The book describes the evolution of economic theory, considering historical, political and scientific perspectives. It discusses economic concepts and the formation of economics as a discipline since the feudal system, passing through the formation of the State, until the present. The main economic concepts are presented, including microeconomics, macroeconomics, econometrics, privatization, taxes, tariffs, the concept of currencies, stock markets, international transactions, and economic policies. The book contains a complete glossary of economic terms to help the reader.
This book introduces economic theory by concentrating on some of the most important matters with which theory deals. Beginning by developing the general criteria of efficiency in the allocation of resources between alternative uses, the book then illustrates how efficient allocation can be promoted directly, by state planning, or indirectly by private enterprise. An analysis of the working of business competition in both its free and restricted forms follows, and analysis of the determination of the general levels of production employment and prices is also included
Front Cover -- Economic Theory -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Presentation -- Preface -- List of Figures -- 1 The Universe of Economics -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 The World of Economics -- 1.3 The Economic Universe -- 1.4 The Density of Wealth -- 1.5 Singularities in Communications -- 1.6 Singular Wealth -- 1.7 In the End it will be Chaos -- 1.8 When Light Bowed to Ceará -- 2 History of the Economic Formation -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 The Ancient Feudal System and the Formation of the State -- 2.3 The End of the Feudal System and the Start of Democracy -- 2.4 The Development of the Post Feudal Economy -- 2.5 The Current Feudal System -- 2.6 About Tulips and Virtual Currency -- 3 On Capitalism -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 Capitalism for Beginners -- 3.3 Economic Determinism and Wealth and Income Distribution -- 3.4 Virtual Companies Exploit the Real Work of Users -- 3.5 Virtual Companies Violate Classic Economics -- 3.6 How the Money of Private Companies Leave the Country -- 3.7 Corruption is Endemic in the Private -- 3.8 Tricks for Avoiding Taxes -- 4 The Main Concepts in Economics -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Definitions Associated with Economics -- 4.2.1 Macroeconomics -- 4.2.2 Microeconomics -- 4.2.3 Econometrics -- 4.3 Activities of Economic Nature -- 4.4 Economic Conditions -- 4.5 Economic Sectors -- 4.6 Utility and Value -- 4.7 Productive Economic Activity -- 5 Basic Mathematical Analysis -- 5.1 Basic Concepts in Economy -- 5.2 Demand Curves -- 5.3 Supply Curves -- 5.4 Average and Marginal Costs -- 5.5 Market Equilibrium -- 5.6 Simple and Compound Interests -- 5.7 Income Distribution -- 5.8 Consumption and Savings -- 5.9 Model for the Future Price of Stock -- 6 Microeconomics -- 6.1 Introduction -- 6.2 The Concept of Microeconomics -- 6.2.1 The Consumer and the Demand Curve -- 6.2.2 The Company and the Supply Curve.
[eng] This thesis is composed of 3 independent essays on economic theory. Each essay is meant to be read separately, including footnotes and appendices. In particular, essays 2 and 3 include specific bibliography. The general bibliography is included at the end of the thesis. The first essay reviews some well known conceptual and empirical problems that appear when economic theorists deal with preferences and choice theory, in general. While assessing those problems, the essay lays the ground for a detailed discussion of the possibility of preference learning, formation and change. The essay concludes proposing a theoretical framework to study these phenomena. The second essay, although independent from the first, is also devoted to the issue of preference change. In particular, it studies the possibility that cultural preferences evolve as a result of the combination of technological innovation and cultural transmission mechanisms. At the same time, it allows for the possibility that those cultural preferences determine the short term outcome of economic variables. In addition, it builds a framework where the combination of technological innovation, cultural transmission and economic structure lead to a process of endogenous preference heterogeneity and clustering. Hence it provides a model to understand how culture and the economic structure interact and coevolve. The third essay presents some theoretical problems that arise when using the concept of a matching function as a modelling device for the labor market. In particular, necessary conditions for the ratio of the number of matches per job searcher to be interpreted as the average job finding probability are established. References [Abel, 1990] Abel, A. B. (1990). Asset prices under habit formation and catching up with the joneses. The American Economic Review, pages 38-42. [Afriat, 1967] Afriat, S. (1967). The construction of utility functions from expenditure data. International Economic Review, 8(1):67-77. [Al-Najjar, 1993] Al-Najjar, N. (1993). Non-transitive smooth preferences. Journal of Economic Theory, 60(1):14 -41. [[Aragones et al., 2005] Aragones, E., Gilboa, I., Postlewaite, A., and Schmeidler, D. (2005). Fact-free learning. The American Economic Review, 95(5):1355-1368. [Ariely et al., 2003] Ariely, D., Loewenstein, G., and Prelec, D. (2003). coherent arbitrariness: Stable demand curves without stable preferences. