Suchergebnisse

The limited ability of neoclassical "mainstream" to explain deep fundamental shifts in economic structures of the present day world determines the renaissance of alternative schools of economic theory, including Marxism. The article is aimed to show theoretical concepts of modern Russian neomarxism, which has a potential to explain the contradictions of the capitalist globalization, the tendencies of forming new types of socioeconomic relations, of the specific forms of transition economies in the post-socialist countries and basic causes of the birth and collapse of the socialist system.

This paper is divided in nine sections. A short introduction puts the subject matter in perspective in the context of the FTAA negotiations. Section 1 deals with obstacles to a successful conclusion of the FTAA both in Mercosur - especially in Brazil. The following section considers briefly how notions about reciprocity and balance of concessions have been applied in multilateral negotiations and how they may be adjusted in the case of negotiations involving free trade areas. The following two triads of sections refer to the United States (sections 3, 4 and 5) and Brazil (sections 6, 7 and 8). Sections 3 and 6 analyze in both economies how protectionist interests are distributed from the point of view of sectors affected and of their location (states and, for the United States, congressional districts). The relative importance of export interests by state is gauged in sections 4 and 7. The relative net balance of protectionist and export interests is evaluated in sections 5 and 8 under different assumptions in an effort to cope with the limitations of the measures used. Section 9 concludes.

Given heterogeneity in incomes and health risks, with asymmetric information in the latter, preferences over the public-private mix in health insurance and care are derived. Results concerning crowding-out in the presence of adverse selection are established. For low-risk individuals, crowding-out depends on risk aversion. A set of such individuals prefers a mixed public-private health care system. A majority-voting equilibrium exists. Under weak assumptions about the income distribution and tax function, both public and private sectors exist in the equilibrium. Comparing information regimes, public provision is more likely to be positive, and will not be lower, under asymmetric information. In the presence of asymmetric information, the equilibrium is more complicated than the "ends-against-the-middle" variety derived elsewhere in the literature.