Issue 86: August 12, 2009

In this issue:

Call for Papers

The 14th Annual ESHET Conference

The 14th Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET) will be held at the Amsterdam School of Economics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The conference will take place 25-28 March 2010.

As at past ESHET conferences, proposals for papers or sessions on all aspects of the history of economic thought are welcome.

The special theme of the conference is:

The Practices of Economists in the Past and Today

Click here for detailed information.

ESHET Young Scholars Seminar

ESHET invites young scholars (i.e. those who are working on or have just completed a PhD, regardless of their age) to submit their work to the Young Scholars Seminar to be held on the occasion of the ESHET Conference.
Four submissions will be selected: ESHET will cover board, accommodation and registration fees plus travel expenses up to €300. The authors of the selected papers will have 30 minutes each to present the paper and a senior scholar, appointed by the ESHET Council, will discuss it. Papers may be on any topic relevant to the history of economics, and are not restricted to the conference theme. ESHET encourages young scholars to participate in the conference. A one-year ESHET membership is offered to all young scholars who submit a paper. Candidates should e-mail a paper no longer than 9000 words to Professors Ragip Ege and Tiziano Raffaelli ( ege@cournot.u-strasbg.fr  and t.raffaelli@fls.unipi.it ), by 10 January 2010. The results of the selection process will be communicated to the candidates by 15 February 2010. Papers that have not been selected will be considered for presentation at other conference sessions.

Scientific committee:

Annie Cot (University of Paris 1), John Davis (University of Amsterdam), Harro Maas (University of Amsterdam), Tiziano Raffaeli (University of
Pisa)

Local organizing committee: John Davis (University of Amsterdam), Harro Maas (University of Amsterdam), Tiago Mata (University of Amsterdam)

The Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics (EJPE)

EJPE is a peer-reviewed academic journal publishing research which improves our understanding of the methodology, history and inter-disciplinary relations of economics. EJPE is supported by the Erasmus Department of Philosophy and the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics (EIPE) and is an open access journal.

EJPE aspires to:

- publish high quality and interesting contributions to the field of philosophy and economics.

- provide a forum for inter-disciplinary content and approaches that is particularly friendly to Young Scholars (graduate students and recent PhD graduates), supported by an efficient and constructive peer review process.

Call For Papers

Research domains

(1) Methodology of economics Issues falling within the analytical philosophy of science tradition including the methodological analysis and appraisal of the concepts, theories and techniques of economics, both mainstream and heterodox. Contributions on methodological issues in evolutionary and institutional economics are particularly welcome.

(2) History of economic thought Issues in the historical development of the ideas, theories, and methods of economics.

(3) Inter-disciplinary issues relating economics to other fields Issues arising from non-traditional sources of critique and investigation of economics, or the use of economics to investigate other fields, including for example, ethics; sociology; political philosophy; continental philosophy; literature. Such contributions will show a clear connection to economic issues and involve conceptual rather than purely theoretical or empirical analysis.

Content sought

Academic articles (with abstract; 4000-8000 words; [exceptional papers may be longer by arrangement])
Book reviews of significant recently published works crossing philosophy and economics (1000-2000 words)
Summaries of recently completed PhD theses in philosophy and economics (500-1000 words)
Deadline: October 1st
Sample Issue (Autumn 2008): Available online at http://ejpe.org
The EJPE Editors
editors@ejpe.org

28th Annual International Labour Process Conference

Work Matters: 28th Annual International Labour Process Conference
Rutgers University, March 15-17, 2010

The Conference:
The Annual International Labour Process Conference is a leading conference on work and employment. It brings together academics and policy makers from the sociology of work and employment, labour studies, business and management, human resource management, industrial relations, organization studies and a range of other disciplines. With exciting new streams and issues, the 2010 event provides a great opportunity for diverse groups of labour-oriented workplace researchers from different continents to communicate and collaborate. Selections of conference papers are published in edited books, with twenty now published. It is intended that a selection of papers from the bad jobs stream will be published in a journal special edition. Abstracts for the stream should be between 350-500 words and can be either theoretical and/or empirical. Abstract contents should enable the referees to determine what issue, development or problem is being investigated, how it is investigated, what the findings are and what contribution is being made to understanding in the field.

Click here for detailed information.

Representations and Realities of Women's Work

Work Matters:
28th Annual International Labour Process Conference Rutgers University, March, 15-17, 2010

SPECIAL INTEREST STREAM: Representations and Realities of Women's Work

Women's working lives have been subject to significant changes in the 20th century, raising expectations for greater equality in 21st century workplaces and labour processes. Today, men and women are supposed to be equal in the workplace. In both legislation and rhetoric, equality of treatment and opportunity feature dominantly. Nevertheless, there are still clearly gender-related dimensions to how women's work is perceived, represented and undertaken. Therefore, this special stream seeks to investigate the representations and realities of women's work in the 21st century.

Click here for detailed information.

Alternative Work Organisations

Stream at the International Labour Process Conference 2010, Rutgers University 15-17 March 2010

Stream convenors:

MAURIZIO ATZENI, Loughborough University, UK, m.atzeni@lboro.ac.uk
DARIO AZZELLINI, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Germany , dnapress@gmx.net
IMMANUEL NESS, Brooklyn College CUNY, US, manny.ness@gmail.com

Acute and deep economic crises, like the one we are currently experiencing, have always had an important role in reshaping people's lives and societies. By momentarily breaking the flow of production and consumption, destroying wealth and creating unemployment, economic crises interrupt the regular working of accepted socio-economic systems and open the room to popular protests and searches for alternatives. In the labour movement's history one of the forms in which the dominating system has been contested and responses to crisis have been found has been through workers' run and controlled production. Defined as workers self-management or autogestion, to use the more catchy Spanish definition, different forms of workers' empowerment at the level of production have been used in different geographical contexts alongside the history of the capitalist system of production. Reverting taken for granted assumptions about property and capital control of the labour process, cases of workers' self-management can be seen as an alternative work organisation, a theoretical proposal to overcome capitalism and a form of radical struggle and rank and file strategy for collective action.

Click here for detailed information.

International Conference of the Charles Gide Association

Paris - May 27 to 29, 2010

PHARE (University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne) organizes in Paris from May 27 to 29, 2010 the 13th Biennial International Conference of the Charles Gide Association for the Study of Economic Thought (ACGEPE). The theme of the conference is "Institutions in Economic Thought", but communications in history of economic thought on other issues are also welcomed.

Click here for detailed information. ENGLISH FRENCH

L’analyse monétaire de l’économie

COLLOQUE INTERNATIONAL
L’analyse monétaire de l’économie
Autour de Marchands, salariat et capitalistes
Université Pierre Mendès-France / Grenoble II, France
15-16 avril 2010
with the support of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS)
Présentation
L’ouvrage Marchands, salariat et capitalistes (1980) de Carlo Benetti et Jean Cartelier propose une analyse monétaire de l’économie, au sens où l’intelligibilité des phénomènes économiques n’est pas dissociable de la monnaie. En tant qu’unité de compte, elle est le mode d’expression de toute grandeur
économique. En tant que moyen de paiement (libellé dans l’unité de compte), elle est le mode d’exécution des transactions associées à ces grandeurs. Unité de compte et moyen de paiement ne sont plus des « fonctions » venant se greffer sur une économie « réelle » préexistante et intelligible en dehors d’elles, mais les propriétés de base de l’économie. Conférer ainsi le primat à la monnaie s oppose à la plupart des approches usuelles qui a contrario s’appuient sur les biens. L’hypothèse de nomenclature, souvent implicite dans ces approches, en est l’expression. Cependant, l’analyse monétaire n’est mobilisée que par une minorité d’économistes, demeurant ainsi largement inexplorée. Simultanément, la contribution spécifique de Marchands, salariat et capitalistes à l’analyse monétaire n’a été que très peu discutée, trente ans après sa parution. L’objet ce colloque est de questionner l’analyse monétaire en général, ainsi que celle développée par Marchands, salariat et capitalistes en particulier. Les contributions sont susceptibles de s’articuler autour des thèmes
suivants :
- La nature et le rôle de la monnaie, l’opposition monétaire-réel.
- Système bancaire, crédit, finance et marchés financiers.
- Dépendance et rapport salarial.
- Valeur, prix et répartition dans une économie monétaire.
- Équilibre, déséquilibre, circulation, crise et viabilité.
- Philosophie de l’analyse monétaire.
Organisation du colloque
Le colloque se déroule à l’Université Pierre Mendès-France / Grenoble II (France) les 15 et 16 avril 2010. Les communications de 20 minutes feront l’objet d’un rapport de 10 minutes, suivi d’une discussion. Une table ronde avec Carlo Benetti et Jean Cartelier, présents à l’occasion du colloque, sera organisée. La langue de travail est le français. Les participants pourront aussi s’exprimer en
anglais ou en espagnol.
Publication
Le colloque s’accompagne d’un projet de publication dans une revue académique.
Envoi des propositions de communication (500 mots) à :
remi.stellian@fernuni.ch
DATE-LIMITE DE SOUMISSION : 15 OCTOBRE 2009
Comité d’organisation
Matthieu Méaulle, Foundation for European Progressive Studies
Rémi Stellian, Université de Grenoble II et Université de Fribourg (Suisse)
Ramon Tortajada, Université de Grenoble II
Faruk Ülgen, Université de Grenoble II
Comité scientifique
Guy Bensimon, Institut d’Études Politiques de Grenoble
Arnaud Berthoud, Université de Lille I
Marie-Thérèse Boyer-Xambeu, Université de Paris VII
José-Felix Cataño-Molina, Universidad Nacional de Bogotá (Colombie)
Ghislain Deleplace, Université de Paris VIII
Michel De Vroey, Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgique)
Jérôme Lallement, Université de Paris V
Bruno Lautier, Université de Paris I
Claire Pignol, Université de Paris I
Sergio Rossi, Université de Fribourg (Suisse)
Richard Sobel, Université de Lille I
Rédouane Taouil, Université de Grenoble II
Fabrice Tricou, Université de Paris X
Faruk Ülgen, Université de Grenoble II
Pour toute demande de renseignement :
ramon.tortajada@upmf-grenoble.fr
remi.stellian@fernuni.ch
ulgen.faruk@upmf-grenoble.fr