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1):73-106. [Arrow, 1986] Arrow, K. (1986). Rationality of self and others in an economic system. Journal of Business, pages 385-399. [Arrow and Hahn, 1971] Arrow, K. and Hahn, F. (1971). General competitive analysis. Holden-Day San Francisco.165 [Arrow, 1959] Arrow, K. J. (1959). Rational choice functions and orderings. Economica, 26(102):121-127. [Aumann, 1962] Aumann, R. (1962). Utility theory without the completeness axiom. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, pages 445-462. [Balasko, 2003] Balasko, Y. (2003). Economies with price-dependent preferences. Journal of economic theory, 109(2):333-359. [Balzer, 1982] Balzer, W. (1982). Empirical claims in exchange economics. In Philosophy of Economics, pages 16-40. Springer. [Becker, 1962] Becker, G. (1962). Irrational behavior and economic theory. The Journal of Political Economy, pages 1-13. [Becker, 1978] Becker, G. S. (1978). The economic approach to human behavior. University of Chicago Press. [Berry and Pakes, 2007a] Berry, S. and Pakes, A. (2007a). The pure characteristics demand model. International Economic Review, 48(4):1193-1225. [Berry and Pakes, 2007b] Berry, S. and Pakes, A. (2007b). The pure characteristics demand model*. International Economic Review, 48(4):1193-1225. [Bewley, 1986] Bewley, T. (1986). Knightian uncertainty theory: part i. Yale University. [Blaug, 1992] Blaug, M. (1992). The methodology of economics: Or, how economists explain. Cambridge University Press. [Boudon, 1998] Boudon, R. (1998). Social mechanisms without black boxes. Social mechanisms: An analytical approach to social theory, 172. [Brown and Matzkin, 1996] Brown, D. and Matzkin, R. (1996). Testable restrictions on the equilibrium manifold. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, pages 1249-1262. [Bunge, 1993] Bunge, M. (1993). Realism and antirealism in social science. Theory and Decision, 35(3):207-235. [Caldwell, 1984] Caldwell, B. J. (1984). Some problems with falsificationism in economics. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 14(4):489-495. [Chapman and Johnson, 1999] Chapman, G. B. and Johnson, E. J. (1999). Anchoring, activation, and the construction of values. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 79(2):115 -153. [Deaton and Muellbauer, 1980] Deaton, A. and Muellbauer, J. (1980). An almost ideal demand system. The American economic review, pages 312-326.
One of the consequences of the financial crisis of 2008 was a renewed focus on the issue of deregulation. The broadly recognized connection between the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression and the systematic deregulation of our financial markets dating back over three decades reinvigorated the economic and political debate around the appropriate balance between market freedom and government regulation. This paper explores this theme historically, analyzing several economic markets that were highly regulated prior to the late 20th century. Through this analysis it establishes a foundational framework for the study of the widespread deregulation of the late 20th century. This paper first addresses the study of regulatory policy and its evolution throughout the 20th century. This section primarily focuses on the policy model proposed by George Stigler that acts as the foundational model for its conclusion. It then establishes the observed industries, the Airline and Trucking Industries, and provides evidence of their transition from industries that previously operated with strict governmental control of economic functions to markets that operated freely with little regulatory interference. This observed deregulation establishes the primary thesis question for this paper: what were the primary political and economic forces that caused the deregulation of these industries? The majority of this paper is dedicated to establishing alterations in the political and economic environment during this period that created these policy changes. This paper concludes that separate changes in the political and economic environment caused the deregulation of these industries. First, the evolution of subsystems from closed iron triangle systems to more complex issue networks granted smaller interest groups more influence on policy decisions. Thus, these groups' desired policies, which involved less regulation, received more consideration from the regulating agency. Second, the significant rise in the CPI increased the political pressure on elected officials to reduce prices. This pressure elevated the financial cost of regulating agencies to implement and maintain regulations that contributed to higher prices. These combined shifts caused a sudden, extreme removal of regulations in these markets. By establishing a causal analysis of the presented industries this paper creates a foundational case study for the broader, more complex deregulation that occurred throughout other industries during this time period.
