This paper situates the subprime crisis in the context of the performance of the American economy over the last twenty-five years. The restructuring of the US economy is briefly reviewed, followed by an examination of some of the contradictions of the neoliberal model. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the reasons behind stagnant investment, and how the US finance-led accumulation-régime has become dependent upon, and threatened by, credit-creation delinked from the financing of fixed-capital formation. I argue that while the defeat (...) of the remnants of the New-Deal/Civil-Rights liberal-democratic coalition has provided the political context for the bold re-assertion of the prerogatives of capitalist owners, the neoliberal model has not provided a path out of problems of stagnation and growing debt-dependency that presently plague the US economy. Further, I argue that evidence suggests that the post-1982 restoration of profitability that underpinned the relative improvement of US economic performance has peaked, and that compelling historical and theoretical reasons exist to expect that the profit-rate will decline in the coming decade. This will introduce additional stresses on the current debt-structure of the US economy, triggering a period of prolonged crisis and economic dislocation. The conclusion is that the US economy faces the spectre of a protracted crisis associated with the reassertion of the falling rate of profit. (shrink)

In the first thirty years after World War II, the US economy performed very well. The rate of growth averaged 4—5%, the rate of unemployment was seldom above 5%, inflation was almost non-existent, and the living standards of workers improved steadily. These were the ‘good old days'. However, this long period of expansion and prosperity ended in the 1970s. Since then, both the rate of unemployment and the rate of inflation have been much higher than before, (...) and the average real wages of workers have declined some 20%. Productivity growth has also slowed down and the debt burden of both capitalist enterprises and the Federal government has increased dramatically. It is in this sense that we may refer to the ‘economic crisis’ of the US economy over the last two decades. This crisis has certainly not been as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the economic performance has been significantly worse than in the early post-war period. (shrink)

The relevance of Marx’s theory of value and his ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ to the analysis of the financial crisis of 2007–8 and the ensuing global slump is affirmed. The hypertrophic growth of unproductive constant capital, including the wages of ‘socially necessary’ unproductive labour and tax revenues, is identified as an important manifestation of an historical-structural crisis of capitalism, alongside the increasing weight of fictitious capital and the proliferation of fictitious profits (...) in the lead-up to the financial crisis. These phenomena have obscured the deepest roots of the global slump in the long-term profitability problems of productive capital – that is, in a crisis of surplus-value production. With these considerations taken into account, a better empirical assessment of trends in the composition of capital becomes possible, and with it a more accurate understanding of the impact of the ongoing displacement of living labour from production on the average rate of profit and the future of US and global capitalism. (shrink)

This article examines two views about the capitalism that lies at the heart of modern industrial society. We owe to Marx and Piketty two large-scale, hugely important, but very different studies of the nature of modern industrial capitalism. In Capital, Marx provides a complex analysis of the anatomy of modern industrial capitalism, which he regards not as stable but rather as over time unstable and tending toward internal collapse on several grounds, of which the most important is apparently the so-called (...) tendency of the falling rate of profit. The falling rate of profit supposedly threatens its continued existence. Piketty criticizes the latter view in the context of his theory of contemporary capitalism. The article suggests, first, that Marx's view of the falling rate of interest is empirically implausible but Piketty's rival claim is empirically plausible. Second, a successful transition from capitalism to communism on Marxian grounds is unlikely in practice. And finally, despite Marx's intentions, it is unlikely to realize itself in practice, and is in this respect a traditional theory. (shrink)

Since the collapse of the bubble economy at the beginning of the 1990s, Japan has been in secular stagnation. Despite the stagnant economic conditions, the rate of profit has been rising, not falling. The coexistence of the rise in profitability and prolonged economic stagnation is a manifestation of the fundamental contradiction of present-day Japanese capitalism. Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (LTRPF) provides a consistent explanation regarding the paradoxical situation in (...) Japan characterised not by a falling but a rising rate of profit. Meanwhile, this paper discusses the Monopoly Capitalism school, which has studied capitalist behaviour concerning productive investment and changes in the form of capitalist competition at the monopoly stage of capitalism. While the school’s negation of the LTRPF is unacceptable, their notions may provide useful explanations as to why the rate of profit has risen under secular stagnation in Japan. (shrink)