Monetary Analysis

INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM
Monetary analysis
About Marchands, salariat et capitalistes
Pierre Mendès-France University / Grenoble II, France
April 15th-16th 2010
with the support of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS)
Introduction
In Marchands, salariat et capitalistes (1980), Carlo Benetti and Jean Cartelier propose a monetary analysis of market economies, namely, an analysis wherein money is an integral part of the economic process. As unit of account, money allows economic magnitudes to be expressed. As means of payment (expressed in terms of a unit of account), money allows the transactions involved by such magnitudes to be executed. Unit of account and means of payment are no longer some “functions” added as an afterthought, but the basic properties of any market economy. Such monetary analysis stands in sharp contrast with the usual approach in economics, wherein goods, rather than money, are seen as the point to start any economic analysis. This is the result of an (often implicit) assumption,
namely, the nomenclature.
Nonetheless, monetary analysis is shared by only a minority of economists, so that it remains too much unexplored. At the same time, the specific contribution of Marchands, salariat et capitalistes to monetary analysis has not yet been discussed thoroughly, thirty years after its publication. This colloquium aims at examining monetary analysis in general, while being interested in Marchands,
salariat et capitalistes in particular. Papers might address the following topics:
- The nature and role of money, the opposition between the “real” and “monetary” spheres.
- Credit, finance, the banking system and the financial markets.
- Dependence and the wage relationship.
- Value, pricing and distribution within a monetary economy.
- Equilibrium, disequilibrium, circulation, crisis and viability.
- The philosophical implications of monetary analysis.
Organization
The colloquium will take place at Pierre Mendès-France University / Grenoble II (France), on April
15th-16th 2010. 20 minute-length papers will be followed by a 10 minute-length comment, then by a
discussion. A round-table with Carlo Benetti and Jean Cartelier, attending the colloquium, is also
planned. Conference language is French. Interventions in English and Spanish are also allowed.
Publication
Selected papers will be published within an economic review.
Please send an abstract (500 words) to:
remi.stellian@fernuni.ch
DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS: OCTOBER 15th 2009
Organizing committee
Matthieu Méaulle, Foundation for European Progressive Studies
Rémi Stellian, University of Grenoble II and University of Fribourg (Switzerland)
Ramon Tortajada, University of Grenoble II
Faruk Ülgen, University of Grenoble II
Scientific committee
Guy Bensimon, Institute of Political Studies of Grenoble
Arnaud Berthoud, University of Lille I
Marie-Thérèse Boyer-Xambeu, University of Paris VII
José-Felix Cataño-Molina, Universidad Nacional de Bogotá (Colombia)
Ghislain Deleplace, University of Paris VIII
Michel De Vroey, Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium)
Jérôme Lallement, University of Paris V
Bruno Lautier, University of Paris I
Claire Pignol, University of Paris I
Sergio Rossi, University of Fribourg (Switzerland)
Richard Sobel, University of Lille I
Rédouane Taouil, University of Grenoble II
Fabrice Tricou, University of Paris X
Faruk Ülgen, University of Grenoble II
Contact:
ramon.tortajada@upmf-grenoble.fr
remi.stellian@fernuni.ch
ulgen.faruk@upmf-grenoble.fr

History of Macroeconomics Workshop

« WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ON INCOME DISTRIBUTION SINCE THE ‘YEARS OF HIGH THEORY’? »
6 March, 2010
Université de Paris 1 (PHARE),
Université de Paris VIII (LED), Université de Paris X (ECONOMIX),
Call for papers
Deadline: September 30, 2009
The current financial crisis has turned once again income distribution into a central issue within both theoretical economics and economic policy debates. Ongoing discussions are based on lines of research, which have recently gone through an important theoretical renewal. The objective of this meeting is to draw together economists and historians of economics working in the field of income distribution. Our hope is that, by confronting important pioneering contributions like those of Dunlop, Goodwin, Harrod, Kaldor, Kalecki, Keynes, Minsky or Tarshis with new and recent theoretical developments, this meeting would encourage more systematic inquiries into the subject and open up new perspectives. 

Annual Conference of the Society of Government Economists

Dear Colleagues,

I have very important news about the upcoming Annual Conference of the Society of Government Economists (in Washington, DC on September 21st):

(1) One of our AIRLEAP Directors, Professor Deirdre McCloskey, will be speaking at the conference about her new book, Bourgeois Dignity and Liberty, and another distinguished speaker we will be Professor Thomas Schelling, Nobel Laureate in Economics in 2005.

(2) The deadline for submitting applications for papers and sessions for the conference has been extended to August 21st.

So far, four AIRLEAP members have applied to present papers at the SGE Conference, and another member has volunteered to organize and chair a session. (These are only the individuals I know about, there may very well be others.) I would like to encourage other AIRLEAP members and supporters to participate in the SGE Conference, as either paper presenters, session organizers, discussants, or volunteers helping with the management of the conference. Of course, AIRLEAP and the Society of Government Economists are distinct organizations with their own distinct missions, and they are different from each other in several important ways. Personally, however, I think that both groups have a lot in common, especially in the way they tend to look at the advancement of knowledge in economics-focusing primarily on the societal benefits of better economics.

Please take a look at the message below that I sent to the SGE membership (as current President of the SGE). And, if you are in the Washington, DC area (or don't mind traveling to it) please consider attending the SGE Conference to hear Deirdre McCloskey and others. The registration fee is only $45, which includes a "free lunch"!

With best wishes,

Steve

Dr. Steven Payson
Executive Director, AIRLEAP

SGE Annual Conference

on September 21, 2009
Department of Transportation Conference Center
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20590

Deadline for the Call for Papers Extended to August 21, 2009!

For Registration and Call-for-Papers Instructions, see
http://sge-econ.org/conferences/conferences.htm
Please come to this year’s annual conference of the Society of Government Economists (SGE) which is open to everyone interested in any aspects of government economics.
Researchers are especially encouraged to apply to present a paper or organize as session.
(The application process is free and requires only an abstract and short justification statement.)

This year’s distinguished speakers will include:
Professor Thomas Schelling, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economics, and Distinguished Professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Among his many distinctions, Professor Schelling was a government economist who served for the White House and has participated in the global warming debate where he chaired a commission for President Carter. Professor Schelling’s presentation will be on “"Institutional Requirements for International Action on Climate Change."

Dr. J. Steven Landefeld, Director of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. BEA's economic statistics, which provide a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of the U.S. economy, are key ingredients in critical decisions affecting monetary policy, tax and budget projections, and business investment plans. The cornerstone of BEA's statistics is the national income and product accounts, which feature the estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) and related measures.

Professor Deirdre McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication; University of Illinois at Chicago. Author of over twenty books and three hundred scholarly articles, she is best known for How to Be Human Though an Economist (2000), The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (2006), and The Rhetoric of Economics (1998). Professor McCloskey will speak on her new book, Bourgeois Dignity and Liberty: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World.

The fee for this one-day conference is ONLY $45, which includes lunch and a one-year membership in the SGE (or extension of membership by one year for existing members). We challenge anyone to find a better bargain than this for an economics conference! Where else would you be able to hear distinguished speakers like Thomas Schelling, Steven Landefeld, and Deirdre McCloskey, attend or participate in interesting economics sessions, receive a “free lunch,” and get a one-year membership to an economics association, all for $45! See http://sge-econ.org/conferences/conferences.htm  to register!

RM09: New Marxian Times

Final Call For Papers
RM09: New Marxian Times
Extended Deadline of August 15, 2009

RETHINKING MARXISM: a journal of economics, culture & society is pleased to announce its 7th international conference, to be held at
the University of Massachusetts in Amherst on 5-8 November 2009.

http://rethinkingmarxism.org/conf/index.php/gala/NewMarxianTime

Race, Labor & Citizenship in the Post-Emancipation South

Charleston, March 11-13, 2010
College of Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina

Keynote by Steven Hahn, author of the prize-winning A Nation Under Our Feet:
Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration

Click here for detailed information.

