Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Discussion Of Social Protection And Private Insurance, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking paper, informative and interesting. I learned a lot from reading this and have already passed it on to others. In my comments, I would like to do four things: highlight the major points and the rationale for them, raise a few quibbles, put forth some additional issues, and propose a possible resolution of a dilemma raised in the paper. But let us first try to be clear about what we are talking about. Professor Pestieau characterizes social insurance as being mandatory, universal, and redistributive. I would define it slightly differently: “Social insurance is …

Schools Of Thought And Economists' Opinions On Economic Policy, Luca De Benedictis, Michele Di Maio

Luca De Benedictis

In this paper we bring to data the hypothesis that economists’ opinions are related to the schools of thought they declare to belong to. Two are the main results of our analysis, based on a novel dataset on Italian economists’ opinions. The first one is that, on average, differences in the School of Thought predict differences in economists’ opinions on a large set of normative questions on economic policy, even controlling for individual and other group or community characteristics, spatial and knowledge heterogeneity, and political orientation. Second, the way of grouping together different schools of thought is crucial as far …

(Wp 2010-06) How Do Structural And Policy Factors Affect A Country’S Probability To Achieve The Most (Or The Least) Favorable Growth Path?, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury

Abdur R. Chowdhury

We ask which economic policies can help a country create the most favourable conditions for development. We observe that the dynamics of several development indicators can be grouped into four clusters, each cluster corresponding to a different combination of growth and changes in inequality. Based on this observation, we define four different development scenarios and use limited dependent variable regressions to study how structural and policy factors affect a country’s probability to achieve the most (or the least) favourable of these scenarios. Our results point to a comforting picture: through the choice of appropriate policies countries can effectively increase their …

The Bedridden Queen Money!, John Samuel Cyrus Mr

John Samuel Cyrus Mr

During the past few decades, macro-economic activities had been rallied around glamorous industrial and technology oriented service sectors. Recent recession that began in 2008 is still continuing and the little improvement in 2009 was nothing but the fluctuation in the ICU monitor, which was connected to the bedridden queen Money. Many nations GDP growth rate has been continually falling and unemployment rates are continually rising. The American economy is in a complete mess, no remedies are found yet for European economic sovereign debt crisis, and the Asian economy fast fading due to India’s low GDP and the slide in Rupee; …

Recapturing The American Dream: Meeting The Challenges Of The Bay State's Lost Decade, Andrew M. Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada, Joseph Mclaughlin, Mykhaylo Trubskyy, Sheila Palma

Andrew Sum

No abstract provided.

Recapturing The American Dream: Meeting The Challenges Of The Bay State's Lost Decade, Andrew M. Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada, Joseph Mclaughlin, Mykhaylo Trubskyy, Sheila Palma

Ishwar Khatiwada

No abstract provided.

Recapturing The American Dream: Meeting The Challenges Of The Bay State's Lost Decade, Andrew M. Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada, Joseph Mclaughlin, Mykhaylo Trubskyy, Sheila Palma

Sheila Palma

No abstract provided.

Schools Of Thought And Economists' Opinions On Economic Policy, Luca De Benedictis, Michele Di Maio

Luca De Benedictis

In this paper we bring to data the hypothesis that economists' opinions are related to the schools of thought they declare to belong to. Two are the main results of our analysis, based on a novel dataset on Italian economists' opinions. The first one is that, on average, differences in the School of Thought predict differences in economists' opinions on a large set of normative questions on economic policy, even controlling for individual and other group or community characteristics, spatial and knowledge heterogeneity, and political orientation. Second, the way of grouping together different schools of thought is crucial as far …

Are Mainstream And Heterodox Economists Different? An Empirical Analysis, Michele Di Maio

Michele Di Maio

We explore the differences between Mainstream and Heterodox economists based on the responses to a questionnaire from a representative sample of Italian economists. Using different definitions for Mainstream and Heterodox economics, we compare the individual and academic characteristics of the economists belonging to these groups. We measure the within and between disagreement for each group and we test whether belonging to one or the other group predicts differences in economists’ opinions on economic policy. Results show that: 1) Mainstream and Heterodox economists differ as for individual and academic characteristics and political views; 2) the disagreement within Heterodox economics is lower …

Nine Out Of Ten. The "Losers" In Italy's Long Crisis. Changes In Income Distribution, Effects Of Policies, Rise In Inequality, Mario Pianta

Mario Pianta