Notion Of Economy Research Articles

Economy as a Social System: Niklas Luhmann's Contribution and its Significance for Economics

AbstractNiklas Luhmann's (1927–1998) ambitious research project was aimed not only at describing society as a global social system, but it also analyzed various subsystems (including an economic one). The article assesses Luhmann's vision of the economy, summarized mainly in his Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, wherein he addresses basic economic notions: the economic system, money, prices, rationality, and the market. I then interpret his ideas in the context of modern discussions in economics (intersubjective structures, complex systems, and evolutionary modeling). I also propose some heuristics implied by Luhmann's economic ontology, which are potentially interesting for methodological and theoretical strategies of modern economics.

The Environment and International Society: Issues, Concepts, and Context

International environmental law is the study of the norms, means and processes to address global and regional environmental challenges. The world’s domestic and transboundary ecosystems are under enormous stress. International environmental law is the study of how international law and policy can be used to address these stresses. International law includes principles, rules, and norms that are binding on nations and sub-national actors. Environmental legal principles and policy prescriptions emerge from the use of international sources and processes to make law and to cooperate to solve problems. This section provides a brief survey of threshold principles in international law including common issues, concepts and definitions. It includes how these concepts are shaped by external and emerging notions of global trade, economics, sustainability and environmental rights.

Competing with dominant global standards in a catching-up context. The case of mobile standards in China

The process of diffusion of standards and competition between standards is susceptible to initial conditions and is path dependent. In this paper, the authors are interested in investigating to which extent economic actions and public policy initiatives can modify the outcome of a path-dependent process of competition between standards. They also aim to identify the factors that affect the success of such initiatives. To this end they analyse competition between mobile standards in China across two generations (2G and 3G), with the help of essential notions of economics of standards. Different policy initiatives have been taken to stimulate the domestic innovation and to relieve the burden of foreign IPRs, culminating with the introduction of a 3G domestic standard, TD-SCDMA, to compete with the established global standards. Despite the size of the Chinese market and the strong hold of the government on the telecommunications industry, it is found that the available market data indicate that these path-breaking initiatives have not been successful from a commercial point of view. From the case study, the authors analyse the reasons for the unsatisfactory market results and outline the main lessons to be drawn. They also investigate to which extent the Chinese initiatives have contributed to other objectives related to catching-up. It is suggested that they have provided opportunities of learning to innovate and develop valuable capabilities. Building on the lessons drawn from this case, the authors discuss three standard policy and strategy options for catching-up countries: simple participation in global consortiums on agreed global standards, indigenous architectural innovation, and indigenous modular innovation.

Traditional Commercial Model or Distributed Generation: Finding the Proper Scale for Wind Energy

In this paper, I attempt to compare costs and benefits of the traditional model with distributed generation within the scope of wind energy generation. In Section II, I examine the following economic aspects of both models: in part A, economies of scale; part B, economics of permanence; part C, allocation of costs and benefits among stakeholders. Traditional notions of economies of scale favor a larger model of production, though economist E. F. Schumacher presents an alternative view of production that would favor smaller-scale development. In Section III, I discuss logistical and technological barriers to widespread application of our two models. In part A, I examine the smart grid. As we will see, distributed generation may be dependent upon a smart grid to maximize the benefits inherent in its “grassroots” structure, while the traditional model can flourish with or without technological advances in the grid. In part B, I discuss facility siting in both the rural and urban contexts. There, I examine the biggest logistical challenge for the traditional model, which is the transmission of energy from its rural generation facilities to population centers. I also discuss the potential for distributed generation in urban areas. While distributed generation in urban centers has been limited thus far to solar generation rather than wind, numerous companies are working on wind solutions that will work in an urban setting, with the potential for a tremendous impact on the way we think about energy.

Voluntary Simplicity and the Social Reconstruction of Law: Degrowth from the Grassroots Up