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Conferences, Seminars and Lectures

1st Workshop in the History of Economic Theory (WHET)

Market, Money and State: Analytical Tools of the Mercantile Era

October 30th, 2009

Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville

The Workshop in the History of Economic Theory (WHET) intends to provide a meeting point for the presentation and discussion of scientific proposals in a context where Economic Theory and the History of Economic Ideas join forces. This first session will deal with the analytical tools of the Mercantilist Era. This was a time that produced valuable insights into problems that remain today at the forefront of economic debates, such as the organization of the financial system, the creation of the modern system of public debt, the infrastructure of international trade, the integration of national and local markets or the construction of the Nation-State. The Mercantilist pol! icy proposals were not just the historical products of their time; they were inspired by theoretical views that, despite their value, have failed to draw the attention that they deserve for reasons connected to the transmission of the History of Economic Thought.

Click here for detailed information.

Conference on the Recent Developments in Post-Keynesian Modeling

The task group “Post-Keynesian analyses and modeling” of the Centre d'Economie de Paris Nord is happy to announce its first conference on “The recent developments in Post-Keynesian modeling.” It will take place on November 20th and 21st 2009 in Paris. The attendance is fully free, and we would be happy to see you at this conference. However, because of space constraints, the number of persons who can attend the symposium will be limited. Therefore, if you would like to come to this conference, please try to register as soon as possible. Further information about the programme of the conference and how to register is attached.

Towards Basel III: Regulating the Banking Sector after the Crisis

Conference on the 12th October 2009 on “Towards Basel III: Regulating the Banking Sector after the Crisis”.
Click here to download the draft programme.
(More info can be found at http://www.feps-europe.eu/index.php?id=298&L=1  or http://tinyurl.com/m45ema).

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Job Postings for Heterodox Economists

Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of Economy (ICAE)

Job Vacancy at the Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of Economy (ICAE)
Research Assistant with an advanced degree (Doctorate/PhD or diploma/Master) in economics
Application: no later than August 15, 2009
The Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of Economy (Head: a. Univ.Prof. Dr. Walter Ötsch) at the University of Linz (Austria) is currently looking for a Research Assistant with an advanced university degree (PhD, diploma) in economics for research activities from September 1st, 2009 to December 31st, 2012.
The job consists in implementing a research project on the importance and volume of offshore economic activities and offers the opportunity of participating in building a new institute which aims at critically exploring the economic system and the current economic crisis in an interdisciplinary way.
We support equal opportunities for women and encourage women to apply for the job.
In case of equivalent qualifications, female applicants will be favored.
Qualifications:
- An advanced university degree (doctorate/PhD or diploma/Master) in economics
- Knowledge of the theory of financial markets and/or knowledge of working mechanisms of financial
markets
- Knowledge of and interest in critical discourse on financial markets, issues of systemic relevance for
the economy and regulatory policy
- Ability in interdisciplinary exchange on issues of political economy, as well as
- Experience in applying for research projects and project management
Please send applications with common documents no later than August 15, 2009 to:
A.Univ.Prof.Dr. Walter Ötsch
Zentrum für soziale und interkulturelle Kompetenz
Johannes Kepler Universität
A-4040 Linz, Austria
Tel.:+43-+732-2468-8364 oder 8486
Fax: +43-+732-2468-8363
walter.oetsch@jku.at

International Labor Organization

The following positions are available at the ILO:
https://erecruit.ilo.org/public/ 

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Heterodox Conference Papers and Reports and Articles

Towards a Reflection on Political Economy: Employment Theory

by Matthieu MEAULLE, FEPS Advisor in Economics | June '09
As suggested by Keynes in 1934, there seems to be a gulf separating two fundamental views in economic theory. They have their analytical continuations in the field of employment theory and therefore policy practices. Some economists think that the economic system is self-adjusting in the long-run, “though with creaks and groans and jerks, and interrupted by time-lags, outside interference, and mistakes”. Others see the economic system as intrinsically unstable; unstable in its capacity to tend towards a full employment equilibrium. This work belongs to the second school of thought.
http://www.feps-europe.eu/fileadmin/downloads/political_economy/0906_FEPS_Meaulle_DP1.pdf 

New Publications from GDAE Research Collaboration

Toward a New Consensus on Globalization and Development

GDAE’s collaborating institute, Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries (RIS), has released a set of research papers, which are the product of a joint project among GDAE, RIS, and the Argentina-based Research Center for Economic Change (CENIT). The two-year project, which is supported in part by the Ford Foundation, has the goal of moving beyond the constraints of the so-called Washington Consensus to formulate a new set of principles more favorable to development. The recent papers include:

Kevin P. Gallagher and Mehdi Shafaeddin, “Policies for Industrial Learning in China and Mexico”

Timothy A. Wise, “The Limited Promise of Agricultural Trade Liberalization”

Andrés López and Eugenia Orlicki, “Who Uses the Patent System in Developing Countries? A Study of Patent Propensities in Argentina, 1992-2001”

Previous papers released for the project include:

Nagesh Kumar, “South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Asia-Pacific: Towards a New Paradigm in Development Cooperation,”

Faizel Ismail, “Rediscovering the Role of Developing Countries in GATT Before the WTO”

Ramgopal Agarwala, “Reforming the Bretton Woods System for Inclusive Development and Democratic Global Governance”

Kevin P. Gallagher and Timothy A. Wise, “Back to the Drawing Board: No Basis for Concluding the Doha Round of Negotiations”

Several of the papers were presented at a conference in February 2009 on “Financial Crisis, Global Economic Governance and Development: Responses of Asia and the Global South,” co-sponsored by the three institutes and other organizations. A report on the conference can be downloaded:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/RISConfRepFeb09.pdf

For more on the "Toward a New Consensus" project:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/NewConsensus.html

For more on GDAE’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/globalization.html

“The Environmental Impacts of Soybean Expansion and Infrastructure Development in Brazil’s Amazon Basin”

by Maria del Carmen Vera-Diaz, Robert K. Kaufmann, and Daniel C. Nepstad

GDAE Working Paper No. 09-05, June 2009

GDAE’s research program on Agricultural Expansion and Climate Change has published a new Working Paper highlighting the environmental costs of agricultural expansion in the Amazon.  For decades, the improvement of transportation infrastructure in the Brazilian Amazon has been the government’s main social and economic development policy in the region. Reductions in transportation costs have not only opened the agricultural frontier to cattle ranching and logging but have also caused more than two-thirds of Amazonian deforestation. Currently, the expansion of soybean cultivation is driving new deforestation. Profitable soybean crops have spread over the Mato Grosso’s cerrados and now head toward the core of the Amazon rainforest.

One of the main constraints for soy expansion into the Amazon has been the poor condition of roads. In this study, GDAE Research Fellow Maria del Carmen Vera-Diaz and her co-authors analyze the effect Amazon transportation infrastructure programs have on soybean expansion by lowering transport costs. Results indicate that paving the Cuiabá-Santarém road would reduce transportation costs by an average of $10 per ton for farmers located in the northern part of Mato Grosso, by allowing producers to reroute soybean shipments to the Santarém port. Paving the road also would expand the area where growing soybeans is economically feasible by about 70 percent, from 120,000 to 205,000 sq. km. Most of this new area would be located in the state of Pará and is covered largely by forests.

A Cost-Benefit analysis of the road project indicates that the investments in infrastructure would generate more than $180 million for soybean farmers over a period of twenty years. These benefits, however, ignore the project’s environmental impacts. If the destruction of ecological services and products provided by the existing forests is accounted for, then the Cuiabá-Santarém investment would generate a net loss of between $762 million and $1.9 billion. This result shows the importance of including the value of the natural capital in feasibility studies of infrastructure projects to reflect their real benefits to society as a whole.

Download the Working Paper

18th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference

PROCEEDINGS
18th Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the U.S. and World Economies
“Meeting the Challenges of Financial Crisis”

Print and Audio downloads now available at
http://www.levy.org/vevents.aspx?event=23

Institutional Reforms to Protect China’s Water Resources

The Centre for Development Policy and Research is pleased to announce the publication of Development Viewpoint #33, “Institutional Reforms to Protect China’s Water Resources: Focus on the Pearl River Basin”. The author, Reut Barak, Department of Economics, SOAS, focuses on experiences with cooperative efforts among provinces on water pollution in the Pearl River Basin as a basis to draw out general lessons on the need for China to reform its institutional structures in order to provide effective support to policies and initiatives designed to protect environmental resources.
Click here to download: http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/file52582.pdf 
CDPR’s other thought-provoking, diversified set of over 30 Development Viewpoints published during the last year are available on http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/. 

New Working Papers on Ecological and "Happiness" Economics

The Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University (GDAE) announces two new working papers by Senior Research Fellow Julie A. Nelson:

Between a Rock and a Soft Place: Ecological and Feminist Economics in Policy Debates
GDAE Working Paper No. 09-06, June 2009
(Presented as a plenary address at the United States Society for Ecological Economics conference, Washington D.C., May 31 – June 3, 2009.)

