Political Economy Commons^™

Reinventing Opportunities For Argentina: Vista Oil And Gas, Emiliano Cabrera

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

In the last century, Argentina faced an astonishing economic downturn that remains until today, frustrating all who learn its economic history, explore the country's potential, and stay in tune with its political-economic present. This research examines Argentina's economic history, revises the main drivers that signed its economic drama, and proposes guidelines to address new opportunities by encouraging its private sector. By using Vista Oil and Gas as an exemplary case, this work proposes Vista's business model as an initiative perfectly compatible with the primary macroeconomic needs that Argentina currently has that should be highly considered for developing its private sector. …

Inflation In Times Of Overlapping Emergencies: Systemically Significant Prices From An Input-Output Perspective, Isabella M. Weber, Jesus Lara Jauregui, Lucas Teixeira, Luiza Nassif Pires

Economics Department Working Paper Series

In the overlapping global emergencies of the pandemic, climate change and geopolitical confronta- tions, supply shocks have become frequent and inflation has returned. This raises the question how sector-specific shocks are related to overall price stability. This paper simulates price shocks in an input-output model to identify sectors which present systemic vulnerabilities for monetary stability in the US. We call these prices systemically significant. We find that in our simulations the pre-pandemic average price volatilities and the price shocks in the COVID-19 and Ukraine war inflation yield an almost identical set of systemically significant prices. The sectors with system- ically …

Marx, Critical Theory, And The Treadmill Of Production Of Value: Why Environmental Sociology Needs A Critique Of Capital, Alex Stoner

Journal Articles

This chapter explores the domestication of Marx’s critique of political economy within Marxist-oriented environmental sociology, and treadmill of production (ToP) theory, in particular. The aim is to explicate the theoretical resources for a rigorous critique of capital-induced planetary degradation. Shortcomings of ToP theory pertaining to the conceptualization of capital and value are identified. The reasons for these shortcomings, including how they might be addressed, are elaborated by reconsidering key aspects of Marx’s critical theory of modern capitalist society. The chapter contributes to current discussions in both critical theory and environmental sociology by demonstrating the continued relevance of Marx’s critical theory …

Economic Propaganda In The United States, Brooklyn Montgomery

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis aims to identify and analyze three different forms of economic propaganda: cultural, structural, and political. I first examine ‘Do What You Love’ culture and its impact on the labor force. Chapter Two explores the propagation of neoliberal economics as an objective study, and the final chapter analyzes the use of Black capitalism as a political mechanism to quell Black radical sentiment. In detailing these phenomenons, I investigate the implementation, normalization, and effects, as well as the material repercussions of these ideas and structures.

French Bilateral Aid To Mali: Examining The Donor-Recipient Relationship’S Effect On Development, Hazel R. Carson

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Blockchain Networks As Knowledge Commons, Ilia Murtazashvili, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, Martin B. H. Weiss, Michael J. Madison

Articles

Researchers interested in blockchains are increasingly attuned to questions of governance, including how blockchains relate to government, the ways blockchains are governed, and ways blockchains can improve prospects for successful self-governance. Our paper joins this research by exploring the implications of the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to analyze governance of blockchains. Our novel contributions are making the case that blockchain networks represent knowledge commons governance, in the sense that they rely on collectively-managed technologies to pool and manage distributed information, illustrating the usefulness and novelty of the GCK methodology with an empirical case study of the evolution of Bitcoin, …

White Vigilantism And The Racism Of Race-Neutrality, Christian Sundquist

Articles

Race-neutrality has long been touted in American law as central to promoting racial equality while guarding against race-based discrimination. And yet the legal doctrine of race-neutrality has perversely operated to shield claims of racial discrimination from judicial review while protecting discriminators from liability and punishment. This Article critiques the doctrine of race-neutrality by examining the law’s response to white vigilantism in the much-publicized criminal trials of Kyle Rittenhouse and that of Ahmaud Arbery’s assailants.

