Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Liberal Egalitarianism And The Harm Principle, Michele Lombardi, Kaname Miyagishima, Roberto Veneziani

Economics Department Working Paper Series

This paper analyses the implications of classical liberal and libertarian approaches for distributive justice in the context of social welfare orderings. An axiom capturing a liberal non-interfering view of society, named the Weak Harm Principle, is studied, whose roots can be traced back to John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty. It is shown that liberal views of individual autonomy and freedom can provide consistent foundations for social welfare judgments, in both the finite and the infinite context. In particular, a liberal non-interfering approach can help to adjudicate some fundamental distributive issues relative to intergenerational justice. However, a surprisingly strong …

The Measurement Of Labour Content: A General Approach, Naoki Yoshihara, Roberto Veneziani

Economics Department Working Paper Series

This paper analyses the theoretical issues related to the measurement of labour content in the context of general technologies with heterogeneous labour. A novel axiomatic framework is used in order to formulate the key properties of the notion of labour content and analyse its theoretical foundations. Then, a simple measure of labour content is uniquely characterised, which is consistent with common practice in input-output analysis and with a number of recent approaches in value theory.

Social Democracy And Distributive Conflict In The Uk, 1950- 2010, Carlo V. Fiorio, Simon Mohun, Roberto Veneziani

Economics Department Working Paper Series

In the last three decades, two questions have been central for the Left. Is there a future for electoral socialism and social democracy? And, is it any longer possible to promote a significant redistribution of income in favour of labour? Political and economic events seem to suggest negative answers. In his influential work, Adam Przeworski suggests that this is an irreversible trend that makes it impossible in the long-run to promote genuinely socialist objectives in capitalist democracies. In particular, the structural dependence of labour on capital severely constrains feasible income distributions. In this paper, a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis …

Motherhood And The Lesbian Wage Premium, Alyssa Schneebaum

Economics Department Working Paper Series

A puzzle has emerged from studies examining the wage effects of sexual orientation for women. Although lesbian and bisexual women face discrimination in the labor market, most studies of the wages of female full-time workers in same-sex couples versus those in different-sex couples find that the lesbians earn more, even controlling for differences in present labor market supply, education, years of experience, area of residence, and occupation. However, previous studies of the sexual orientation wage gap consistently suffer from two important omissions: first, the role of motherhood in the straight-lesbian wage gap has not been adequately addressed, and second, researchers …

Power, Luck And Ideology In A Model Of Executive Pay, Peter Skott, Frederick Guy

Economics Department Working Paper Series

The microprocessor and related technologies have transformed corporate and industry structure; applied in a neo‐liberal environment, the technologies have had profound effects on the relative power of different groups. Skott and Guy (2007) and Guy and Skott (2008) formalized one aspect of this process of power‐biased technical change: firms' increased ability to monitor low‐paid employees and the resulting changes in inequality and employment at the low end of the income distribution. This paper addresses power biases and income inequality at the high end. Increasing firm‐level financial volatility has intensified the agency problem and increased the power of corporate executives. These …

Investigating The Ability Of Pro-Social Emotions To Enhance Cooperative Behavior, Lucía A. Vergara Sobarzo

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This research investigates the use of pro-social emotions to improve cooperation. In particular, it tries to reconcile the results from Noussair and Tucker (2007) and Lopez et al. (2010). To reach this goal the experiment considers different degrees of revelation: no revelation, partial and full disclosure of information. Additionally, I use different microeconometric specifications to accommodate different hypothesis about the motivation of the subjects.

My results diverge from those of Lopez et al. because I find that revealing the decision of a single subject at random does not significantly increase cooperation, which is the main result of these authors. Also, …

Zonal And Regional Load Forecasting In The New England Wholesale Electricity Market: A Semiparametric Regression Approach, Jonathan Farland

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Power system planning, reliability analysis and economically efficient capacity scheduling all rely heavily on electricity demand forecasting models. In the context of a deregulated wholesale electricity market, using scheduling a region’s bulk electricity generation is inherently linked to future values of demand. Predictive models are used by municipalities and suppliers to bid into the day-ahead market and by utilities in order to arrange contractual interchanges among neighboring utilities. These numerical predictions are therefore pervasive in the energy industry.