Although microfinance organizations are generally considered as inherently ethical, recent events have challenged the legitimacy of the sector. High interest rates and the excessive profitability of some market leaders have raised the question of how to define a fair profit level for social enterprise. In this article, we construct a fair profit framework based on four dimensions: profitability, social mission, pricing, and surplus distribution. We then apply this framework using an empirical sample of 496 microfinance institutions. Results indicate (...) that satisfying all four criteria is a difficult, although not impossible, task. According to our framework, 24 MFIs emerge as true double bottom line organizations. These MFIs are characterized by higher outreach to women, lower portfolio risk, and higher productivity in high-density environments such as South Asia. We argue that excessive profits can be better understood relative to pricing, the outreach of the MFI, and organizational commitment to clients in the form of reduced interest rates. (shrink)

The claims by the Building Societies Association (BSA), some mutual building societies and other observers that mutual status is associated with higher levels of charitable and community involvement than public status banks are tested using the proxy of charitable donations in cash as a proportion of profits before tax (PBT). Using a sample of 31 of the remaining 65 mutual societies and the population of U.K.-based retail banks and still-independent demutualised banks, two hypotheses were tested: first, that charitable giving as (...) a proportion of PBT over the period 1990–2003 was higher for mutuals than banks and second, that longitudinal records of charitable donations as a proportion of PBT for former mutuals will show a lower rate after demutualisation. Neither hypothesis was convincingly supported allowing for the conclusion that any claims suggesting that mutuals are structurally more generous than public companies are not supported by empirical evidence. (shrink)

The diversity in agronomic practices being used by sugarcane producers in Brazil determines differences in economic performance and cost structure. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the cost of six systems of agronomic practices using fixed or variable rates for soil amendment, fertilizer, and defensive applications and assess the profitability of these systems at three scales of sugarcane production. We then describe the data sample related to the 2019–2020 harvest season and collected from fifty-five sugarcane producers in the (...) central-south region of Brazil. Thereafter, using a quantitative approach, a cost analysis was performed, and the cumulative frequency of the net revenue for the three scales of production (small, medium, and large), was calculated using a Monte Carlo simulation. The cost analysis indicated that fertilizer had the highest cost considering the agronomic practices adopted at the three scales of production analyzed. The cumulative frequency analysis results from the Monte Carlo simulation showed the highest net revenue per hectare for medium sugarcane producers. In addition, the presence of economies of scale was not confirmed because the lowest cost was found in small-scale sugarcane producers and the highest net revenue was obtained by medium-scale sugarcane producers. (shrink)

This is a philosophical study by Lithuanian authors on issues related to how to teach philosophy, especially moral philosophy, through films, paintings, images, etc. The topics include multimodality as a synthesis; semiotics and language and image; cinema and philosophical education; postructuralism; film education; value education through spiritual cinema; Eastern Ethics for Western students through multimodal education; philosophy for children; sound and multimodality; Pedagogy of aesthetic to eco-pedagogy, etc.

Rate, John In this first Sunday of Advent we are reminded that our lives and our world are moving towards a great finale, as envisioned in our times by the great Teilhard de Chardin. While there are some terrifying aspects to this (our natural fear of death, and the apocalyptic descriptions of the end-times in Luke's Gospel), Luke calms us with his confident admonition: 'Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.' As we allow (...) this truth to influence daily life, we will naturally want to 'stay awake' and 'practise honesty and integrity in the land' (first reading), and we will understand more fully the beautiful Alleluia verse prayer: 'Lord, show us your mercy and love, and grant us your salvation.'. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze whether a number of firm and industry characteristics, as well as media exposure, are potential determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure practices by Spanish listed firms. Empirical studies have shown that CSR disclosure activism varies across companies, industries, and time (Gray et al., Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 8(2), 47–77, 1995; Journal of Business Finance & Accounting 28(3/4), 327–356, 2001; Hackston and Milne, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 9(1), 77–108, 1996; Cormier (...) and Magnan, Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting 1(2), 171–195, 2003; Cormier et al., European Accounting Review 14(1), 3–39, 2005), which is usually justified by reference to several theoretical constructs, such as the legitimacy, stakeholder, and agency theories. Our findings evidence that firms with higher CSR ratings present a statistically significant larger size and a higher media exposure, and belong to more environmentally sensitive industries, as compared to firms with lower CSR ratings. However, neither profitability nor leverage seem to explain differences in CSR disclosure practices between Spanish listed firms. The most influential variable for explaining firms’ variation in CSR ratings is media exposure, followed by size and industry. Therefore, it seems that the legitimacy theory, as captured by those variables related to public or social visibility, is the most relevant theory for explaining CSR disclosure practices of Spanish listed firms. (shrink)