World Profit Rates, 1960-2019, Deepankar Basu, Julio Huato, Jesus Lara Jauregui, Evan Wasner

Economics Department Working Paper Series

In this paper we present estimates of the world profit rate using country-level data from the Extended Penn World Table 7.0 and industry-level data from the World Input Output Database. The country-aggregated world profit rate series spans the period from 1960 to 2019, and the industry-aggregated world profit rate series runs from 2000 to 2014. The country-aggregated world profit rate series displays a strong negative linear trend for the period 1960-1980 and a weaker negative linear trend from 1980 to 2019. A medium run decomposition analysis reveals that the decline in the world profit rate is driven by a decline …

Dead Money: Measuring The Influence Of Representatives On Government Spending, Adhitya Venkatraman

CMC Senior Theses

In line with popular criticisms of Congressional pork barrel spending, I find that that individual representatives do wield significant influence in securing government contracts for their districts. Using federal contract data organized at the congressional district level from FY 2001 – FY 2021, I estimate how individual members of the House of Representatives affect funding outcomes. My identification strategy leverages changes in contract funding that occur during exogenous vacancies occurring in the middle of a term. By comparing contract funding outcomes during vacant quarters to non-vacant quarters, I estimate the amount of individual influence exercised by representatives.

During vacant quarters, …

How A Supply Chain Stumble Changes A Company’S Policies And Progress 20 Years Later: A Case Study Of Gap Inc., Alexandra Futterman

CMC Senior Theses

Gap Inc. is the third-largest American retailer. Founded in 1969, Gap Inc. holds four brands, Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta. In the late 1990s and early 2000s Gap Inc. made headlines for child labor abuses along with many other large brands. After this negative attention, Gap Inc. began developing policies and practices to combat ethical supply chain issues. These policies included a Human Rights Policy, a Code of Vendor Conduct, working conditions standards, and even capacity building programs that boarded company reaches into communities they touch. In conjunction with the policies Gap Inc. has published several social responsibility …

Covid-19 Vaccine Disparities And Attitudes, Deonne Cartwright, Meryem Saygili

Pursue: Undergraduate Research Journal

The past couple of years have caused so much uncertainty and grief amidst the global pandemic. The goal of this study is to explore the attitudes behind COVID-19 vaccination to address the cause for vaccine disparities and help minimize health disparities in the United States. The study considers two multivariable regressions in SPSS of the social factors on vaccination status and vaccine confidence. This model studies the relationship between one’s ethnicity, race, education level, education specialization, household income, political ideology, and media source on vaccine confidence and vaccination status on an East Texas college campus. A campus-wide survey was conducted …

Do Elections Encourage Public Actors To Be More Responsive?, Bryan Mccannon, Corey Williams

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In the U.S. many public services are provided by individuals who are selected in local elections. We ask whether elections encourage public actors to be responsive to citizens. We design a novel field experiment where we send an information request to a random sample of prosecutor offices. Whether someone replies to the request is our measurement of responsiveness. We show that offices whose head is up for re-election are more likely to respond. We also show that offices in states that appoint their local prosecutors are substantially less likely to respond than a matched set of offices with elected leadership.

Stakeholderism, Corporate Purpose, And Credible Commitment, Lisa Fairfax

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

One of the most significant recent phenomena in corporate governance is the embrace, by some of the most influential actors in the corporate community, of the view that corporations should be focused on furthering the interests of all corporate stakeholders as well as the broader society. This stakeholder vision of corporate purpose is not new. Instead, it has emerged in cycles throughout corporate law history. However, for much of that history—including recent history—the consensus has been that stakeholderism has not achieved dominance or otherwise significantly influenced corporate behavior. That honor is reserved for the corporate purpose theory that focuses on …

Secured Transactions Law Reform In Japan: Japan Business Credit Project Assessment Of Interviews And Tentative Policy Proposals, Megumi Hara, Kumiko Koens, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

This article summarizes key findings from the Japan Business Credit Project (JBCP), which involved more than 30 semi-structured interviews conducted in Japan from 2016 through 2018. It was inspired by important and previously unexplored questions concerning secured financing of movables (business equipment and inventory) and claims (receivables)—“asset-based lending” or “ABL.” Why is the use of ABL in Japan so limited? What are the principal obstacles and disincentives to the use of ABL in Japan? The interviews were primarily with staff of banks, but also included those of government officials and regulators, academics, and law practitioners. The article proposes reforms of …