The field of ecological economics includes both economic analysis on the one hand, and discussions of values and visions for society, on the other. Using feminist insights into cultural beliefs about the relative "hardness" and "softness" of these two sides, this essay discusses how ecological economists can use this unique "between" space in order to better inform policy. The current crisis of global climate change, it is argued, requires that economists move beyond modeling and measurement, while ecological thinkers need to re-examine beliefs about markets and profit.

Getting Past “Rational Man/Emotional Woman”: How Far Have Research Programs in Happiness and Interpersonal Relations Progressed?
GDAE Working Paper No. 09-07, June 2009
(Presented at the conference “Happiness and Relational Goods: Well-Being and Interpersonal Relations in the Economic Sphere,” Venice, Italy, June 2009.)

Orthodox neoclassical economics portrays reason as far more important than emotion, autonomy as more characteristic of economic life than social connection, and, more generally, things culturally and cognitively associated with masculinity as more central than things associated with femininity. Research from contemporary neuroscience suggests that such biases are related to certain automatic processes in the brain, and feminist scholarship suggests ways of getting beyond them. The "happiness" and "interpersonal relations" research programs have made substantial progress in overcoming a number these biases. Analysis from a feminist economics perspective suggests, however, several fronts on which research could most profitably continue.

The working papers are available at:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/working_papers/index.html 
For more GDAE publications on Economic Theory, see:
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/advancing_theory/theory_pubs.html

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Heterodox Journals and Newsletters

INTERVENTION

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC POLICIES

Volume 6 (2009), Number 1: http://www.journal-intervention.org/seiten/englisch/current_issue.shtml

Articles are available via the homepage of Metropolis: http://www.metropolis-publisher.com/1/ausgaben/journal.do

Content

Forum

Interview with Charles A.E. Goodhart

Gerd Grözinger: Achtung Lebensgefahr! Indirekte Effekte regionaler Arbeitslosigkeit auf Lebensweise und -qualität

Special Forum on »Global imbalances«

Sebastian Dullien: Divergences in EMU: Scope of the problem and policy options

Dorothee Bohle: East European capitalism -- What went wrong?

Hansjörg Herr: Global imbalances and the Chinese balance of payments

Dimitri B. Papadimitriou: Global imbalances: Strategic prospects for the US and the world

Articles

Special Issue on »Inflation targeting: Is there a credible alternative?«

Editorial to the Special Issue

Angel Asensio, Mark Hayes: The Post Keynesian alternative to inflation targeting

Malcolm Sawyer: Interest rates and inflation: What are the links?

Geoff Tily: The General Theory and monetary policy: Investment versus inflation

Book Reviews

Ronald Schettkat, Jochem Langkau (Hg.): Aufschwung für Deutschland. Plädoyer international renommierter Ökonomen für eine bessere Wirtschaftspolitik (Achim Truger)

Alessandro Roncaglia, Paolo Sylos Labini: Geschichte des ökonomischen Denkens. Eine kurze Einführung (Hagen Krämer)

Luigi L. Pasinetti: Keynes and the Cambridge Keynesians. A >Revolution in Economics< to be Accomplished (Eckhard Hein)

Alessandro Vercelli: Methodological Foundations of Macroeconomics: Keynes and Lucas (John E. King)

John T. Harvey, Robert F. Garnett (eds.): Future Directions for Heterodox Economics (Wolfram Elsner)

Sergio Rossi: Money and Payments in Theory and Practice (Eckhard Hein)

Steven Mark Cohn: Reintroducing Macroeconomics: A critical Approach (Bernd Berghuber)

Local Economy

Volume 24 Issue 4  is now available online at informaworld ( http://www.informaworld.com ).

This new issue contains the following articles:

Obituary

Irene Bruegel (1946–2008): Gender and Local Economic Development
Author: Ines Newman

Viewpoint

Is it Goodbye to Tourism Taxes?
Author: Steve Burns

Features

Exploratory Techniques for Examining Cluster Dynamics: A Systems Thinking Approach
Authors: Madeline Smith; Ross Brown

Empowering Glasgow's Tenants through Community Ownership?
Author: Kim McKee

Uncovering Creative Destruction brought about by New Firm Formation: A New Method and Data Source
Authors: James Derbyshire; Garry Haywood

Spending Time Locally: The Benefit of Time Banks for Local Economies
Author: Lee Gregory

Book Reviews

An Introduction to Community Development The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a more Connected World Policy for a Change: Local Labour Market Analysis and Gender Equality
Authors: Ruth Richards; Graham King; Judith Watson

METROECONOMICA

A GOODWINIAN MODEL WITH DIRECT AND ROUNDABOUT RETURNS TO SCALE (AN APPLICATION TO ITALY)
Alexander V. Ryzhenkov
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121556774/abstract

A PROPERTY TAXATION MECHANISM WITH SELF-ASSESSMENT
Dieter Gstach
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121676050/abstract

HOW LONG SHOULD WE STAY IN EDUCATION IF ABILITY IS SCREENED?
Takashi Oshio, Masaya Yasuoka
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121462295/abstract

EXISTENCE OF THE STANDARD SYSTEM IN THE MULTIPLE-PRODUCTION CASE: A SOLUTION TO THE MANARA PROBLEM
Michel-Stéphane Dupertuis, Ajit Sinha
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121547293/abstract

ECONOMIC POLICY IN A GROWTH CONTEXT: A CLASSICAL SYNTHESIS OF KEYNES AND HARROD
Anwar Shaikh
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121676049/abstract

RE-EXAMINING THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEW CONSENSUS: ENDOGENOUS MONEY AND TAYLOR RULES IN A SIMPLE NEOCLASSICAL MACRO MODEL
Peter Docherty
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121496156/abstract


POST-KEYNESIAN EFFECTIVE DEMAND AND CAPITAL–LABOUR SUBSTITUTION
Takashi Ohno
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122196404/abstract


THE WAGE–WAGE- . . . -WAGE–PROFIT RELATION IN A MULTISECTOR BARGAINING ECONOMY
A. J. Julius
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122324418/abstract

A NOTE ON THE FORMAL TREATMENT OF EXPLOITATION IN A MODEL WITH HETEROGENOUS LABOR
Gérard Duménil, Duncan Foley, Dominique Lévy
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122322075/abstract

THE 'NEW INTERPRETATION': QUESTIONS ANSWERED AND UNANSWERED
Dong-Min Rieu
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121452759/abstract

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY

Private Property and the Law of Nature in Locke's Two Treatises: The Best Advantage of Life and Convenience
B. Jeffrey Reno
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122432596/abstract

Business Success Through Social Networks? A Comment on Social Networks and Business Success
Henrik Egbert
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122432592/abstract


Market Uncertainty and Socially Embedded Reputation
Harris H. Kim
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122432591/abstract


With Friends Like These: Endogenous Labor Market Segregation with Homogeneous, Nonprejudiced Agents
Tavis Barr
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122432593/abstract


Economic Crime as Hiding Behavior
Oskar Engdahl
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122432597/abstract


The Western Expansion as a Common Pool Problem: The Contrasting Histories of the Brazilian and North American Pioneers
Fernando Zanella, Christopher Westley http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122432595/abstract


Reconsideration of Economic Views of a Classical Empire and a Nation-State During the Mercantilist Ages
Mehmet Bulut
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122432594/abstract

Feminist Economics

Volume 15 Issue 3  is now available online at informaworld ( http://www.informaworld.com ).

Special Issue:Inequality, Development, and Growth

This new issue contains the following articles:

Introduction

Feminist Economics of Inequality, Development, and Growth
Authors: Günseli Berik; Yana van der Meulen Rodgers; Stephanie Seguino

Articles

Gender Equality and Economic Growth in the World Bank World Development Report 2006
Author: Diane Elson

Gender Disparity in Education and the International Competition for Foreign Direct Investment
Authors: Matthias Busse; Peter Nunnenkamp

The Impact of Gender Inequality in Education and Employment on Economic Growth: New Evidence for a Panel of Countries
Authors: Stephan Klasen; Francesca Lamanna

Do Gender Disparities in Employment Increase Profitability? Evidence from the United States
Authors: Ajit Zacharias; Melissa Mahoney

Women's Employment and Family Income Inequality during China's Economic Transition
Authors: Sai Ding; Xiao-yuan Dong; Shi Li

Do Economic Reforms InfluenceHome-Based Work? Evidence from India
Authors: Uma Rani; Jeemol Unni

Gender Disparities and Economic Growth in Kenya: A Social Accounting Matrix Approach
Authors: Bernadette Mukhwana Wanjala; Maureen Were

Globalization, Gender, and Poverty in the Senegal River Valley
Author: Jeanne E. Koopman

Modeling Gender Effects of Pakistan's Trade Liberalization
Author: Rizwana Siddiqui

Gender, Monetary Policy, and Employment: The Case of Nine OECD Countries
Authors: Yelena Takhtamanova; Eva Sierminska

Review of Political Economy

Volume 21 Issue 3  is now available online at informaworld ( http://www.informaworld.com ).

