US Economic System Research Articles

System Approach for Characterizing and Evaluating Factors for Occupational Health Impacts Due to Nonfatal Injuries and Illnesses for the Use in Life Cycle Assessment.

Occupational injuries and illnesses are major risk factors for human health impacts worldwide, but they have not been consistently nor comprehensively considered in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods. In this study, we quantified occupational health impacts as disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for nonfatal injuries and illnesses in all US industries. We further applied an economic input-output model of the US economy to develop a new data set of characterization factors (CFs) that links direct and indirect occupational health impacts to product life cycle final demand. We found that the CF data set varies significantly by industry, ranging from 6.1 to 298 DALYs per billion dollars. About 20% of final demand in the US economic system contributes nearly 50% of the total impacts of occupational health, suggesting occupational health impacts are concentrated in a small portion of industries. To verify the feasibility of the CFs and demonstrate their importance, we included a case of an office chair. The occupational health impacts caused by nonfatal injuries and illnesses during the production of an office chair are of the same order of magnitude as those caused by chemical emissions across the chair's life cycle, with 1.1 × 10-5 and 1.4 × 10-5 DALYs per chair, respectively. Results and data sets derived from this study support the integration of occupational health impacts with LCIA methods.

The Confusing World of Cryptocurrency and Tax Compliance Issues

Subtitle A, of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), contains regulatory provisions regarding the federal taxes imposed on the income of both individuals and corporations. The IRC guidance is intended to provide a determination of all income that must be reported on tax returns and potentially could become subject to an income tax. A new form of currency, known as cryptocurrency appeared on mainstream trading platforms beginning in 2009. Bitcoin initially was the most widely recognized digital currency but other virtual currency versions soon followed. Initially, taxpayers mistakenly believed that cryptocurrency transactions were not subject to Subtitle A of the IRC. Therefore, crypto transactions were assumed to be non-taxable and non-reportable for tax purposes. However, within a few years of the introduction of Bitcoin into the US economic system, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) introduced tax guidance pertaining to cryptocurrency transactions. In 2014, the IRS responded with Notice 2014-21 as the popularity of Bitcoin grew exponentially. The IRC guidance stated that cryptocurrency must be treated as property for federal tax purposes. The tax implication of the IRS guidance was that cryptocurrency transactions would result in either a gain or loss for tax purposes on Schedule D. This guidance resulted in a recognition that all cryptocurrency transactions would be subject to federal income tax.

The CARES Act: Are the Tax and Financial Relief Provisions Sufficient in a Time of Economic Crisis?

The impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic has been staggering for the entire US economic system. Entire industries have been thwarted from operating on any sustainable level. In response, Wall Street reacted with a resounding CRASH… and so… the need for federal intervention became a stark reality for the US economic system’s survival. As major retailers collapse into bankruptcy, the need for continued federal financial support is tantamount to survival for a wide array of fledgling companies. Will the CARES legislation be sufficient to prevent a United States’ economic freefall?

Returns to Foreign and Host Country Qualifications: Evidence from the US on the Labour Market Placement of Migrants and the Second Generation

The integration of migrants in the US economic system is a central concern of policy-makers and scholars. A faster and smoother assimilation of valuable human capital would indeed benefit the labour market, increasing its efficiency. To investigate the integration of minorities and migrants in the US labour market, we employ data from the Current Population Survey from June 2016 (the primary source of labour force statistics in the US). We focus on the following ethnic groups: White, Black, Asian, and Other (a combination of Native Americans, Pacific and Mixed). For each ethnicity we consider if respondents are US born, 1st- or 2nd-generation of immigrant descent. Among 1st-generation migrants, we further differentiate between recent (in the country for 10 years or less) and long (in the country for more than 10 years) arrivals, as they are likely to have different levels of social capital and knowledge of the job market. We focus on three very relevant labour market outcomes: being employed, being employed in a public sector job and working in a professional or managerial position. Our results indicate better placement of individuals with tertiary degrees, an effect particularly important among women. Minorities in the public sector have made some important gains in terms of occupational attainment parity with the white majority.