The Marxist theory of crisis has fallen on hard times. Marx's ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’, generally seen, at least in recent times, as the basis of the theory, is now widely rejected by economists who regard themselves as broadly working in his tradition. This state of affairs is in large part a consequence on the larger assault on mounted on the theoretical structure of Capital by self-proclaimed supporters of Piero Sraffa during (...) the 1970s. Analytical Marxism, during its brief efflorescence in the 1980s, took for granted the validity of the Sraffian critique. One of this school's more vulgar advocates published an ‘obituary’ of the TRPF which dismissed Marxists' attachment to the theory as a result of the influence of ‘“extra-scientific” considerations’ on them. The editors of a dictionary of Marxian economics expressed the hope not long ago that the resolution of the debate provoked by the Sraffian critique would be to ‘release Marxian ideas on crises, growth, imperialism, the social and economic evolution of forms of production, and so on, into the mainstream of economics’. (shrink)

ABCP asset‐backed commercial paper ABS asset‐backed security ABX a source of price indices for MBSs and CDSs ARM adjustable‐rate mortgage B...

The “erasing race” effect is the reduction of the salience of “race” as an alliance cue when recalling coalition membership, once more accurate information about coalition structure is presented. We conducted a random-effects model meta-analysis of this effect using five United States studies (containing nine independent effect sizes). The effect was found (ρ = 0.137, K = 9, 95% CI = 0.085 to 0.188). However, no decline effect or moderation effects were found (a “decline effect” in this context would be (...) a decrease in the effect size over time). Furthermore, we found little evidence of publication bias. Synthetically correcting the effect size for bias stemming from the use of an older method for calculating error base rates reduced the magnitude of the effect, but the it remained significant. Taken together, these findings indicate that the “erasing race” effect generalizes quite well across experimental contexts and would, therefore, appear to be quite robust. We reinterpret the theoretical basis for these effects in line with Brunswikian evolutionary-developmental theory and present a series of predictions to guide future research in this area. (shrink)

We attempt to identify and evaluate the association between key characteristics of not-for-profit hospitals and market concentration, as measured by the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, using data available from the American Hospital Association, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Internal Revenue Service Form 990. Our goal is to provide decision support to policy makers on factors that contribute to market competitiveness, which has been linked to improvements in efficiency, costs, and access to health care. We find that contributions (...) are positively associated with market concentration. This could indicate that well-run NP hospitals are rewarded both financially as well as with increased market share. We also find that a higher percentage of Medicare patients is positively correlated with market concentration. This could be explained by the fact that Medicare reimbursement rates are generally lower than those paid by private insurers ; thus, hospitals might not necessarily choose to operate in areas with high Medicare populations. Further, median income is negatively associated with market concentration. One explanation for this effect could be the fact that a population with a higher median income is in a better position to pay for services, making them attractive to hospitals as a potential market. Finally, we find that the presence of managers with voting rights on the boards of directors has no significant impact. (shrink)

To apply reinforcement learning to difficult classes such as real-environment learning, we need to use a method robust to perceptual aliasing problem. The exploitation-oriented methods such as Profit Sharing can deal with the perceptual aliasing problem to a certain extent. However, when the agent needs to select different actions at the same sensory input, the learning efficiency worsens. To overcome the problem, several state partition methods using history information of state-action pairs are proposed. These methods try to convert a (...) POMDP environment into an MDP environment, and thus they are sometimes very useful. However, their computation cost is very high especially in large state spaces. In contrast, memory-less approaches try to escape from the aliased states by outputting actions stochastically. However, these methods output actions stochastically even in unaliased states, and thus the learning efficiency is bad. If we desire to guarantee the rationality in POMDPs, it is efficient to output actions stochastically only in the aliased states and to output one action deterministically in the other unaliased states. Hence, to discriminate between aliased states and unaliased states, the utilization of χ² -goodness-of-fit test is proposed by Miyazaki et al. They point out that, in aliased states, the distributions of the state transitions by random search and a particular policy are different. This difference doesn't occur owing to non-deterministic actions. Hence, if the agent can collect enough samples to implement the test, the agent can distinguish between aliased states and unaliased states well. However, such a test needs a large amount of data, and it's a problem how the agent collects samples without worsening learning efficiency. If the agent uses random search in the course of learning, the learning efficiency worsens especially in unaliased states. Therefore, in this research, we propose a new method called Extended On-line Profit Sharing with Judgement (EOPSwJ) to detect important incomplete perception, which doesn't need large computation cost and numerous samples. We use two criterions for detecting important incomplete perceptions to attain a task. One is the rate of transitions to each state, and the other is the deterministic rate of actions. We confirm the availability of EOPSwJ using two simulations. (shrink)

