Political Economy Commons^™

Comparative Case Studies Of Rent-Seeking In China’S State-Owned Enterprises: The Ministry Of Railway And China Mobile, Wendy Qian

CMC Senior Theses

The problem of rent-seeking in China’s state-owned enterprises has worsened since the rapid increase in infrastructure investment, such as telecom and railway. State-owned enterprise reform in China has given licensing power to officials and executives without sufficient checks and balances. The Chinese government plans to introduce corporate governance structures and encourage private investment for the previously state-dominated industries, such as the railway industry, in the next decade. Yet these formalities cannot eradicate the political problem of corruption. This thesis will examine rent-seeking through the case studies of China Mobile’s former deputy general manager and Communist Party secretary Zhang Chunjiang’s patronage …

Do Political Contributions Purchase Regulatory Discretion In Mining Inspections?, Neil K. Malani

CMC Senior Theses

A vast literature acknowledges the corruptibility of regulators; however, empirical tests on the matter have been limited to two-agent models examining the rulemaking process and price regulation of natural monopolies. It remains an open question whether political contributions, by driving legislative pressure, can entice laxity from regulators in their application of the rules. To remedy this issue, I observe the highly-regulated coal mining industry for which there exists several points for inspector discretion. By comparing the outcomes with Congressional coal mining contribution levels, I am able to ascertain capture across several dimensions. Specifically, I find that contributions are associated with …

Occupy This: The Effect Of Income Inequality On Gdp Per Capita Growth Using Panel Data In The United States From 1963 To 2009, Dylan B. Lee

CMC Senior Theses

Income inequality and its relationship to long-term GDP per capita growth has been researched for decades since the development of the Kuznet’s Curve. Theoretical and empirical research has shown mixed results including positive, negative, non-existent, or statistically insignificant relationships. Empirical research on income inequality and economic growth in the United States has also shown mixed results. In addition to using existing data, this paper uses originally-constructed Gini Coefficients from 2005 to 2009. A statistically significant negative correlation between income inequality, and both short-term growth and long-term growth is found in the analysis of this data. Finally, this paper attempts to …

Water Policy: The World's Most Important Resource Politicized, Ethan Gilbert

CMC Senior Theses

Water is the most important resource on the planet for sustaining life, and many consider access to water as a fundamental human right. However, in light of its necessity, the distribution and allocation of water has become a highly politicized issue. Economic and political conditions have been shown to be influential in shaping a country’s water policy, more so then recognition of water as a basic human right. The reason for this is that many agree that there needs to be a value assigned to water to encourage its conservation and efficient use, and different methods of addressing that issue …

Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun

Russian Culture

Soviet leaders had always taken a keen interest in workers' behavior and labor motives and sought to keep labor morality under strict state control. A complex network of values and regulations was developed for this purpose after the October Revolution of 1917. They were best articulated in the "political economy of socialism" which purported to present a scientific picture of the country's economic life. Textbooks on socialist economy were widely circulated in the Soviet Union and appropriate courses included into a core curriculum for all higher education institutions in the country. Basic tenets of socialist political economy were taught in …

Finance Capital And Profits, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Theories of profit and capital by Anwar Shaikh (Unpublished manuscript, March 5, 2012)
• Finance capital and profits by Anwar Shaikh (Unpublished manuscript, January 31, 2012)
• Shaikh, A. (2012). Ape II (Unpublished handwritten notes). Anwar Shaikh, PhD
• Age-related pension incentives and retirement behavior (Unpublished manuscript fragment, unknown year)
• Lapavitsas, C., & Levina, I. (2011). Financial profit: Profit from production and profit upon alienation. Research on Money and Finance Discussion Paper Series (No. 24). Department of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
• Skarstein, R. (2011). Overaccumulation of productive capital or of finance capital? A view …

A Spatial Analysis Of The Italian Second Republic, Second Version, Massimiliano Landi, Ricardo Pelizzo

Research Collection School Of Economics

We apply the Optimal Classification method to a newly created dataset to provide a spatial map of the Italian Second Republic (1996-2008). We find a bi-dimensional political space in the XIII Legislature and virtually a one dimensional political space in the XIV and XV Legislatures. In addition, the main dimension is explained along the dimension government opposition rather than on the traditional left and right dimension. During the Second Republic, Italy experienced changes in electoral system and in the format of the parties. We use our data to discuss the implications of either change on the dimensionality space. We find …

