH-FFNSs models in conditional variance equations and 50 NICs, and the GARCH-FFNSs model’s evaluation of the persistence influence of news shocks on monthly visitor arrivals in Malaysia. The GJRGARCH-FFNSs model is the best model for Malaysian tourism demand volatility forecasting accuracy. Furthermore, KLCI and Gold Price have the most substantial impact on the number of tourists to Malaysia. In addition, it should be emphasised that the methodological framework utilised in this study can be a useful tool for creating and forecasting the performance of symmetry and asymmetry impacts on tourism demand volatility.