Canadian capitalism has entered a period of intensified volatility. Rooted in persistent profitability problems, it is facing several challenges, including economic stagnation, a household-debt driven real-estate and construction boom, and an increasingly fragile financial system. Drawing on a classical Marxist framework of capitalist crisis, this article explores the dynamics of instability in Canada and the response of the capitalist state, which centres on increased efforts to export oil and gas to China, thereby deepening conflict with Indigenous land defenders, and a (...) redoubling of the assault on workers to increase the rate of exploitation. (shrink)

AbstractDeveloped from meaningful work and business ethics, we investigate the motivational effect of meaningful work on paid staff (not volunteers) with a “shortage” of ethical employment practices situated in the Not-for-Profit sector. We tested the traditional notion of meaningful work by nature and by line manager support (under its business-like practices) to compensate for the “sacrifice” (low pay and job stress caused by poor employment terms) of front line staff working alongside professional managers paid the market rate. Using (...) a mixed-method case study, we employed SEM modelling to analyse a staff survey of 125 valid responses and administrative records of staff resignation, alongside interviews. The results show that meaningful work by nature and by line manager support are positively and significantly associated with job satisfaction but neither has a significant effect on staff resignation action. There is no empirical evidence to support the compensating effect of meaningful work by nature; meaningful work by line manager support has a stronger effect only through reduced job stress, rather than compensating for the low pay, in preventing resignation. The qualitative analysis reveals that continued low pay and using precarious employment contracts have evoked the questioning of ethics of employment practices in this sector. We discuss the implications and suggest further areas of research. (shrink)

Traditional corporate finance endorses the principle of stockholder wealth maximization as the purpose of business. In light of recent scandals and legislation, businesses are increasingly expected to use financial resources in a manner which benefits society and not just the owners of the firm. This imputation of a corporate soul will necessarily reduce investor returns, which has at least two major financial implications for the firm and the economy. The first is that it may cause investors to change their required (...) rates of return and thereby change the amount of capital available to firms, and the economy. The second is that it may implicitly replace equity with debt in the capital structure of firms, with all that implies for financing and corporate governance. The purpose of this article is to examine these implications and evaluate their sometimes counterintuitive consequences. (shrink)

Henryk Grossman's discussion of economic crises was designed to complement his Leninist understanding of politics. For Grossman, as for Marx, the fundamental contradiction of capitalist production is between the unlimited scope for expanding the output of use-values and restrictions imposed by the framework of producing profits. The increasing weight of capitalists' outlays on dead compared to living labour, which is the only source of new value, gives rise to the system's tendency to break down and, hence, to economic crises. Deep (...) financial crises can only be understood in the context of developments in production and particularly movements in the rate of profit. The initial widespread hostility to Grossman's development of Marxist economics can mainly be explained in terms of the logics of Social-Democratic and Stalinist politics. In contrast to dominant views on the Left today, the Marxist tradition in which Grossman stood places the construction of organisations capable of assisting the working class' conquest of political power at the heart of the responsibility of socialists. Grossman's political practice expressed his understanding of the close relationship between capitalism's breakdown tendency and the importance of building a revolutionary party. (shrink)

Financial derivatives have been singled out as the major villain in the latest crisis, particularly through speculative trading by banks. Yet little attention has been paid to the fundamental rôle that derivatives play in modern capitalism. Even less has there been a focus on how the boom in derivatives-trading was prompted by the crisis of profitability and capital-accumulation. This article shows that while derivatives were one means by which speculation took off, the momentum behind this was driven by low profitability. (...) That was why banks turned their mortgage-loans into derivative-driven securities, why pension-funds placed bets on commodity-futures and why countries such as Greece used derivatives to hide the real state of their finances. Derivatives helped determine the form and magnitude of the crisis, but were not its underlying cause. Proposed reforms of the derivatives-market ignore the fundamental determinants of the financial crisis, assuming it to be a failure of regulation. (shrink)