My dissertation is composed of three chapters. In the first, I study the incentive role of information – how the strategic release of information can induce an agent to exert more effort on a project. More specifically, I focus on how feedback can be provided to a worker who is uninformed about the progress they make on a long term project. I show that delaying feedback about their performance can induce the worker to continue working on the project longer than they would were they to learn about their performance without delay. Negative feedback, due to the absence of good news, received in the early stages of the project can cause them to quit prematurely. In the second chapter, I study a model of matching between individuals and institutions. Matching models allow researchers to identify optimal allocations of individuals to school seats, medical residency programs and other positions over which individuals have preferences and for which they may differ in suitability. While we know that in models in which individuals only care about the institution they match with, stable matchings always exist, I show that when individuals also care about the the number of matches made by the institution they join, stable matchings no longer exist in general. I show that stable matchings can only be found under a set of conditions I identify. Relaxing any of these conditions leads to examples of markets with no stable matchings. In the third chapter, I set out to understand why elected politicians choose to toe the party line instead of voting on issues according to their own preferences. I find that despite the short term benefits of voting for their preferred policies, there are long-term benefits from coordinating their voting behavior among like-minded legislators. These findings provide a rationale for why political parties form among politicians with similar policy positions.
Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Original Title Page -- Original Copyright Page -- Preface -- Table of Contents -- New Introduction -- Bibliography -- Chapter I The Origins of Economic Theory -- 1. Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy -- 2. Seventeenth-century Philosophy -- 3. Mercantilism -- 4. Cameralism and Political Arithmetic -- 5. Cantillon's Essay on the Nature of Commerce in General -- 6. Academic Teaching in Scotland -- 7. Physiocracy in France -- 8. Smith's Wealth of Nations -- Chapter II The Name of Economic Theory -- 1. The Ancient Meaning of ""Economics
Essays in Economic Theory, first published in 1983, combines two essays on game theory and its applications in economics. The first, ""Learning Behavior and the Noncooperative Equilibrium"", considers whether an adaptive justification, like those commonly available for the optimization models frequently employed elsewhere in economics, can be found for the Nash noncooperative equilibrium. The second essay, ""A Game of Fair Division"", was motivated by the desire to find attractive methods for solving allocation problems and bargaining disputes that are simple enough to provide useful alternatives
This volume aims to interest students of modern economic theory in the history of economics. For this purpose, past economic theories are considered from the point of view of current economic theories and translated, if possible and necessary, into mathematical models. It is emphasized that the currently dominating mainstream theory is not the only possible theory, and that there are many past theories which have important significance to the advancement of economic theory in the present situation, or will have it in the near future.After a brief discussion on the history of economics from the
In: Canadian journal of economics and political science: the journal of the Canadian Political Science Association = Revue canadienne d'économique et de science politique, Band 20, Heft 4, S. 478-500
I have interpreted the rather facetious title given me by the programme committee as permission to speak rather light-heartedly, even irresponsibly, about a few of the changes in the formal methods of analysis in the field of economic theory; to speak of fashions in tools, fashions in gadgets, fashions, if you will forgive me, in models.In the 1920's Professor J. M. Clark supported the thesis that economic theory has developed by replacing worn and outgrown half-truths by new half-truths, that correspond more closely with increased knowledge, changing points of view, and different circumstances. Sir Dennis Robertson reviewed the first volume of the Survey of Contemporary Economics, called his review "A Revolutionist's Handbook," and enumerated seven revolutions; but his phrasing is ironical. In his posthumous work on the History of Economic Analysis Professor Schumpeter has contended, with some success I think, that advances in economic analysis have been more consistent and less fluctuating than changes in the field of economic doctrine, economic systems, or economic thought. Fashions change, then, even in the methods of economic theory, but there is a good deal of continuity too. Many of the most widely useful tools of economic theory have changed very little in the last generation, or even in the last century; some have been in use for many centuries. Nevertheless, there have been many important changes too. Periodically, as attention comes to be focussed on a particular sort of problem, old tools are repaired, polished up, and put in the shop window; or new ones are invented.
Chapter 1: Introduction; Thomas Hoerber, Alain Anquetil -- Chapter 2: The Social Liberalism of John Stuart Mill; Alain Anquetil -- Chapter 3: Karl Marx's Communism and Critique of Capital; Paul Prew -- Chapter 4: Edmund Burke's Liberalism; Thomas Hoerber -- Chapter 5: The free Liberalism of Adam Smith; Alain Anquetil -- Chapter 6: Economic Cycles by Josef Schumpeter; Assen Slim -- Chapter 7: The Bancor and International Trade Possibilities of John Maynard; David Rees -- Chapter 8: The roots of neo-liberalism in Friedrich von Hayek; Thomas Hoerber -- Chapter 9: Elinor Ostrom or the Revolution of the Commons; Fanny Verrax -- Chapter 10: The Ecological Economy of Georgescu Roegen; Gabriel Weber, Ignazio Cabras -- Chapter 11: Conclusion; Alain Anquetil, Thomas Hoerber