Special Issue: Commemorating Nicholas Kaldor's Centenary

This new issue contains the following articles:

Miscellany

Introductory Note, Page 339
Authors: John King; Gary Mongiovi

Original Articles

Adjusting Theory to Reality: The Role of Aggregate Demand in Kaldor's Late Contributions on Economic Growth
Author: Antonella Palumbo

Cadrisme within a Post-Keynesian Model of Growth and Distribution
Author: Marc Lavoie

A Centre–Periphery Framework on Kaldorian Lines
Author: Prabirjit Sarkar

Global Imbalances and the Key Currency Regime: The Case for a Commodity Reserve Currency
Author: Leanne J. Ussher

A ‘New Bretton Woods’: Kaldor and the Antipodean Quest for Global Full Employment
Authors: Sean Turnell; Leanne J. Ussher

Kaldor on Debreu: The Critique of General Equilibrium Reconsidered
Authors: Thomas A. Boylan; Paschal F. O'Gorman

Nicholas Kaldor and Critical Realism
Authors: Therese Jefferson; John King

Cambridge Economics, Heterodoxy and Ontology: An Interview with Tony Lawson
Author: Stephen P. Dunn

Book Reviews

Economists in Cambridge. A Study through their Correspondence, 1907–1946
Author: Esteban Pérez-Caldentey

Recent Developments in Institutional Economics
Author: Ferudun Yilmaz

Altruistically Inclined? The Behavioral Sciences, Evolutionary Theory, and the Origins of Reciprocity
Author: Alain Marciano

Marx's Theory of Money. Modern Appraisals
Author: Stavros D. Mavroudeas

The Political Economy of the Living Wage: A Study of Four Cities
Author: J. E. King

Changing the Guard: Private Prisons and the Control of Crime
Author: Robert Whaples

How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor
Author: Orly Lobel

The Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin

August 2009
1) Idea Auditing
2) Finance and Education
3) Associate! August 2009 - Ideas in Economics
4) Accounting as Macroeconomics

1) Idea Auditing
'The ideas of economists... both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.' So said John Maynard Keynes in an oft-quoted passage reminiscent of Rudolf Steiner's similar 'what happens between human beings is, among other things, the result of the ideas they entertain.'

In terms of today's events, what matters is to probe deeper our understanding of economic life and its processes, the more so if we think for whatever reason that things could or should be done differently. Associate! fosters such an ongoing idea-audit by presenting relevant, but often contrasting, points of view and occasionally (as in Karp's piece in this issue) offering something of a manifesto piece. A further ongoing theme concerns the need to take an accounting approach to economics, it would appear that this approach is beginning to gain currency in certain circles - see 4) below.

2) Finance and Education
This autumn (2009), the Centre for Associative Economics in partnership with the London Waldorf Trust will be offering a short but comprehensive course concerning finance and education, with particular reference to independent schools and Rudolf Steiner's insights in this regard. The course will be held in London (hopefully at or near Rudolf Steiner House), will take place over three separate Saturdays or Sundays (dates yet to be decided), and will cover a range of topics, including the History of Money and Accounting, Double Entry Book-keeping, Financial and Spiritual Sovereignty, Teaching of Financial Literacy to 14-19 year olds, the Funding of Education and the Challenge of Public Benefit.
Conceived in continuing professional development terms, it will combine conventional understandings of finance with Rudolf Steiner's approach and aims to be two-way, providing a thorough backgrounding in the topics covered, but encouraging also feedback and the sharing of experience by participants.
The target cost is £150, depending on numbers. The course will be coordinated by Dr. Christopher Houghton Budd, to whom initial enquiries should be addressed.

3) Associate! August 2009 - Ideas in Economics

Lead: Nothing New Under The Sun? - Differentiating between Production and Financial Capitalism. Erik S. Reinert and Arno Mong Daastøl
A Sign of Our Time: Shrugging off Altruism. Ayn Rand's Influence.
Feature / Archive: 10 Insights - An AE Manifesto Robert Karp
21 Policies: Time to Associate!
Glossary: Ideas are Capital
AE Hero: CROPP's Cooperative Grower Pool
Accounting Corner: Research and Development

4) Accounting as Macroeconomics
An Excerpt from the Friends Page by Stephen Vallus, Lafayette, USA.
I am always greatly encouraged when I find the work of others paralleling our own, which the monthly Associate! newsletter excels at providing of course! Recently I came across a paper entitled: 'No one saw this coming: understanding financial crisis through accounting models' by Dirk Bezemer.
The paper's starting point is the mainstream media idea that no one saw the financial crisis coming. Of course there were those who saw it, which forms the substance of this paper: 'We need to understand how dynamics in accounting relations underpin and shape our economies. The underlying reason is that economic relations and transactions in modern economies are embedded in the double-entry accounting framework. All transacting is predicated on economic agents extending credit to each other, and credit (whether trade credit or bank credit) is fungible with money. Money is not just a unit of account; it is the reflection of relations of debit and credit, and thus money itself is an accounting concept.'
The author calls for accounting researchers to make contributions to economics, rather than the reverse which seems to be the usual thought.

The Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin provides an overview of what is going on around the world in the associative economics movement. The bulletin is viewable as a webpage at www.cfae.biz/fae-bulletin/09Aug/

CASE – Center for Social and Economic Research

e-Newsletter
May –July 2009
http://www.case.com.pl/plik--26041572.pdf?nlang=710

Highlights from the eNewsletter
2009 CASE International Conference
The Return of History: From Consensus to Crisis.
Warsaw, November 20th and 21st 2009
2008 CASE Annual Report
• Highlights from 2008 Annual Report
Project Highlights:
• Fostering Global Responsibility Project – Raising Awareness Round Table Conference in Bratislava
• Trade and European Integration in the Euro-Mediterranean Region
Project Completion:
• ENEPO – EU Eastern Neighborhood Economic Potential and Future Development
• Study on the Quality of Public Finances to Support Growth in the EU’s Mediterranean Partner Countries
• Economic Impact of a Free Trade Area Agreement between the European Union and the Russian Federation on Selection Priority Areas
NEW! Projects:
• EU Generalized System of Preference
• Ex-post evaluation of the EU Microfinancial Assistance to Georgia and Moldova
• FP7 – ANCIEN Assessing the Needs of Care in European Nations
CASE Events - Policy Research Seminars:
• Anders Aslund, “Financial and Political Crisis in Ukraine” June 4th 2009
• Thomas Laursen, “Financial Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe” July 1st, 2009
CASE Publications:
Featured Publications
• “Responding to Crisis: Core and Periphery” Development and Transition Newsletter, Marek Dabrowski
• “Defense of Entrepreneurial Capitalism” Financial Times, Leszek Balcerowicz
CASE Network E-Briefs
• 06/2009 “Gazprom’s New Weakness Offers Opportunity” Anders Aslund
• 07/2009 “The Influence of large remittance inflows on the economic behavior of rural households. The case of Moldova” Mateusz Walewski
• 08/2009 – Global Economic Crisis and Belarus: A Look Back” Alexander Chubrik
Network Studies and Analyses
• No. 386 – EU’s Eastern Neighbours: Institutional Harmonization and Potential Growth Bonus
• No. 387 – Institutional Harmonization and Its Costs and Benefits in the Context of EU Cooperation with Its Neighbours. An Overview.
• No. 388 – Institutional Harmonization in the ENP Countries
• No. 389 – The Effects of Migration and Remittances in Rural Moldova
• No. 390 – The Innovation Patterns of Firms in Low and High Technology Manufacturing Sectors in the New Member States

Circus – Revista Argentina de Economia

Pdf files of the first four issues:

Circus 1
Circus 2
Circus 3
Circus 4

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Heterodox Books and Book Series

Money And Households In A Capitalist Economy

A Gendered Post Keynesian–Institutional Analysis

Zdravka Todorova, Assistant Professor of Economics, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, US. In 2007 Todorova received the international prize commemorating the 150th anniversary of Thorstein Veblen’s birth, awarded jointly by the European Association for Political Economy and the Association for Evolutionary Economics.

http://www.e-elgar-economics.com/Bookentry_main.lasso?id=13178 

‘Dr Todorova is part of a new vanguard of multi-hats heterodox economists and it is this vanguard that will determine the future developments in heterodox economics. Money and Households in a Capitalist Economy breaks new ground integrating microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches to household consumption and finance, while providing a gendered analysis.’
– Frederic S. Lee, University of Missouri – Kansas City, US

‘Dr Todorova successfully extends what is widely known as the “UMKC approach” to monetary theory into entirely new areas, namely, feminist economics and the study of the household. She provides perhaps the clearest and most concise explication of the chartal money view, and shows how it helps us to understand the role played by the household in the modern capitalist economy. She sheds new light on our current situation.’
– L. Randall Wray, University of Missouri – Kansas City, US

Post Keynesian analyses of monetary production have not given much attention to households as institutions, while a good deal of the literature in feminist economics discusses households in a strictly microeconomic context, with little consideration of monetary phenomena. This book, a unique study of the capitalist economy, utilizes a distinctive combination of Post Keynesian, institutional, and gender analysis to examine household economics in capitalist society in order to flesh out the gaps in each.