Following the Money: New Scholarship on American Realism

After putting down two powerful new assessments of US realism—Andrew Lawson's Downwardly Mobile: The Changing Fortunes of American Realism (2012) and Nathaniel Cadle's The Mediating Nation: Late American Realism, Globalization, and the Progressive State (2014)—it is hard not to be reminded of James Carville's 1992 campaign motto, a linchpin of the Clinton ascendancy: “It's the economy, stupid.” Many smart Americanists of the last 30 years have insisted that American realism is essentially a meditation on the meaning of life under the regime of US-style capitalism, but the appearance of Lawson's and Cadle's books signals a new era in the field's maturing appreciation that it really is “all about the Benjamins”—to borrow another hackneyed pop-culture slogan. Together, these two books suggest what is possible when well-informed literary and economic analysis meet to reassess the print culture of an era punctuated by seismic financial transformations. In their vastly different outlooks, however, these two studies also demonstrate the need for theoretical resources beyond those offered by Marx, who continues to loom, sometimes unproductively, over accounts of economic experience among scholars of US realism. Lawson demonstrates that Marx can still teach us something about the mimetic urge that grows up in reaction to the dematerializing tendencies of a money economy, but Cadle's study takes us someplace genuinely new in aligning the major practitioners of realism with a broad cultural “reorientation toward the state as a means of empowering Americans to harness emerging modes of transnational circulation” (7). Giovanni Arrighi has a larger role to play than Marx in this conversation about the role of print media in the ascendancy of the US economic system and “the transfer of global hegemony from Europe to North America,” and thinkers such as Louis Brandeis, Randolph Bourne, and W.E.B. Du Bois help Cadle link major writers of the period to a Progressive spirit that Marx would have found deeply problematic (7). Cadle may not go far enough in exploring the literary implications of the transnational turn in US realism, but his book is a provocation that scholars interested in the economic underpinnings of the field should carefully consider.

Financialisation and the sub-prime crisis: a stock-flow consistent model

Our opinion is that the so-called sub-prime mortgage crisis has been a structural crisis of the US's financial capitalism. In analysing the complex combination of factors that led to those events, we try not to focus on the most contingent aspects but to clarify the underlying structure that made the crisis endogenously emerge from the US's economic system. To reach this goal, we base our analysis on existing economic theories. In particular, the combination of the Financial Instability Hypothesis by Hyman Minsky, the theory of Capital Market Inflation by Jan Toporowski, and the post-Keynesian literature on financialisation represent the foundation of our analysis. The results of our analysis will then be reproduced through a simulated stock-flow consistent model to test their logical coherence.

The Coast Port Industry in the U.S.A. A Key Factor in the Process of Economic Growth

The aim of this paper is to analyze the capacity of the USA coast port industry to sustain the development of the US economic system, which is predicted to undergo further strong expansion throughout the period up to 2020. The analysis is based on the observation that GDP depends on international trade, which in turn depends on maritime transport and therefore on the efficiency of the United States coast port industry system. The paper also points out that in many respects the US coast port industrial system is very efficient. It boasts a large number of ports, strategically located, efficient in their production specialization and competitiveness; in addition, the US coast ports are integrated with the national intermodal system. Despite this, the system reveals numerous weaknesses that need to be addressed. The most evident deficiencies involve land access to the ports, inadequate modernization of the intermodal system, dredging and its funding, the power the liner shipping companies wield over the ports, container terminal productivity, the organization of dock work and labour. A number of interesting proposals emerge, to some extent favourably re-assessing the role of federal coordination in the maritime transport sector and putting forward the suggestion of a form of specific financing for the transport sector rather than generic funding; this could be achieved by setting up a purpose-created bank and the subsequent emission of transportation bonds. The paper concludes with the assertion that although the US coast port industry is the most powerful in the world, measures need to be undertaken for technological, organizational and financial rationalization in the coast ports, considered synergically with the intermodal system. Such measures are vital in order to sustain the development that is expected for the period up to 2020; nevertheless, if the proposed measures are not carried out or prove to require a longer time period for completion, this would not lead to an irremediable breakdown, although it would certainly cause a noticeable slow-down of development.

Economic Evolution and Structure: The Impact of Complexity on the US Economic System.

Economic Evolution and Structure: The Impact of Complexity on the US Economic System.

A Pattern‐based Interpretation of the US Economic System

Analyses the economic system slice‐wise, taking the main economic activities for a year together. Within this slice the development of the economic activities is characterized by plus or minus signs according to an increase or decrease of the activities. This yearly sequence of plus and minus signs is taken as a pattern. Analyses these economic patterns according to cybernetic and economic criteria. Sign‐equivalent patterns are taken together as groups. The chronological development of these groups gives the profiles of the economy. The development of profiles is quite concordant with the business cycle of the economy in question.

Economic appraisal of co-operative enterprise in the United States: Principles and issues

Co-operatives are a unique type of enterprise with important differences from traditional firms. This paper explores these differences, with emphasis on the nature of their profits, entrepreneurial status, co-operative principles, transactional and cost differences and co-operative contributions to the economic system. Co-operative enterprises procure certain services for members at cost which distinguishes them from business firms which buy and sell products to make profits for the owners. Co-operation can be limited to two fundamental principles: services at cost and member control. Co-operatives aim to generate savings by providing members with goods and services more economically than they could obtain them from alternative sources. Thus, the co-operative intends to enhance profits in the individual businesses (or households) of members. However, members exercise entrepreneurial control over the co-operative—in much the same manner as do the owners of a business firm. Co-operatives aim to operate at different points on their short-run average cost curves than typical business firms and their differences in transactional perspective tend to increase competition in certain markets. Co-operatives frequently offer services firm entrepreneurs do not see fit to offer. Co-operatives thus have an important rôle in the US economic system.