One Mandarin Benefits The Whole Clan: Hometown Infrastructure And Nepotism In An Autocracy, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, Quoc-Anh Do, Anh Tran

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies nepotism by government officials in an authoritarian regime. We collect a unique dataset of political promotions of officials in Vietnam and estimate their impact on public infrastructure in their hometowns. We find strong positive effects on several outcomes, some with lags, including roads to villages, marketplaces, clean water access, preschools, irrigation, and local radio broadcasters, as well as the hometown’s propensity to benefit from the State’s “poor commune support program”. Nepotism is not limited to only top-level officials, pervasive even among those without direct authority over hometown budgets, stronger when the hometown chairperson’s and promoted official’s ages …

A Memo On Social Security, Michele Ogawa

Pepperdine Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Text Ch 6 Profit Capital, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Shaikh, A. (2012, February 6). Theories of profit and capital (Unpublished manuscript).
• Keynes, J. M. (1976). A treatise on money. Macmillan.
• Braham, J. (2001). Sales without profits are meaningless. Business Week.
• Marx, K. (1977). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 1). Vintage Books.
• Ishikura, H. (2004). Marx's circuit of capital and Keynes's monetary theory of production. Journal of Economic Studies.
• Varian, H. L. (1993). Intermediate microeconomics: A modern approach. W. W. Norton & Company.
• Shane, S. (2008). The illusions of entrepreneurship: The costly myths that entrepreneurs, investors, and policy makers live by …

Chapter 10 Price Value Revisions, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Ch. 10: Price/value revisions. NA-24-13.

• Add survey from Jefferis (attached).

• Add survey from Jeffries (attached).

• Email from Lefteris to Anwar Shaikh regarding chapter revisions and additional empirical studies. In this message, Lefteris notes that the attachment contains a summary of empirical studies from a 2010 paper with Paitaridis and that more recent papers with Theodore are already included in the references.

• Extract from Tsoulfidis and Paitaridis, “On the labor theory of value: Statistical artefacts or regularities?” This excerpt reviews empirical studies of price-value deviations and related debates.

• References for the chapter excerpt. …

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Competition (Misc.), Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Duménil, G., Glick, M., & Lévy, D. (1997). The history of competition policy as economic history. The Antitrust Bulletin, 42(2), 373–416. Federal Legal Publications, Inc.
• Shaikh, A. (2011, November 22). ECO 104: Competition [Handwritten lecture notes, 2 pages, on lined notepaper, dated November 22, 2011; covering competition between industries, summary of phenomena, and empirical findings on profit rates]. Anwar Shaikh, Ph.D., Department of Economics, New School for Social Research. [Unpublished teaching notes.]
• Treen, M. (2010, August 16). FW: [New post] Andrew Kliman and the "Neo-Ricardian" attack on Marxism, Pt 1 [Email forwarded to Anwar Shaikh from …

The Structural Injustice Of Forced Migration And The Failings Of Normative Theory, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

I propose to criticize two strands of argument - contractarian and utilitarian – that liberals have put forth in defense of economic coercion, based on the notion of justifiable paternalism. To illustrate my argument, I appeal to the example of forced labor migration, driven by the exigencies of market forces. In particular, I argue that the forced migration of a special subset of unemployed workers lacking other means of subsistence (economic refugees) cannot be redeemed paternalistically as freedom or welfare enhancing in the long run. I further argue that contractarian and utilitarian approaches are normatively incapable of appreciating this fact …

Sovereign Wealth Funds And Global Finance, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter focuses on a number of specific sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) whose portfolios indicate strong interests in finance both in their home countries and abroad. It first reviews empirical evidence that shows SWFs having been major investors in Western financial intermediaries for decades. It then considers the organization and governance of SWFs, with particular emphasis on the three main schools of thought as well as the predictions one can derive from them vis-à-vis the behavior of individual actors in the global financial network: economic theories, economic sociology, and political economy. It also presents case studies that “test” these theories …