Degrowth scholars and other growth skeptics have done a considerable amount of important work exposing the many defects inherent to the dominant macroeconomics of growth (Kallis, 2011; Latouche 2009; Jackson 2009; Victor 2008; Daly 1996). In recent years a growing body of literature has also emerged exploring what structural changes could be undertaken to facilitate the emergence of a degrowth or steady-state economy (Alexander 2011a, Jackson 2009; Hamilton 2003). Very little has been written, however, on what role social or cultural evolution may need to play in providing the necessary preconditions for such structural change. The neglect of this issue is problematic for two main reasons. First, it seems highly unlikely that a degrowth or steady-state economy will ever arise voluntarily within cultures generally comprised of individuals seeking ever-higher levels of income and consumption (Hamilton and Denniss, 2005). Accordingly, before growth economics can be overcome, this significant cultural obstacle must be acknowledged, confronted, and somehow transcended. Secondly, even if notions of degrowth or steady-state economics were to gain widespread acceptance within a culture, it seems highly unlikely that a degrowth or steady-state economy would arise voluntarily unless people had some idea of what needed to be done at the personal and community levels to bring about such an economy (Trainer, 2010; Hopkins, 2008). In other words, it is not enough merely to offer a critique of existing structures of growth; it is equally important to explore the question of how one ought to live in opposition to those structures. This paper engages some aspects of these complex issues by looking into what role social movements may have to play in creating the preconditions needed for a degrowth or steady-state economy to materialize. More specifically, this paper examines the potential of the Voluntary Simplicity Movement to socially reconstruct law to that end.

On the Exception to the /υ/ to /A/ Change in Early Modern English

Chung, Inkie. 2012. On the Exception to the /υ/to/A/ Change in Early Modern English. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 20(3), 39~58, This paper deals with an exception of the diachronic change in the history of the English language, i.e., the change of the short high back (lax) rounded vowel /υ/ in Middle English to the mid back/central lax unrounded vowel /A/in Modern English. This exception is best analyzed as the inalterability effect of partial geminate structure (in the sense of Hayes, 1986) due to spreading of the [labial] node of the preceding labial consonant to the following vowel. It provides support for Halle, Vaux and Wolfe`s (2000) revised articulator model, contra Clements` (1991) unified feature model. It also presents arguments supporting Halle, Vaux and Wolfe`s (2000) claim that only terminal features spread in the geometrical representation of distinctive features. The analysis employs Calabrese`s (2005) correlation statement and the notion of economy (Chomsky, 2000; Calabrese, 2005).

Conceptually and Developmentally Appropriate Education for Financially Literate Global Citizens

This themed issue of Citizenship, Social, and Economics Education comes at a critical time for a globally aware society. The twenty-first century witnesses a climate where prosperity and poverty co-exist as highly extreme conditions. Research by Richard Wilkinson and Kat Pickett (2009) describes correlational relationships between the degrees of financial disparities among countries and among states and the magnitude of various social ills. Their findings illustrate the importance of relating financial literacy and citizenship conceptions. Bridging the financial gap between the affluent and impoverished represents an important aspect of improving social welfare. Preparing a citizenry to meet the challenge of closing this gap presents a formidable challenge for social educators, particularly in a ‘first world’ setting that espouses capitalist-based principles of citizenship. The content and dispositions advocated through financial literacy teaching and learning define the nature of quality living on local and global scales. Conceptions of financial literacy fall along a spectrum that frames the patterns of knowledge and principles that are necessary to pursue closure of the wealth gap. The teaching of financial principles to those in need has long been advocated by scholars. At one end lies the traditional perspective, which interprets financial practice as concerning acquisition, management, disbursement and accumulation of financial resources. Scholars of this view consider financial behavior as predominately a matter of individual choice. Associated research efforts depend on the assumption that personal financial weakness results from both a lack of knowledge and lack of selfdiscipline to resist temptations that distract from the accumulation of wealth. Huston (2010) defined financial literacy within this vein through her analysis of over 70 research studies that pursued measurement of financial literacy. Yet, her inclusion of only one academic outlet (College Student Journal) outside of the fields of consumer education, economics, and finance among her sources indicates that traditional conceptions of financial literacy are either (1) under-examined in other fields of study or (2) not recognized by mainstream financial literacy scholars. An emerging alternative view interprets financial literacy as involving a broader conception than is conventionally understood. The financial crises of first world financial markets have invigorated scholarly effort to examine prospects for alternative financial education conceptions (e.g. McGregor, 2010; Sandlin & McLaren, 2010). While there has been some work on the part of economic educators that concerns moral issues (Wight, work in process), a revisionist approach to financial education defines financial decision making through the social contexts in which it occurs – thus, it may actually blend notions of personal finance and personal economics. According to this view, financial literacy considers personal choices as related to patterns of origin and as necessitating reconsideration of principles for financial practice. Financial education efforts find themselves at a crossroads of sorts. One direction involves the traditional, prudent choice, premised on the conception of financial approach, with caution and discipline being meritorious, and anticipating long-term benefits from financial patience and self