The author poses questions that cut across rigidly determined areas of inquiry, such as gender and money, and micro- and macroeconomic analysis. She grounds the discussion of households and their social and financial relations within a monetary theory of production, and provides many methodological, theoretical, and policy formulation insights to establish a framework that illuminates current problems of household debt.
August 2009 176 pp Hardback 978 1 84720 953 5 $ 100.00 on-line discount $ 90.00 

The Survey of Economists: Prospects for European Economic Recovery

August 2009 Edition.

Primary Research Group has published: The Survey of Economists: Prospects for European Economic Recovery, August 2009 Edition. The report presents data from interviews with more than 100 economists from major universities, research institutes and private companies on the future of the economies of Europe. Data is broken out by the political inclination, geographic location and professional affiliation of the economists surveyed.

Coverage includes fiscal policy advice for the major European states, views of the accuracy of EEC Commission economic forecasts, approaches to resolving the Euro-area banking crisis and the long term economic impact of this crisis, wisdom of the European Central Bank's asset purchasing policies, view of sources of demand for future economic growth, likely exchange rate developments and many other issues affecting Europe's economic recovery.

Just a few of the report’s findings are that:

- Nearly 66% of survey participants support the ECB’s policy of purchasing non-traditional assets while 21.9% thought it misguided and 12.38% thought that it was a good idea but that the ECB had not gone far enough.

- European economists were the least likely to believe that German banks had managed their banks better than the USA, the UK and many continental European countries, indeed only a bit more than 20% of the European economists in the sample thought so, while more than 41% of the American economists queried believed this.

- 18% of the economists in the sample advised some degree of fiscal contraction for Spain while 55% advised some form of expansion. Only 17.65% of conservative economists advised modest fiscal expansion and none advised significant expansion.

- The more left wing the economist, the higher the percentage of economists that said that deflation was the greater danger than inflation. Only about 39% of conservative economists thought deflation the greater danger, while 67.5% of social democratic/left wing economists thought so.

The Survey of Economists is a series of reports based on surveys of leading economists from major institutions. Just a few of the institutional affiliations of the economists surveyed (who give their personal opinions not necessarily representative of their institutions) are: The World Bank, The European Investment Bank, Ecole Polytechnique, the International Monetary Fund, Oxford University, Harvard University, the Paris School of Economics, the University of Minnesota, Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, the Rand Corporation, the University of Zurich, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Bocconi University, the University of Barcelona, Kyoto University, Rutgers University, Sapienza the University of Rome, The Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, the Bank of Finland, the University of Bologna, the University of Cambridge, the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, the University of Cal ifornia Berkeley, Cornell University, Simon Fraser University, Tufts University and many others.

The report is available in PDF and print formats from Primary Research Group and from major distributors of books and research information. For further information, or to order, view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com. 

The Foundations of Non-Equilibrium Economics: The Principle of Circular and Cumulative Causation

Edited by Sebastian Berger
Routledge Advances in Heterodox Economics
http://www.routledge.com/books/The-Foundations-of-Non-Equilibrium-Economics-isbn9780415777803
This thought-provoking volume presents essays on the foundations of non-equilibrium economics, i.e. the principle of circular cumulative causation (CCC). This work presents empirical research on how the interplay of technology’s increasing returns to scale, institutions, resources, and economic policy leads to virtuous circles of economic growth and development, but also to vicious circles of social and ecological degradation. In particular, evidence is provided for the important role of the “development state” and strategic trade policy, economies of large-scale production in manufacturing, the regional level of development and community-based resource management regimes. While demonstrating CCC’s strength in generating empirical research, the book also provides insights into its philosophical foundations and intellectual history. Several essays trace the roots of this full-fledged theoretical framework back to Adam Smith, Classical Political Economy, Thorstein Veblen, Gunnar Myrdal, K. William Kapp and Nicholas Kaldor.
As the most comprehensive collection of the growing body of CCC research to date, this book also reflects the emergence of an economic paradigm for understanding economic dynamics and for crafting viable development strategies for the 21st century. The volume will be of great interest to scholars of growth and development economics, institutional and evolutionary economics, political economy, and Post Keynesian economics from undergraduate to postgraduate research levels. 

Punishing the Poor

The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity
By Loïc Wacquant, University of California, Berkeley

“This powerful book shows that America’s harsh penal policies are of a piece with our harsh social policies, and that both can be understood as a symbolic and material apparatus to control the marginal populations created by neoliberal globalization. A tour de force!”—Frances Fox Piven, co-author of Regulating the Poor

“Punishing the Poor is an incisive and unflinching indictment of neoliberal state restructuring and poverty (mis)management. It brilliantly exposes structural and symbolic consonances between ‘workfare’ and ‘prisonfare,’ and between emergent, transnational policy orthodoxies in social and penal policy. Loïc Wacquant delivers a trenchant, radical, and entirely compelling analysis.”—Jamie Peck, author of Workfare States

“This masterful treatment of contemporary punishment policies relocates the entire field within the political sweep of the twentieth-century ascendance of economic neoliberalism and the evisceration of the welfare state. Loïc Wacquant skillfully weds materialist and symbolic approaches in the best tradition of Marx and radical criminology, on the one hand, and Durkheim and Bourdieu, on the other. This provocative book is the counter-manifesto to neoliberal penality, a must-read for all students of criminal justice and citizenship.”—Bernard E. Harcourt, author of Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age

The punitive turn taken by penal policies in advanced societies over the past two decades does not pertain to the traditional duo of crime and punishment. Rather, it heralds the establishment of a new government of social insecurity aimed at molding the conduct of the men and women caught in the turbulence of economic deregulation and the conversion of welfare into a springboard toward precarious employment. Within this “liberal-paternalist” apparatus, the prison has recovered its original mission: to tame the populations and the territories rebellious to the emerging economic and moral order, and to ritually reassert the fortitude of the rulers.

It is in the United States that this new politics and policy of marginality wedding restrictive “workfare” and expansive “prison-fare” was invented. Punishing the Poor takes the reader inside America’s prison to probe the entrails of the bulimic carceral state that has risen on the ruins of the charitable state and the black ghetto. It demonstrates how the regulation of the lower classes no longer involves solely the maternal arm of the social-welfare state, but crucially implicates the stern and virile arm of the penal state. By uncovering the material underpinnings and unhinging the symbolic springs of the law-and-order reason that is now sweeping through the countries of the First and Second worlds, this bold book linking social and penal policies makes an original contribution to the historical anthropology of the state in the age of triumphant neo-liberalism.

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Apr 2009 232pp £15.99 PB: 9780822344100

Body Politics in Development

Critical Debates in Gender and Development
Wendy Harcourt

'"Body Politics in Development" is about a lot more than "development". This is a book about today's complex international feminist movements. Anyone interested in learning who are the major crafters of feminist discourses, feminist strategies and feminist alliances will be made smarter by reading Wendy Harcourt's deeply informed book.' - Cynthia Enloe, author of 'The Curious Feminist'

'Wendy Harcourt’s vision of an approach to gender and development as transformative of all relations of power and inequality is breathtaking.' - Peggy Antrobus

ISBN: 9781842779354 £16.99
www.zedbooks.co.uk/body_politics_in_development 

Celebrity and the Environment

Fame, Wealth and Power in Conservation
Dan Brockington
'This is a fascinating and important book, which also happens to be funny and beautifully written. Dan Brockington presents a challenge we cannot duck to everyone with an interest in conservation and the environment.' - George Monbiot

'International development has become sexy, environmentalism convenient, and saving the world has never seemed so easy (yet so remote). This book will be invaluable for anyone who wants to understand why celebrity activism has become inextricable from global social movements.' - Lisa Ann Richey, Roskilde University and Stefano Ponte, Danish Institute for International Studies
June 2009, ISBN 9781842779743, £14.99
www.zedbooks.co.uk/celebrity_and_the_environment

Economics and Morality: Anthropological Approaches

Edited by Katherine E. Browne and B. Lynne Milgram
http://www.altamirapress.com/Catalog/Flyer2.shtml?SKU=0759112010 
"Notions of the economic and the moral have long been intertwined, but recent changes in the world and in social theory have newly problematized the interrelationship. Economics and Morality is a wide-ranging and superbly edited collection that revitalizes an anthropological tradition, making it speak to new concerns."—Donald L. Donham, University of California, Davis
In Economics and Morality, the authors seek to illuminate the multiple kinds of analyses relating morality and economic behavior in particular kinds of economic systems. The chapters explore economic systems from a variety of diverse indigenous and capitalist societies, focusing on moral challenges in non-Western economic systems undergoing profound change, grassroots movements and moral claims in the context of capitalism, and morality-based movements taking place within corporate and state institutions. The anthropological insights of each chapter provide the value of firsthand fieldwork and ethnographic investigation, as well as the tradition of critically studying non-Western and Western societies. Because the moral challenges in a given capitalist society can no longer be effectively addressed without considering the interaction and influences of different societies in the global system, the international ethnographic research in this book can help document and make sense of the changes sweeping our planet.