The Job Guarantee As It Relates To People With Disabilities, Tyler Christopher Emerson

Senior Projects Spring 2022

We accept unemployment as an inevitability in our capitalist economy even when it is purportedly functioning at full capacity. Some economists propose that the government could directly intervene in the labor market to meet the peoples’ demand for jobs. Work in modern America is a central aspect of participation in society that directly impacts individuals’ identities. Unemployment is, therefore, a key mechanism of social exclusion. The Federal Job Guarantee seeks to provide work directly for the unemployed with work that serves the public good.

People with disabilities disproportionately suffer from unemployment, underemployment, and often leave the workforce entirely. The majority …

The Elusive Rainbow Nation: Assessing Post-Apartheid Reconstruction Strategies In Johannesburg, South Africa, Ashley May Eugley

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This paper examines how South Africa’s political and economic orientation following the nation’s democratization in 1994 enabled a continuation of Apartheid-era patterns in the City of Johannesburg. In particular, it contends that governmental decentralization, neoliberalism, and global city aspirations—enshrined in both local and national policy documents—turned attention away from addressing internal deprivations. Rather than redistributing social and economic power, uplifting the Black-majority, and allowing urban stakeholders to play a central role in policy formation and decision-making, Johannesburg’s City Government catered to elite outside interests, effectively introducing new forms of segmentation and disenfranchisement. Although the African National Congress committed to transform …

The Macroeconomic Impacts Of Government Debt In Pakistan, Ateeb Akhter Shah Syed, Kaneez Fatima, Junaid Kamal

Business Review

This paper examines the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis for Pakistan using a vector error-correction model. The sample period extends from June 2002 to January 2020. The results are reported using variance decompositions and impulse response functions. The base model contains six variables and is estimated with 4 lags. We find support for the idea that wealth does not increase as government debt increases; Hence, it proves the fact that economic agents are rational actors and foresee current expansionary actions of the government that result in accumulation of debt as the present value of future taxation that they have to pay and …

Annual Report 2021 – 22: China Study Centre Iba Karachi, China Study Centre, Institute Of Business Administration

China Study Centre - Research and Reports

Pakistan has a longstanding relationship with the People’s Republic of China, as Pakistan was the first country to recognize it. Over time, the strategic and economic relationship between both the countries have been strengthening through various joint projects, with China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being an exemplary project. CPEC is China’s 15-years old, $62 billion investment in Pakistan. Moreover, the flagship project of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) took a five-decade-long strategic alliance between the two countries to the economic sphere in 2015. CPEC is best seen as an economic peg in terms of broader strategic relationships between both countries. …

Climate Trailblazer Or Corporate Giveaway: An Economic And Political Evaluation Of Cap-And-Trade In California, Benjamin Reicher

Pomona Senior Theses

In this thesis, I conduct an economic and political analysis of California’s cap-and-trade program, the leading national (and international) example of a market-based strategy to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. I evaluate the program on several economic and political measures of success, especially as contrasted with the performance of various regulatory policies that California also relies on to meet its emissions reduction targets. These regulations exemplify a command and control approach to emissions mitigation as opposed to a market-based approach, and indeed tend to be favored by grassroots activists who may be skeptical about market-friendly policies; my thesis seeks to …

Does A District Mandate Matter For The Behavior Of Politicians? An Analysis Of Roll-Call Votes And Parliamentary Speeches, Andreas Born, Aljoscha Janssen

Research Collection School Of Economics

In most democracies, members of parliament (MPs) are elected either through a party list or by a district. We use a discontinuity in the German electoral system to investigate the causal effect of a district election on an MP’s conformity with the party line. A district election does not affect roll-call voting behavior causally, possibly due to overall high adherence to party-line voting. Analyzing the parliamentary speeches of each MP allows us to overcome the high party-line discipline with regard to parliamentary voting. Using textual analysis and machine learning techniques, we create two measures of closeness of an MP’s speeches …