Andrew Kliman’s Reclaiming Marx’s ‘Capital’ sets out to refute the ‘myth’ that Marx’s original presentation of the theory of the value is internally inconsistent. A century ago, Bortkiewicz purported to demonstrate that Marx’s mistake was his failure to adopt simultaneous valuation. Thereafter, twentieth-century Marxian economics worked out a ‘corrected’ version of Marx’s original theory, culminating in Steedman’s 1977 Marx after Sraffa. Conclusions Marx himself deemed central were dropped, prominently including the law of the tendential fall in the rate of (...) profit. But simultaneous valuation is absolutely incompatible with Marx’s first and fundamental premise, the determination of value by labour-time. On the other hand, if Marx’s major theoretical conclusions do consistently follow from his premises, including the transformation of values into prices of production, then the quantitative dimension of his value-theory is internally consistent after all and stands in no need of correction on this score. Advocating a temporal, single-system interpretation, Kliman shows how ‘two simple modifications’ eliminate ‘all of the alleged inconsistencies in the quantitative dimension of Marx’s value theory’: valuation is temporal, and values and prices are determined interdependently. Kliman’s refutation is sound, but his claim to know Marx’s intentions, in E.D. Hirsch’s sense, is questionable. (shrink)

We investigated the influence of stimulus base rates on the Implicit Association Test . Using an East/West-German attitude-IAT, we demonstrated that both overall response speed and differential response speed underlying IAT effects depend on the relative frequencies of the stimulus categories. First, when those stimuli that are more common in reality also occurred more frequently in the stimulus list, response speed generally increased. Second, IAT effects increased when congruent blocks profited from the compatibility of frequency-based response biases , whereas IAT (...) effects decreased when incongruent trial blocks profited from response compatibility. These findings demonstrate that the stimulus context moderates the magnitude of the IAT effect. Simultaneously, they highlight the need to explore the extent to which implicit measures reflect properties of the task or the environment rather than attributes of test-takers. (shrink)

Freight transportation plays a critical role in improving company performance in the modern manufacturing industry. To reduce costs, companies must take advantage of the use of large vehicles. It caused fewer deliveries, but inventory costs and degradation quality are high. One of the joint economic lot size problems in supply chain is Integrated Single-Vendor Single-Buyer Inventory Problem. This study developed the I-SVSB-IP model that considers raw materials’ exponential quality degradation and transportation costs. The objective function of this research was to (...) maximize the Joint Total Profit. Three decision variables used were inventory cycle time, raw material ordering frequency, and frequency of delivery of finished products to buyers. This study proposed a sophisticated Chimp Optimization Algorithm procedure to solve the I-SVSB-IP problem. A case study on the food industry in Indonesia was presented to optimize the I-SVSB-IP. The results showed that the ChOA procedure had produced an optimal solution compared to the state-of-the-art algorithm. This study also demonstrated a sensitivity analysis of decision and transportation variables to cost, revenue, and JTP. The results show that increasing transport frequency of ordering raw materials and finished products to buyers enhances the total cost and reduces joint total profit. In addition, increasing the rate of quality degradation of raw materials reduces JTP. (shrink)

For most of their respective existences, reliabilism and evidentialism (that is, process reliabilism and mentalist evidentialism) have been rivals. They are generally viewed as incompatible, even antithetical, theories of justification.1 But a few people are beginning to re-think this notion. Perhaps an ideal theory would be a hybrid of the two, combining the best elements of each theory. Juan Comesana (forthcoming) takes this point of view and constructs a position called “Evidentialist Reliabilism.” He tries to show how each theory can (...) profit by borrowing elements from the other. Comesana concentrates on reliabilism’s problems and how it might be improved by infusions from evidentialism. This paper follows a similar tack. My emphasis, however, is the reverse of Comesana’s. I highlight problems for evidentialism and show how it could benefit by incorporating reliabilist themes. I am not sanguine that evidentialists will see it my way. They might even view my proposals as an insidious attempt to convert evidentialists to reliabilism. Well, I won’t debate the best way to formulate this paper’s recipe. At any rate, it began with the idea (which anteceded my reading of Comesana) of creating a synthesis of reliabilism and evidentialism. It retains significant strands of that idea, although the synthesis theme does not pervade the entire paper. What is mentalist evidentialism? Its original formulation was succinct. (shrink)