Traditional commercial model or distributed generation? Finding the proper scale for wind energy

In this paper, I attempt to compare costs and benefits of the traditional model with distributed generation within the scope of wind-energy generation. In part II, I examine the following economic aspects of both models: in Section II.1, economies of scale; II.2, economics of permanence; II.3, allocation of costs and benefits among stakeholders. Traditional notions of economies of scale favour a larger model of production, though economist E.F. Schumacher presents an alternative view of production that would favour smaller-scale development. In part III, I discuss logistical and technological barriers to widespread application of the two models. In III.1, I examine the smart grid. Distributed generation may be dependent on a smart grid to maximize the benefits inherent in its “grassroots” structure, while the traditional model can flourish with or without technological advances in the grid. In III.2, I discuss facility-siting in both the rural and urban contexts. I examine the biggest logistical challenge for the traditional model, which is the transmission of energy from its rural generation facilities to population centers. I also discuss the potential for distributed generation in urban areas. While distributed generation in urban centers has been limited thus far to solar generation rather than wind, numerous companies are working on wind solutions that will work in an urban setting, with the potential for a tremendous impact on the way we think about energy.

Traditional commercial model or distributed generation? Finding the proper scale for wind energy

In this paper, I attempt to compare costs and benefits of the traditional model with distributed generation within the scope of wind-energy generation. In part II, I examine the following economic aspects of both models: in Section II.1, economies of scale; II.2, economics of permanence; II.3, allocation of costs and benefits among stakeholders. Traditional notions of economies of scale favour a larger model of production, though economist E.F. Schumacher presents an alternative view of production that would favour smaller-scale development. In part III, I discuss logistical and technological barriers to widespread application of the two models. In III.1, I examine the smart grid. Distributed generation may be dependent on a smart grid to maximize the benefits inherent in its “grassroots” structure, while the traditional model can flourish with or without technological advances in the grid. In III.2, I discuss facility-siting in both the rural and urban contexts. I examine the biggest logistical challenge for the traditional model, which is the transmission of energy from its rural generation facilities to population centers. I also discuss the potential for distributed generation in urban areas. While distributed generation in urban centers has been limited thus far to solar generation rather than wind, numerous companies are working on wind solutions that will work in an urban setting, with the potential for a tremendous impact on the way we think about energy.

Framework for Economic Development in EU External Relations

This Working Paper is a collection of contributions presented during the Workshop Framework for Economic Development in EU External Relations on 22nd and 23rd January 2010. The contributions explore various facets of what is known as economic development and what with time has incorporated many new aspects and developed links with other policy fields. Starting off with the traditional realm of the development policies – trade – the paper shifts to explore how the solely economic notion of development has been enhanced through the introduction of the concept of sustainable development, and how this concept was integrated into two policy areas – that of migration and human rights. Each of the contributors provides an in-depth analysis of a respective facet which build up a very complex picture of what economic development in EU external relations has become.

Market failures of Market Coupling and counter-trading in Europe: An illustrative model based discussion

The horizontal integration of the energy market and the organization of transmission services remain two open issues in the restructured European electricity sector. The coupling of the French, Belgian and Dutch electricity markets (the trilateral market) in November 2006 was a real success. The extension of the system to Germany in November 2010 also proceeded smoothly and the intent is to continue with the same market architecture. But Market Coupling is based on a zonal system which has often failed in meshed grids. This may cast doubts on what will happen in the future when electricity demand picks up again and wind develops. The nodal system has generally been more successful than zonal architectures but its implementation is not currently foreseen in the EU.This paper analyzes versions of Market Coupling that differ by the organization of counter-trading. While underplayed in current discussions, counter-trading could become a key element of Market Coupling as its geographic coverage expands and wind penetrates. We simplify matters by assuming away strategic behavior between the energy and counter-trading markets and conduct the analysis on a stylized six node example taken from the literature. We simulate Market Coupling for different assumptions of zonal decomposition and coordination of Transmission System Operators (TSOs). We show that these assumptions matter: even in the absence of strategic behavior, Market Coupling can be quite vulnerable to the particular situation on hand; counter-trading can work well or completely fail and it is not clear beforehand what will prevail. Our analysis relies on standard economic notions such as social welfare and Generalized Nash equilibrium, but the use of these notions is probably novel. The nodal organization is the reference first best scenario: different zonal decompositions and degrees of coordination are then studied with respect to this first best solution.