This research seeks to develop a regression-based forecasting model. Specifically, electricity demand is modeled as a function of calendar effects, lagged demand …

Gleasondale Village Revitalization Plan, Kirsten Bryan, Ivette Banoub, Anita Lockesmith, Tara Gehring, Jonathan Cooper, Jennifer Stromsten

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

In 2005, the Town of Stow received a Priority Development Fund Grant made available by MassHousing. The funds were used to develop zoning bylaws with the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission for a draft Mixed-Use Overlay District in town (Stow Lower Village 2011, 4). At that time, two of Stow’s villages, Gleasondale and the Lower Village, seemed like ideal candidates for the project. After focusing its initial efforts on the Lower Village, the Town is preparing to turn next to Gleasondale, in the southern edge of town. A classic mill village on the Assabet River, Gleasontdale is home to Stow’s contribution …

Accumulation, Structural Change, And External Balances In A World With Internationally Traded Environmental Assets, Arslan Razmi

Economics Department Working Paper Series

Environmental literature has largely neglected macroeconomic considerations, especially open economy ones. This paper develops a small country framework that seeks to address these issues. Medium- and long-run aspects are explored using standard trade and portfolio balance models, modified to incorporate trade in claims on non-renewable resources (environmental assets). In the medium-run, changes in environmental regulations, saving behavior, and other variables affect the current account, investment, and composition of output. In the long-run, both the sectoral intensity of environment use and the structure of the economy are affected, as are the capital stock and the global distribution of claims on resources.

Financialization And The Nonfinancial Corporation: An Investigation Of Firm-Level Investment Behavior In The U.S., 1971-2011, Leila E. Davis

Economics Department Working Paper Series

Changes in the portfolio and financing behavior of nonfinancial corporations (NFCs) over the post-1970 period point to the financialization of the nonfinancial corporation and raise the question of accompanying changes in fixed investment behavior. Using a firm-level panel, this paper econometrically investigates the relationship between financialization and investment, exploring the implications of changes in financing behavior, increasingly entrenched shareholder value norms, and rising firm-level demand volatility for investment by NFCs in the U.S. between 1971 and 2011. Shareholder value norms and firm-level volatility are, in particular, identified as characteristics of the post-1970 U.S. economy that are associated with a significant …

On The Ricardian Invariable Measure Of Value In General Convex Economies: Applicability Of The Standard Commodity, Kazuhiro Kurose, Naoki Yoshihara

Economics Department Working Paper Series

The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical arguments made by Burmeis ter, Samuelson, and others, with respect to Sraffa (1960). Sraffa did not address these arguments, but they are relevant from the viewpoint of modern economic theories. In his arguments about the standard commodity, Sraffa assumed that a change in in- come distribution has no effect on the output level and choice of techniques. However, modern economic theories allow interdependence among changes in income distribution, output level, and choice of techniques. Therefore, it is interesting to consider the existence of an invariable measure of value and linearity …

Public Debt In An Olg Model With Imperfect Competition: Long-Run Effects Of Austerity Programs And Changes In The Growth Rate, Peter Skott, Soon Ryoo

Economics Department Working Paper Series

We show that (i) dynamic inefficiency may be empirically relevant in a modified Diamond model with imperfect competition, (ii) if fiscal policy is used to avoid inefficiency and maintain an optimal capital intensity, the required debt ratio will be inversely related to the growth rate, and (iii) austerity policies reductions in government consumption and entitlement programs for the old generation raise the required debt ratio.

Environmental Macroeconomics: Simple Stylized Frameworks For Short-Run Analysis, Arslan Razmi

Economics Department Working Paper Series

Environmental economics has mostly focused on micro issues pertaining to welfare and efficiency analysis. I develop a general framework to address short-run issues both for a closed economy and for an open one where emission permits are globally traded. Fiscal policy and emission permit issuance can both be used as short-run stabilization tools in a closed economy although the former is ineffective in a small open economy. In a large open economy, issuing emission permits in excess of international agreements remains an effective instrument, although it acts as a beggar-thy-neighbor policy, highlighting the crucial role of global monitoring on macroeconomic …

Technology, Power And The Political Economy Of Inequality, Frederick Guy, Peter Skott

Economics Department Working Paper Series

Technology can affect the distribution of income directly via its influence on both the bargaining power of different parties and the marginal product of different factors of production. This paper focuses mainly on the first route. The role of power is transparent in the case of medieval choke points but modern network technologies have similar features. There is also substantial evidence ‐‐ from truckers and retail clerks to CEOs ‐‐ that power affects the determination of wages. But power relations inevitably have institutional dimensions; regulatory frameworks influence industry structures and the market power of large companies as well as the …

Correctly Analyzing The Balance Of Payments Constraint On Growth, Arslan Razmi

Economics Department Working Paper Series

The BPCG model provides an interesting hypothesis regarding economic growth. The main implication is that world demand places a constraint on individual country performance. I discuss this implication and argue that tests of the BPCG model have essentially been tests of the hypothesis that trade is balanced over the long run; a plausible hypothesis but one that need not hold mainly due to demand-side constraints. I then discuss the role of relative prices and investment, point out logical inadequacies in the traditional BPCG framework, and suggest an alternative theoretical framework to investigate its robustness. Our theoretical and empirical explorations contribute …

The Real Exchange Rate And Economic Growth: Some Observations On The Possible Channels, Martin G. Rapetti

Economics Department Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.