This paper offers three contributions to the burgeoning movements of AI for Social Good (AI4SG) and AI and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, we introduce the SDG-Intense Evaluation framework (SDGIE) that aims to situate variegated automated/AI models in a larger ecosystem of computational approaches to advance the SDGs. To foster knowledge collaboration for solving complex social and environmental problems encompassed by the SDGs, the SDGIE framework details a benchmark structure of data-algorithm-output to effectively standardize AI approaches to (...) the SDGs. Second, as a specific instantiation of the SDGIE framework, the SDG Impact Intensity Model (SDGIIM) is theoretically and operationally established. SDGIIM embeds expert decision-making and SDG keyword banks in textual data processing to determine overall SDG “impact intensity.” Ideally, SDGIIM can be applied to textual data sets from any sector or discipline: academia, business, government, non-profit, civil society, etc. Third, the SDGIIM instantiation is applied to the specific domain of academic journal rating systems as a case study. Traditionally, academic journals have been evaluated on loosely conceived and empirically shaky notions of ‘quality.’ Aligned with the trend of AI4SG and broader calls to action, ‘impact’ is rapidly becoming the primary normative consideration for assessing academic journals. We hypothesize and demonstrate that SDGIIM is capable of producing evaluations aligned with experts’ expectations of SDG impact intensity; the consistent analysis and rating of textual data sets that embody the SDGs with varying degrees of meaning and, ultimately, promote positive impact on the actual material conditions of the world. (shrink)

Socio-economic decisions are commonly explained by rational cost versus benefit considerations, whereas person variables have not much been considered. The present study aimed at investigating the degree to which dispositional power motivation and affective states predict socio-economic decisions. The power motive was assessed both indirectly and directly using a TAT-like picture test and a power motive self-report, respectively. After 9 months, 62 students completed an affect rating and performed on a money allocation task. We hypothesized and confirmed that dispositional power (...) should be associated with a tendency to maximize one’s profit but to care less about another party’s profit. Additionally, positive affect showed effects in the same direction. The results are discussed with respect to a motivational approach explaining socio-economic behaviour. (shrink)

The no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much-discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent `wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why (...) realists and anti-realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

We study whether changes in analyst recommendation ratings systems encouraged by the implementation of NASD 2711 in 2002 are associated with improved objectivity and independence in analyst recommendations. Using recommendations issued during windows surrounding major investment banking events, we show that reductions in analyst optimism following the reforms concentrate in the recommendations of analysts whose employer adopted a three-tier rating system at the time of the reforms, and that this effect is generally stronger for analysts whom the underlying incentives to (...) engage in unethical behaviour is greatest. We also find evidence that adoption of the three-tier system improved the market’s perception of the objectivity of analyst recommendations issued after SEOs, and that for hold and sell-type recommendations this effect was stronger for analysts subject to the greatest potential ethical conflicts. While we find some evidence of a general post-reform increase in the profitability of recommendations issued following equity transactions, this improvement was only conditioned by changes to the rating system in our IPO sample. (shrink)

We attempt in this paper to tie together several basic insights of praxeology, and several that are not at all that basic. These include the following: that gains from exchange are subjective; that this applies to profits and interest; that credit transactions can occur under barter; that interest arises from time preference even under a pure time preference theory of interest; and that productivity can, under disequilibrium conditions, affect the various rates of interest.

Professor Roemer's goal in this book is to give a rigorous view of classical Marxian economic theory by presenting specific analytic models. The theory is not extended to deal with new problems, but it is deepened: Marxian theory is given micro-foundations and upon those foundations the author begins to rebuild a tightly constructed Marxian economics. The book begins, after a methodological introduction, with an examination of the Marxian notion of equilibrium and the theory of exploitation, and goes on to deal (...) with the theory of the falling rate of profit. The next section explores one of the points made in the first section of the book, that the Marxian theory of exploitation can be constructed completely independently of the labor theory of value as a theory of exchange. Technical study of this problem allows comment on various issues, such as the relative importance of 'marginal utilities' and 'class struggle' in determining relative prices. The final part examines models of various Marxian concepts. (shrink)

Baumard proposes that life history slowing in populations over time is the principal driver of innovation rates. We show that this is only true of micro-innovation rates, which reflect cognitive and economic specialization as an adaptation to high population density, and not macro-innovation rates, which relate more to a population's level of general intelligence.