Pleasure And Pain: At The Crossroads Of Psychoanalysis And The Political Economy

Freud's writings offer very few explicit contact points with the notions of political economy. When he speaks of spending, savings or investments, borrowing expressions that are also used by economists, the point of view might be strictly 'economic' (in terms of the quantity of energy required) but the analysis is entirely located within the domain of psychology and does not pertain to production, exchange and consumption in social life. The same is true when he speaks of satisfaction, needs and desires. It is perhaps the notions of 'labour' or 'work' as Freud conceived them that are the least estranged from political economy. I am not speaking of 'dream work' or the 'work of mourning', but of labour in the sense of a daily effort, of a day's labour-activity, necessary to one's life and to survival. Freud conceives of human society as relying on an economic motive--that is to say, the necessity of working for provisions--that entails an obligation to divert energy from the search for sexual pleasure toward the hard constraints of labour. (1) In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud tackles once again the question of labour and underlines its value as remedy to most of the ills affecting the individual in contemporary society. Nevertheless, aside from this narrow point of contact (along with a few others regarding the libidinal signification of money), the notions found in Freud that are common to his analysis and to political economy (savings, investments, spending, needs, satisfaction) are not sufficient to elaborate an economic doctrine, a theory of production, circulation and consumption of commodities, or a theory of the relationships between labour and capital in the society of his time, deeply structured by decisive advances in industrial and finance capitalism. Apparently, psychoanalysis is located on another level. And yet, if we consider Freud's work from an historical and epistemological point of view, it is striking what it reveals. When he was at the beginning of his long career as a courageous and persistent researcher (at the end of the 1870s), political economy had just gone through a great revolution. I do not mean to assert that Freud may have been influenced directly by this revolution in economic theories. None of the references that he quotes allows us to think so. Nevertheless, I don't consider it too anecdotal to recall that Freud as a student translated into German a volume of the works of John Stuart Mill, (2) a major thinker of utilitarianism (in the precise philosophical sense of this word, which situates it closer to hedonism than utility in the usual sense). It was precisely utilitarianism (that of Condillac or Bentham) that was the main philosophical source of the new current of economic theories at this time. And if, beyond all the influences that can be spotted, one might speak in terms of a paradigm shift or of an epistemological rupture, it is striking that psychoanalysis, in many ways, showed a certain affinity of view with what is called the neoclassical current, a configuration of economic theories that independently, and nearly simultaneously, appeared in England, France and Austria, indicating its historical necessity at that time. And yet economists or historians of economics compare the 'psychological, individual and subjective explanation' (3) of neoclassical economists, in particular those belonging to the Austrian psychological school of Karl Menger and his colleagues--the Vienna School--which focused on the question of individual choices, to the so-called objective conception of the classical economists (Smith, Ricardo, Marx). The fundamental notion of neoclassical economics is that of a desiring subjectivity that seeks enjoyment as the starting-point for all value: there are no things, objects, that have an objective, fixed, well-determined value and that are desirable. Rather, it is subjective desire and hence desirability that confer value on an object--a value that is in no way absolute, but that is always subjective, individual, and temporary. …

Behavioural Finance and Investor Protection Regulations

The article deals with behavioural assumptions in legal norms, in particular with regard to investor protection norms in Europe and Germany as well as court rulings. Whereas traditional legal norms are based on the assumption of rationale behaviour, the financials crisis has demonstrated the pitfalls of the classical notions of economics, thus leading to new insights of behavioural economics. However, it is still unclear how behavioural economics may serve as a means to improve legal protection of investors. Neither a strong paternalism nor a simple extension of information obligation may suffice in the future.

Ornato e despojamento no mundo fabril

O artigo investiga algumas das tendências da arquitetura gerada por fábricas - galpões industriais, moradias, igrejas, escolas, clubes etc. -, erguida no Brasil entre as duas últimas décadas do século XIX e as primeiras do XX. Apoia-se em amplo inventário, como base para um esforço de análise que se propõe a identificar os temas e usos predominantes dos ornatos aplicados a construções geradas por fábricas, as referências historicistas mobilizadas e eventuais rupturas de signos arquitetônicos tipológicos, e, no limite, a abolição de ornatos e dos referidos signos. Assim, de um lado, trata da penetração da linguagem eclética nessas construções, investigando o repertório formal utilizado em diferentes tipologias. De outro, trata da simultânea difusão de uma estética tipicamente fabril, fundamentada em noções de economia, eficiência, utilidade e funcionalidade. Mostra como tais noções se expressam ora em uma simplificação ou ausência de ornatos, ora no uso de ornatos cujos temas remetem ao mundo das máquinas; às vezes, no distanciamento ou abandono de signos arquitetônicos tipológicos consagrados; ou, ainda, no emprego de materiais produzidos industrialmente e que se difundiram a partir, sobretudo, da arquitetura de fábricas.