Why Capitalism Survives Crises: The Shock Absorbers

Volume 25, Research in Political Economy
Paul Zarembka, editor
www.buffalo.edu/~zarembka/

PART I. WHY CAPITALISM SURVIVES CRISES: THE SHOCK ABSORBERS
Simon Stander
Introduction Victor Kasper, Buffalo State College, and Paul Zarembka, State University of New York at Buffalo
The Absorptive Class
Theory of the State and Civil Society
The Commodity
Production of the Consumer Society under Capitalism
Narcissism and the Fractionalisation of the Individual
Economic Crises and the Theory of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall
Reformism, Class Consciousness and Class Action
PART II. VALUE THEORY AND METHODOLOGY IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
On the Labor Theory of Value: Statistical Artefacts or Regularities? Lefteris Tsoulfidis, University of Macedonia, and Dimitris Paitaridis, University of Macedonia
Limits and Challenges of the Consistency Debate in Marxian Value Theory Guglielmo Carchedi, University of Amsterdam
Methodological Differences between Two Marxian Economists in Japan: Kozo Uno and Sekisuke Mita Shuichi Kakuta, Ritsumeikan University

Poland’s New Capitalism

By Jane Hardy
Pluto Press
PB / £17.99 / 9780745324562 / 215mm x 135mm / 272pp
Released August 17th 2009

http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalog/product.aspx?isbn=0745324568

A timely and bracing analysis of Poland, still the poster boy of Central and Eastern Europe’s neoliberal transformation. Poland’s New Capitalism is analytically sharp and empirically grounded.

Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies, King’s College London ‘At last, a book on Poland’s post-communist transformation that takes the issues facing regular people seriously. With its historical, political, and class-based critique, this book is one of the best yet on Poland’s postcommunist experience, and will be of excellent use in the classroom.’David Ost, Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York, and author of The Defeat of Solidarity (2005) Poland was central to the historic changes that took place across Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War. It is the largest economy in the region, and was at the forefront of opposition to communism,with the rise of Solidarity in the 1980s. This book explores the way that neoliberal policies have formed the basis of transformation,championed by both post-communist and post-Solidarity governments.

Jane Hardy provides a rigorous assessment of the impact of these policies on everyday lives and Poland’s place in the European and global economy. These are firmly set in the context of the complex and dynamic political economy of the country. The role of capital in the form of transnational corporations and foreign direct investment is central to the analysis. The revival of trade unions and growth of new social movements are explored as they challenge Poland’s new capitalism.

No other book studies Poland’s recent history in such depth. This book will be a key text for students of political economy, international relations, social movements and labour studies.

Jane Hardy is a Professor of Political Economy at the University of Hertfordshire. Jane has published widely on the restructuring of the Polish economy. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Socialism Journal.

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Heterodox Book Reviews

The Living Wage: Lessons from the History of Economic Thought

Donald R. Stabile, _The Living Wage: Lessons from the History of Economic Thought_. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2008. viii + 163 pp. $100 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-84844-197-2.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Art Carden, Department of Economics and Business, Rhodes College.
Click here to download the review.

GENDER AND CHINESE DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS AN EQUITABLE SOCIETY

by Lanyan Chen, Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-415-46723-0; 177 pages.
Reviewed by Sara Hsu, Trinity University
Click here to download the review.

NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF WORK AND EMPLOYMENT

REVITALIZING INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AS AN ACADEMIC ENTERPRISE; edited by Charles J. Whalen, Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008.
Reviewed by David Jacobs, Morgan State University
Click here to download the review.

The Secret Life of Real Estate

Review of Phillip J. Anderson, 2008, The Secret Life of Real Estate
(London: Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd.)

Review by Mason Gaffney, May 2009
Click here to download the review.

Heterodox Graduate Program and PhD Scholarships

Dublin City University Business School

Doctoral Research Fellowship

Applications are invited from students interested in studying for a PhD in the area of technology and knowledge transfer. The Fellowship is being offered by Dublin City University Business School (DCUBS) in conjunction with Teagasc (The Irish Food and Agriculture Development Authority).

The project will focus on understanding the adoption of key agricultural technologies and practices in two spheres of particular relevance to Teagasc - Grassland Management Practices and Agri-Environmental Practices. The project will seek to analyse the characteristics, motivations and attitudes underpinning adoption/non adoption decisions in relation to these key technologies; the obstacles, barriers and absorptive capacity issues surrounding the adoption of these technologies on the part of farmers; the barriers to diffusion faced by the Teagasc Advisory service; the best mechanisms to be used to transfer these technologies and the role of regulatory and market drivers in technology adoption.

Students should have completed a Master’s degree in a related area such as economics, management, agribusiness, commerce, rural development or sociology.

The successful student will be funded by the Teagasc Walsh Fellowship programme, and jointly supervised by DCUBS and the Teagasc Rural Economy Research Centre (RERC). The student will be expected to spend a proportion of their time at RERC in Athenry, Co. Galway over the course of the Fellowship.
The Walsh Fellowship is for €21,000 per annum (inclusive of fees), payable for a maximum of 4 years and scheduled to commence on October 1st 2009.

Informal enquiries about this position may be made to Professor David Jacobson at Dublin City University Business School, DCU by telephone at +353 1 700 5218; email: david.Jacobson@dcu.ie  or Kevin Heanue at RERC, Teagasc at +353 91 845 834; email: kevin.heanue@teagasc.ie 

Application Procedure

Applicants should submit a full CV and covering letter either by post or email to: Rachel Keegan, DCU Business School, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Ireland. Email: rachel.keegan@dcu.ie

Closing date for receipt of applications is Friday August 21st, 2009.

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Heterodox Web Sites and Associations

Mario Nuti's Blog

Professor Mario Nuti invites you to look at his blog site: http://www.dmarionuti.blogspot.com/ 

A Marxian Introduction to Modern Economics

I have worked for some time on a project "A Marxian Introduction to Modern Economics" MIME and in particular on the labour theory of value. Some of the most important results you find at http://eurodos.free.fr/mime.  My work resolves long standing issues and puts the labour theory of value back at the heart of Historical Materialism. Your are invited to contribute to this project of economics and Historical Materialism.

II Jornadas de Economía Crítica

www.jornadaseconomiacritica.blogspot.com

FOUNDATION FOR EUROPEAN PROGRESSIVE STUDIES

http://www.feps-europe.eu/index.php?id=12 

FEPS is a newly created European progressive foundation. Close to the Party of European Socialists (PES) but nevertheless independent, FEPS embodies a new way of thinking on the European labour, socialist and social-democratic scene. FEPS intends to establish an intellectual crossroad between social democracy and the European project, putting fresh thinking at the core of its action, which will be divided into the following axes: debate, reflection, training and communication.

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For Your Information

THESIS

The ESHET website has a new link to a website called THESIS which was created by Manuela Mosca. This website would be useful for all those who write or supervise PhD dissertations in the area of the history of economics thought.

From the ESHET web site at http://www.eshet.net/  , click on HET Teaching to access the link to the THESIS web site.

The THESIS website contains a collection of guidelines on how to write a dissertation in six languages (American/English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish--and we are currently looking for versions in additional languages).

The link to THESIS website is intended to be sent to students before they begin writing their dissertations, so that there are no difficulties with first drafts and work can progress smoothly.

The link to THESIS on the ESHET website is called HET Thesis Writing and it can be found under HET-Teaching.

Journals going to Online Submissions

JOIE

I am very pleased to announce that an online submission system for the Journal of Institutional Economics has been set up. FROM TODAY, ALL SUBMISSIONS TO JOIE SHOULD BE ONLINE. Go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/joie

In addition, from March 2010, JOIE will be published four times a year (March, June, September and December). Go to the following site for details of future issues and other information:
http://www.joie-foundation.co.uk/

Geoff Hodgson
JOIE Editor in Chief
g.m.hodgson@herts.ac.uk
www.geoffrey-hodgson.info


JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT

We are pleased to announce that the ScholarOne Manuscripts site for the Journal of the History of Economic Thought is now live and open for manuscript submissions. Please direct all new submissions to the online submission site at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jhet  from now on.

CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY

Critical Sociology, published by SAGE, now accepts new submissions via the online portal offered for the journal through Manuscript Central. Connect via the link below,

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/critical-sociology 

then create a new account, select Author Center, and you are off and running. Reviews are faster, authors can monitor the progress of their reviews, communication is more reliable and preparing the manuscript for publication in the journal;s pages is easier.

As we face an ever deeper crisis, publishing in Critical Sociology is more and more important for a variety of reasons:

• Breadth of scope in radical thinking – Critical Sociology is an international peer reviewed journal that publishes quality original research. The journal seeks to engage and promote critical thinking by publishing articles from all perspectives broadly defined as falling within the boundaries of critical or radical social science. It bridges scholars globally and crosses academic boundaries.

- Singular critical voice – It is a singular critical voice, actively encouraging an exchange of ideas and perspectives from different traditions in scholarship. It is one of the only journal in Sociology that offers readers and contributors an alternative and non-traditional platform for critically informed research.