This archive manuscript is an English translation of a 25-page excerpt from Marx’s Manuscript of 1867–68, which was published for the first time in German in 2012 in the MEGA, Volume II/4.3. This excerpt is Marx’s first and only attempt to incorporate unequal turnover times across industries into his theory of the equalisation of the profit rate and prices of production. The excerpt considers three cases: unequal turnover times across industries, unequal compositions of capital across industries, and both (...) of these inequalities together. It also emphasises two concepts of the rate of profit: rate of profit on capital advanced and rate of profit on the cost price. (shrink)

Cutler et.al. declare themselves opposed to the epistemological privileging of any level of discourse, but prefer, instead, to engage in discursive analyses of specific problems. Nevertheless, their critique of specific laws of tendency in Marx's texts - concentratlon and centralisation of capital, the falling rate of profit, etc. - relies almost exclusively on a single epistemological argument: there can be no such 'thing' as a law of tendency.

The energy domain is still dominated by equilibrium models that underestimate both the dangers and opportunities related to climate change. In reality, climate and energy systems contain tipping points, feedback loops, and exponential developments. This paper describes how to create realistic energy transition management models: quantitative models that can discover profitable pathways from fossil fuels to renewable energy. We review the literature regarding agent-based economics, disruptive innovation, and transition management and determine the following requirements. Actors must be detailed, heterogeneous, interacting, (...) learning, and strategizing. Technology should be represented as a detailed and heterogeneous portfolio that can develop in a bottom-up manner, using endogenous feedback loops. Assumptions about discount rates and the social cost of carbon should be configurable. The model should contain interactions between the global, national, local, and individual level. A review of modelling techniques shows that equilibrium models are unsuitable and that system dynamics and discrete event simulation are too limited. The agent-based approach is found to be uniquely suited for the complex adaptive sociotechnical systems that must be modelled. But the choice for agent-based models does not mean a rejection of other approaches because they can be accommodated within the agent-based framework. We conclude with practical guidelines. (shrink)

The famous Marxian ‘transformation problem’ originated from a research manuscript written by Marx in 1864/65, from which Engels assembledCapitaliii. Unequal capital compositions, equal rates of surplus-value and equal rates of profit among different sectors are posited, and reconciled using the problematic concept of ‘prices of production’. Yet the assumption of equal rates of surplus-value is at odds with the subsequent text ofCapitali, where Marx presents various determinants of the rate of surplus-value, and connects productive powers of labour diverging (...) between sectors with divergentvalue-generating potenciesof labour. Given the other determinants, diverging rates of surplus-value then result. Marx disregarded these productive power differentials when he originally formulated his transformation. In a reconstruction, building onCapitali, this omission is rectified. It makes prices of production and hence the dual account systems redundant. The transformation problem then evaporates. (shrink)

The current global economic crisis concerns the way in which contemporary capitalism has turned to financialisation as a double cure for both a falling rate of profit and a deficiency of demand. Although this turning is by no means unprecedented, policies of financialisation have depressed demand (in part as a result of the long-term stagnation of average wages) while at the same time not proving adequate to restore profits and growth. This paper argues that the current crisis is (...) less the ‘normal’ one that has to do with a constitutive need to balance growth of abstract wealth with demand for concrete commodities. Rather, it marks a meta-crisis of capitalism that is to do with the difficulties of sustaining abstract growth as such. This meta-crisis is the tendency at once to abstract from the real economy of productive activities and to reduce everything to its bare materiality. By contrast with a market economy that binds material value to symbolic meaning, a capitalist economy tends to separate matter from symbol and reduce materiality to calculable numbers representing ‘wealth’. Such a conception of wealth rests on the aggregation of abstract numbers that cuts out all the relational goods and the ‘commons’ on which shared prosperity depends. (shrink)

Recent increases in inflation rates around the world has lead to many discussions on the causes of such rapid adjustments, some suggesting that higher profits are responsible driving force behind inflation. Here we will focus on the United States case and demonstrate why quantity theory of money is relevant to explain what has been going on with inflation after 2020 rather than profit based theory of inflation. First section introduces the argument. Second section restates quantity theory of money with (...) relevance to the empirical literature. Third section shows why quantity theory despite some suggestions works to explain the current levels of inflation. Fourth section notices why increases in nominal profits during inflation are part of the natural adjustment path. Last section offers concluding comments. (shrink)