‘ “Counting is a bad procedure” ’: Calculation and Economy in Jacques Derrida's Donner le temps

In Jacques Derrida's formalisation of the problem of the gift in Donner le temps (1991), where Derrida offers a joint reading of Marcel Mauss’ The Gift and Baudelaire's La Fausse monnaie, there is an apparent rejection of rational calculation (and of economism) in a narrow sense. This exclusion is only one of the steps in the deconstruction of the metaphysics of the gift, and of other motifs such as, for example, invention, forgiveness, and hospitality. In another step, calculation and economy are the terms of logico-formal paradoxes, and engages us to think of the incompatible demands of calculability and incalculability between which reason is torn, and which Derrida has discussed, for example, in ‘The “World” of the Enlightenment to Come (Exception, Calculation and Sovereignty)’ (2003). In this paper, I argue that in his evaluation of Mauss’ moderate view of economy and exchange, Derrida has limited Mauss’ notions of economy and rationality to reason as calculation. This evaluation jars with Derrida's deconstruction of calculation in his reading of Hegel and Rousseau among others, as I begin to show, Hegel, for whom ‘counting was a bad procedure’.

Network Games: Theory, Models, and Dynamics

Traditional network optimization focuses on a single control objective in a network populated by obedient users and limited dispersion of information. However, most of today's networks are large-scale with lack of access to centralized information, consist of users with diverse requirements, and are subject to dynamic changes. These factors naturally motivate a new distributed control paradigm, where the network infrastructure is kept simple and the network control functions are delegated to individual agents which make their decisions independently (selfishly). The interaction of multiple independent decision-makers necessitates the use of game theory, including economic notions related to markets and incentives. This monograph studies game theoretic models of resource allocation among selfish agents in networks. The first part of the monograph introduces fundamental game theoretic topics. Emphasis is given to the analysis of dynamics in game theoretic situations, which is crucial for design and control of networked systems. The second part of the monograph applies the game theoretic tools for the analysis of resource allocation in communication networks. We set up a general model of routing in wireline networks, emphasizing the congestion problems caused by delay and packet loss. In particular, we develop a systematic approach to characterizing the inefficiencies of network equilibria, and highlight the effect of autonomous service providers on network performance. We then turn to examining distributed power control in wireless networks. We show that the resulting Nash equilibria can be efficient if the degree of freedom given to end-users is properly designed.

Home economics as an integrated, holistic system: revisiting Bubolz and Sontag's 1988 human ecology approach

AbstractThis article explores how Bubolz and Sontag's seminal work on integration in home economics and human ecology can inform contemporary home economics practice. They argue that the human ecology perspective can be used to view the whole of home economics, and the subprofessions (specializations) within the whole, as diverse yet unified. This article employs a spider plant as a metaphor to illustrate the value of embracing the notion of home economics as an integrated, holistic system.

Intellectual capital reporting: a conceptual study with application in the Portuguese case

This paper analyses the reporting of intellectual capital (IC) in Portugal. The paper surveys the studies made on the reporting of IC considering the traditional, company based idea, that IC explains the difference between the market value and the book value. But additionally, a new approach to the reporting of IC related with the economic notion of market is presented. The two approaches are critically compared. The new approach is applied. Some conclusions are drawn, namely on the need for a mixture of approaches in order to comprehensively study the IC of nations.

The local geometry of multiattribute tradeoff preferences

Existing representations for multiattribute ceteris paribus preference statements have provided useful treatments and clear semantics for qualitative comparisons, but have not provided similarly clear representations or semantics for comparisons involving quantitative tradeoffs. We use directional derivatives and other concepts from elementary differential geometry to interpret conditional multiattribute ceteris paribus preference comparisons that state bounds on quantitative tradeoff ratios. This semantics extends the familiar economic notion of marginal rate of substitution to multiple continuous or discrete attributes. The same geometric concepts also provide means for interpreting statements about the relative importance of different attributes.

Poverty reduction is not development

A couple of generations ago, basic notions of development economics were widely understood. It was common for policy makers and foreign aid agencies to discuss strategies of industrialisation and e...