- Extensive readership – Critical Sociology goes to hundreds of libraries all over the world. Your article will get into the hands and minds of a wide community of academics and professionals internationally, across a range of relevant disciplines. Join a community of scholars focused on the role of critical sociology during this time of global change

- High visibility via our award winning online platform, SAGE Journals Online – Your article will have global reach and will benefit from the very latest in online search and "discoverability" technology. You can be assured of the highest attention to production values as your work is read widely.

- Longevity of content – Critical Sociology is a leading journal in social sciences with a history spanning 35 years of ground breaking contributions

- Quality Peer Review: Enjoy rigorous but helpful and rapid peer-review and assistance with the development and publication of your paper, to ensure greatest impact.

Critical Sociology strives to bridge research and action, to engage scholars from around the world examining similar issues from a number of perspectives, and be part of a dialogue of progressives seeking to act on Marx's 11th Thesis on Feuerbach

Prof. David Fasenfest
Dept of Sociology
Wayne State University
Editor, Critical Sociology
crs.sagepub.com

Business History Conference Proceedings

We are happy to announce that the complete text of the first proceedings volumes of the Business History Conference (1962-1974) is now available on the BHC Web site, at http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHprint/aboutbeh.html.  Will Hausman scanned these issues to make all the articles available in PDF format and Pat Denault created HTML tables of contents for them. These issues join the files from the 1975-1999 print issues of Business and Economic History.

“Invitation to join the Green Economist Directory”

Never has there been a greater need for innovative thinking about economics and the environment. Economics for Equity and the Environment Network (E3) is looking to engage more economists who subscribe to a vision of an engaged, practical economics, in which an understanding of social equity and environmental protection cannot be separated.

The goal of E3 Network is to develop new applied arguments for environmental protection and to involve our economists more actively in public policy. Our economists engage in innovative research, publish in top journals and newspapers, testify before Congress, participate in press conferences, and consult with decision makers and NGOs on either a fee or pro bono basis.

If you are interested in joining over a hundred other economists across the country in these efforts, please sign up online ( www.e3network.org/gdreg.php ) for our Green Economist Directory. Signing up doesn’t commit you to anything and your contact information will never be shared with anyone without your permission. Any questions, please email Kristen Sheeran, E3 Director (director at e3network.org). For more information about E3’s programs for economists and graduate students, please visit our website ( www.e3network.org ).

Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies

You are receiving the newsletter of the Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM) ( http://www.boeckler.de/91434_36330.html ) on a regular basis.
Maybe you have also participated in the Berlin conferences of the Research Network. During the last 5 years a close co-operation between the Research Network and "Intervention. European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies" ( http://www.journal-intervention.org/ ) has developed. "Intervention" is a peer-reviewed journal which serves as forum for studies in macroeconomic theory, economic institutions and economic policies (more: http://www.journal-intervention.org/seiten/englisch/about_intervention.shtml ).

The latest issue (Vol. 6, Number 1, 2009) of the journal presents papers on "Inflation targeting: Is there a credible alternative?" from the April 2008 Seminar of the Post Keynesian Econmis Study Group (PKESG). Contributors are Angel Asensio and Mark Hayes, Malcolm Sawyer and Geoff Tily. The issue also contains a non-refereed Special Forum on "Global imbalances" with contributions by Sebastian Dullien, Dorothee Bohle, Hansjörg Herr and Dimitri B. Papadimitrious, and an interview with Charles A.E. Goodhart.

For all contents of the issue see:
http://www.journal-intervention.org/seiten/englisch/current_issue.shtml.

Since 2008 "Intervention" has been published by Metropolis Publisher, Marburg ( http://www.metropolis-publisher.com/Periodika/Zeitschrift-Intervention/catalog.do ). Although contributions have internationalised during the last years, the same is not yet true for subscribers. We would therefore like to ask our international, but also our German (speaking) newsletter subscribers (and/or your library) to subscribe to "Intervention. European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies", too. The annual individual subscription rate (two issues) is € 42 (students € 22), the institutional rate is € 84. Please make use of the attached form, or send an e-mail to intervention@metropolis-verlag.de , or write to: Metropolis-Verlag für Ökonomie, Gesellschaft und Politik GmbH, Bahnhofstraße 16a, 35037 Marburg, Germany.

We would also be most grateful if you would consider "Intervention. European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies" as an outlet for your academic research. Hints for submissions can be found here: http://www.journal-intervention.org/seiten/englisch/submission.shtml

The State of Macroeconomics

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14030288&CFID=72521529&CFTOKEN=97999307

Where Economics Went Wrong

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14031376&source=most_commented 

Introducing Stories Matter: Open Source Database Building Software

After nearly a year of interdisciplinary collaboration among affiliates of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University in Montreal, the first phase of Stories Matter is complete. In its current state, Stories Matter is free, open source software that is compatible with Macintosh and PC operating systems. It allows for the archiving of digital video and audio materials, enabling users to annotate, analyze, evaluate and export materials, as well as tag, index, search, and browse within interviews, sessions, and clips or across entire collections.

We have been successful in creating what we believe is an extremely convenient and intuitive software that will inspire oral historians to continue listening to their interviews long after the interviews themselves are completed. While Stories Matter may not replace transcription for many oral historians, it will undoubtedly compliment it due to its ability to allow users to create convenient video and audio clips for research purposes and integrate them into such presentation software as PowerPoint. Furthermore, we believe users will be impressed by the software's ability to preserve important forms of communication typically lost in transcription, including changes in tone, volume, rhythm, and body language, allowing for more nuanced analysis.

Thus, we invite you to visit the new Stories Matter website at http://www.stories-matter.com  where you can download the software and begin using it locally to build a database or series of databases from your personal collection of interviews. The Stories Matter Instructional Manual is embedded the software, and can be downloaded to your desktop by selecting the appropriate option from the Help Menu.

And continue following the Stories Matter blog
( http://storytelling.concordia.ca/storiesmatter/ ) for updates on the development of Phase II of Stories Matter, which will begin on July 15th.
Its purpose is to enable increased collaboration among oral historians by providing an intuitive online database tool that can assist group projects and encourage public engagement. Phase II of Stories Matter is scheduled to be completed in December of 2009, with a public launch to follow shortly thereafter.

Urbanisme commercial et grande distribution

Nous avons le plaisir de vous informer que l’éditorial d’août du Réseau de Recherche sur l’Innovation, « Urbanisme commercial et grande distribution : Les conséquences de la Loi Raffarin », est disponible ici :
http://rrifr.univ-littoral.fr/?p=165

Commercial Urbanism and Large Retail in France

We are pleased to inform you that the editorial for August from the Research Network of Innovation « Commercial Urbanism and Large Retail in France : The Consequences of Raffarin Act » is available here :
http://rrien.univ-littoral.fr/?p=117

IMPACTS OF CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICY ACROSS THE STATES

August 3, 2009 – Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts today released a new report, Cap and Dividend: A State-by-State Analysis, jointly published with the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network.
“There is great interest in Congress and among the public in how climate and energy policy will affect families in different states,” said James K. Boyce, co-author of the report and director of PERI's environment program. “We estimate the impact on family budgets of higher fuel prices that will result from a cap on carbon emissions. We then ask what happens if carbon permits are auctioned, rather than given away to corporations, and most of the money is returned to the American people as dividends. We find that in every state, at least six in ten households come out ahead in pocketbook terms, without even counting the benefits of curbing global warming.”
Putting a cap on carbon emissions will increase prices of oil, coal, natural gas, and everything produced and distributed using them. By calculating the “carbon footprint” of households in different income brackets in each state, the report shows how the resulting costs to consumers will be distributed across the population.
The money that consumers pay in higher prices will not leave the nation’s economy. In this respect, carbon permits are very different from OPEC-engineered oil price increases that send American dollars abroad. Instead this money will go to the owners of the carbon permits created under the cap. A cap-and-dividend policy would put this ownership in the hands of the American people. It would do so by auctioning 100% the carbon permits, as proposed by President Obama in his 2009 budget, and by returning most or all of the auction revenue to the public as equal dividends to each person.
With a permit price of $25 per ton of carbon dioxide, Boyce and his co-author Matthew Riddle report that the annual cost to the median family would range from $239 per person in Oregon to $349 in Indiana. Under cap-and-dividend, each person would receive dividend payments of $386 per year, so the net benefit would range from $37 per person in Indiana to $147 in Oregon.
“A cap-and-dividend policy has three big things going for it,” says Boyce. “First, it affirms the ethical principle that our natural wealth – in this case, the atmosphere’s ability to absorb and recycle our carbon emissions – belongs in common and equal measure to all. Second, it sends a clear market price signal that burning fossil fuels has a social cost, giving businesses and consumers the incentive to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy. Finally, by protecting the real incomes of American families, and doing this in a very transparent and visible way, it can win durable public support over the long haul for policies that wean our nation’s economy from dependence on fossil fuels.”

The report is available online at www.e3network.org.  For further information, contact Professor James Boyce at +1 (413) 577-0816.

Insights from an editor of American Economic Review

This paper offering insights from the author's experience as editor of a number of mainstream journals is invaluable for heterodox economists.

http://www.mcafee.cc/Papers/PDF/EditorExperiences.pdf

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