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"Labor theory of value History."
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Adapting to Climate Change
This paper examines the temperature-mortality relationship over the course of the twentieth-century United States both for its own interest and to identify potentially useful adaptations for coming decades. There are three primary findings. First, the mortality impact of days with mean temperature exceeding 80°F declined by 75 percent. Almost the entire decline occurred after 1960. Second, the diffusion of residential air conditioning explains essentially the entire decline in hot day–related fatalities. Third, using Dubin and McFadden’s discrete-continuous model, the present value of US consumer surplus from the introduction of residential air conditioning is estimated to be $85–$185 billion (2012 dollars).
Journal Article
FAMILY VALUES AND THE REGULATION OF LABOR
To be efficient, flexible labor markets require geographically mobile workers. Otherwise firms can take advantage of workers' immobility and extract rents at their expense. In cultures with strong family ties, moving away from home is costly. Thus, to limit the rents of firms and to avoid moving, individuals with strong family ties rationally choose regulated labor markets, even though regulation generates higher unemployment and lower incomes. Empirically, we find that individuals who inherit stronger family ties are less mobile, have lower wages and higher unemployment, and support more stringent labor market regulations. We find a positive association between labor market rigidities at the beginning of the 21st century and family values prevailing before World War II, and between family structures in the Middle Ages and current desire for labor market regulation. Both results suggest that labor market regulations have deep cultural roots.
Journal Article
Karl Marx’s reading of Adam Smith
Adam Smith and Karl Marx are commonly viewed as opposites, both in terms of their approaches to political economy and their ideological outlooks: Smith as a champion of individual self-interest and unfettered capitalist development; Marx as the harsh critic of the injustice and irrationality of capitalist commodity production. Marx was, however, in many important methodological and theoretical dimensions, in fact, a “Smithian”. In this paper we explore Smith’s influence on Marx in several dimensions. The most important in our view is Marx’s adoption of Smith’s “long-period reasoning” as the framework for his theories of value, surplus value, allocation of labor and exploitation. Marx instinctively shared many other Smithian views, including Smith’s rejection of diminishing returns to specialization as a limiting factor in capital accumulation, the factors underlying demographics, the role and potential of technical change, and the theory of money. Marx’s “vision” diverged sharply from Smith on the question of the universality of capitalist social relations of commodity production, and the possibility of socialist alternatives to capitalist commodity production as a framework for organizing the division of labor. This paper surveys the areas where Marx found substantial common ground with Smith, as well as the questions on which Marx parted company with Smith through a careful exegesis of Marx’s own discussion and evaluation of Smith’s ideas. This clarifies the ways in which Marx worked from his understanding of Smith as a base to develop his critique of political economy.
Journal Article
Striding With Economic Giants
Striding explores the modernization process by outlining the economics of agriculture, growth theories of economic development, and problems with growth.
During the last century, policy makers and the public acquired a considerable interest in economics. As a result, this heightened awareness enhanced the well-being of society.
In 1969, the Nobel Foundation initiated the new prize category of economic sciences and started awarding the prize annually. At the forefront of their field, prize winners have introduced many innovative ideas. Moreover, an evaluation of their ideas reveals valuable nuggets to enrich the professional lives of non-economists.
Drawing on publications written by the Laureates, Striding with Economic Giants presents the essence of their thoughts in easy-to-understand concepts for the business and academic communities. This book is perfect for business executives, public policy makers, and economics students.
It describes logic and experimental frameworks in mathematics, econometrics, behavior modeling, and game theory. Next, Striding presents microeconomic contributions, including production theory, theory of institutions, fundamental ideas of markets, and consumerism. Then, it reviews financial theory in capital markets, portfolio choice, and asset pricing.
The book spotlights contributions to the rule of law, public administration, and political science. It also highlights a growing understanding of human capital by tracing demographic trends and describing health, education, minority, and labor economics. Enhancements to macroeconomic theory are featured in economic mechanisms and cycles, managing the economy, and policy making.
Striding explores the modernization process by outlining the economics of agriculture, growth theories of economic development, and problems with growth. It illustrates contributions to international economics in trade, finance, and global public policy. Finally, the book showcases contributions to social justice in social equality, income redistribution, and climate change.
eBook
FROM “TIRED MUSCLES” TO “MIGHT-HAVE-BEENS”: A DEBATE ON THE NATURE OF COSTS IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY
This article explores a debate on the theory of cost that occurred in the 1890s between economist Silas MacVane and Austrian economists. MacVane defended the idea of objective “real cost” and the Austrians argued for subjective opportunity cost. Although this debate is rarely mentioned, it represents a noteworthy episode of active contrast between ideas on value and on cost, with implications that are relevant for contemporary economists. By highlighting the incompatibility of the objective and subjective conceptions of cost, this debate sheds light on the evolution of economic theory. The contributions of relatively unknown authors, such as MacVane and David Green, are also discussed. We interpret the debate in terms of the contrast between research programs based on wealth and on exchange, and note that the gradual shift in the period regarding the fundamental problem that informs economic theory is key to understanding the modern concept of cost.
Journal Article
Tilly Reversed? Another Cycle of Labor and Socialism Is Possible
As labor in the capitalist system practically tripled to some three billion workers, solidary organizations of labor simultaneously dwindled in relative size and power. This is true globally but also for the historical core countries. While this is a paradox, it is not a contradiction. Capital is a (spatialized) social relationship. The globalization of capital since the 1970s has shifted the power relations with localized labor fundamentally in favor of capital, as Charles Tilly noted in this journal almost thirty years ago. Over time, power balances within capitalist states, and between capitalist states and transnationalizing capital, have reflected that basic class-relational shift. This article explains why the globalizing cycle of weakened labor may now be reversing.
Journal Article
The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short- and Long-Run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe
The 1930s American Dust Bowl was an environmental catastrophe that greatly eroded sections of the Plains. The Dust Bowl is estimated to have immediately, substantially, and persistently reduced agricultural land values and revenues in more-eroded counties relative to less-eroded counties. During the Depression and through at least the 1950s, there was limited relative adjustment of farmland away from activities that became relatively less productive in more-eroded areas. Agricultural adjustments recovered less than 25 percent of the initial difference in agricultural costs for more-eroded counties. The economy adjusted predominantly through large relative population declines in more-eroded counties, both during the 1930s and through the 1950s.
Journal Article
Corn, Cattle, Land and Labour: Physiocratic Ideas in the Wealth of Nations
This paper discusses the use Adam Smith made in the
Wealth of Nations
(
WN
) of physiocratic concepts and ideas. Notwithstanding his critique of the ‘Agricultural system’, Smith endorsed many distinctively physiocratic ideas and in his analyses of value and distribution, of the reproduction and accumulation of capital, and of development and growth adopted (and adapted) several physiocratic concepts. In particular, the paper argues that Smith adopted the ‘material expenses’ approach of the Physiocrats and sought to use it side by side with his tentative proposal of a labour-based approach to the theory of value, and draws attention to inconsistencies and tensions which arise from the simultaneous presence of the two different approaches to the theory of value in the
WN
. By adopting physiocratic ideas on the relationship between corn prices and money wages, Smith is also seen to have provided the key elements for David Ricardo’s ‘corn ratio reasoning’ in his early theory of profits.
Journal Article
Was there an 'industrious revolution' before the industrial revolution? An empirical exercise for England, c. 1300-1830
It is conventionally assumed that the pre-modern working year was fixed and that consumption varied with changes in wages and prices. This is challenged by the twin theories of the 'industrious' revolution and the consumer revolution, positing a longer working year as people earned surplus money to buy novel goods. In this study, we turn the conventional view on its head, fixing consumption rather than labour input. Specifically, we use a basket of basic consumption goods and compute the working year of rural and urban day labourers required to achieve that. By comparing with independent estimates of the actual working year, we find two 'industrious' revolutions among rural workers; both, however, are attributable to economic hardship, and we detect no signs of a consumer revolution. For urban labourers, by contrast, a growing gap between their actual working year and the work required to buy the basket provides great scope for a consumer revolution.
Journal Article