Which Sectors of a Modern Economy are most Central?

We analyze input-output matrices for a wide set of countries as weighted directed networks. These graphs contain only 47 nodes, but they are almost fully connected and many have nodes with strong self-loops. We apply two measures: random walk centrality and one based on count-betweenness. Our findings are intuitive. For example, in Luxembourg the most central sector is “Finance and Insurance” and the analog in Germany is “Wholesale and Retail Trade” or “Motor Vehicles”, according to the measure. Rankings of sectoral centrality vary by country. Some sectors are often highly central, while others never are. Hierarchical clustering reveals geographical proximity and similar development status.

Accounting and redistribution: The palace and mortuary cult in the Middle Kingdom, ancient Egypt

This paper examines detailed historical material drawn from primary sources to explore the role of accounting practices in the functioning of several key stages of the redistributive economy of the Middle Kingdom, ancient Egypt. First, the paper attends to the role of accounting in securing a regular flow of commodities to the state, in the form of taxation in kind. The historical material suggests clearly that accounting practices played a crucial role in levying and collecting precise tax liabilities, and in monitoring the storing of commodities in state granaries and storehouses. The second level of analysis is concerned with the role of accounting in coordinating the outflow of commodities to consumption units focusing on two examples. The first relates to the role of accounting in the distribution of food provisions to members of the Royal family and palace dependents while on a journey; the second examines the role of accounting in the writing and execution of a series of contracts to promote the mortuary cult of a dead individual. In both cases, the paper argues that the accounting practices were linked strongly to the social, political and economic contexts within which these accounting practices functioned

The Distributional Impact of Public Services When Needs Differ

Despite a broad consensus on the need to take into account the value of public services in distributional analysis, there is little reliable evidence on how the inclusion of such non-cash income actually affects poverty and inequality estimates. In particular, the equivalence scales applied to cash income are not necessarily appropriate when including non-cash income, because the receipt of public services is likely to be associated with particular needs. In this paper, we propose a theory-based framework designed to provide a coherent evaluation of the distributional impact of local public services. The valuation of public services, identification of target groups, allocation of expenditures to target groups, and adjustment for differences in needs are derived from a model of local government spending behaviour. Using Norwegian data from municipal accounts and administrative registers we find that the inclusion of non-cash income reduces income inequality by about 15 percent and poverty rates by almost one-third. However, adjusting for differences in needs for public services across population subgroups offsets about half the inequality reduction and some of the poverty decrease.income distribution, poverty, public services, non-cash income, needs adjustment, equivalence scales

The Impact of Local Public Services and Geographical Cost of Living Differences on Poverty Estimates

Despite a broad consensus on the need to take into account the value of public services and geographical cost of living differences when measuring poverty, there is little reliable evidence on how these factors actually affect poverty estimates. Unlike the standard approach in studies of the distribution of public services, this paper employs a method for valuing sector-specific local public services that allows for differences between municipalities in unit costs for providing public services. Furthermore, recipient frequencies in various demographic groups are used as the basis for determining the allocation of the value of these services on citizens of the municipalities. Geographical differences in living costs are taken into account by using municipal housing price indices or by replacing the country-specific poverty line with municipal-specific poverty lines. Applying Norwegian register data for the period 1993-2001, we find that disregarding the value of local public services and geographical cost of living differences yields a misleading picture of poverty.geographical cost of living differences, in-kind transfers, public services, poverty, housing price indices, municipal-specific poverty lines

Skill-biased liberalization:Germany’s transition to the knowledge economy

First published online: 13 April 2021This article conceptualizes the evolution of the German political economy as the codevelopment of technological and institutional change. The notion of skill-biased liberalization is introduced to capture this process and contrasted with the two dominant theoretical frameworks employed in contemporary comparative political economy scholarship—dualization and liberalization. Integrating theories from labor economics, the article argues that the increasing centrality of high skills complementary in production to information and communications technology has weakened the traditional complementarity among specific skills, regulated industrial relations, and generous social protection in core sectors. The liberalization of industrial relations and social protection is shown in fact to be instrumental for high-end exporting firms to concentrate wages and benefits on increasingly important high-skilled workers. Strong evidence based on descriptive statistics, union and industry documents, and twenty-one elite interviews is found in support of the article’s alternative perspective

The University-Commune

In this new book we return to the challenge of deepening the task to the point of imagining the university formed by commoner university students. It is a turn, a new place from which to name and reconsider community management and action from a sense of co-responsibility for the commons that we must guarantee so that the common project prevails and achieves long-term self-sustainability.This is what the seven articles in this book are about, which calls into question what it means for the university to be and act according to economic principles and logics (giving, receiving, undertaking), social (distribution of roles and benefits) and policies (agreements, consensus, participation and assignment of responsibilities) of the commune. The institutional dimension is important but the vitality, the sense of belonging and the profound strength of the Salesian university project depend much more on the commons logic. Feeling of the commons is not a possibility among many others. We are convinced that, in order to take on this project, it is necessary to transcend institutional, business logic and state regulations. Therefore, the university-commune is the way and, perhaps, the only one possible. University and Common Goods Research Group Universidad Politécnica Salesian

Feminist Ecological Economics and Sustainability

New developments in feminist ecological economics and ecofeminist economics are contributing to the search for theories and policy approaches to move economies toward sustainability. This paper summa- rizes work by ecofeminists and feminist ecological economists which is relevant to the sustainability challenge and its implications for the discipline of economics. Both democracy and lower material throughputs are generally seen as basic principles of economic sustainability. Feminist theorists and feminist ecological econ- omists offer many important insights into the conundrum of how to make a democratic and equity-enhancing transition to an economy based on less material throughput. These flow from feminist research on unpaid work and caring labor, provisioning, development, valuation, social reproduction, non-monetized exchange relationships, local economies, redistribution, citizenship, equity-enhancing political institutions, and labor time, as well as creative modeling approaches and activism-based theorizing.This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

Corporate Governance, Innovative Enterprise, and Economic Development

corporate governance, innovative enterprise, economic development

The role of automatic stabilizers in the U.S. business cycle

Most countries have automatic rules in their tax-and-transfer systems that are partly intended to stabilize economic fluctuations. This paper measures their effect on the dynamics of the business cycle. We put forward a model that merges the standard incomplete-markets model of consumption and inequality with the new Keynesian model of nominal rigidities and business cycles, and that includes most of the main potential stabilizers in the U.S. data and the theoretical channels by which they may work. We find that the conventional argument that stabilizing disposable income will stabilize aggregate demand plays a negligible role in the dynamics of the business cycle, whereas tax-and-transfer programs that affect inequality and social insurance can have a larger effect on aggregate volatility. However, as currently designed, the set of stabilizers in place in the U.S. has had little effect on the volatility of aggregate output fluctuations or on their welfare costs despite stabilizing aggregate consumption. The stabilizers have a more important role when monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound, and they affect welfare significantly through the provision of social insurance

New imperialism or new capitalism?

Over the past century, the institution of capital and the process of its accumulation have been fundamentally transformed. By contrast, the theories that explain this institution and process have remained largely unchanged. The purpose of this paper is to address this mismatch. Using a broad brush, we outline a new, power theory of capital and accumulation. We use this theory to assess the changing meaning of the corporation and the capitalist state, the new ways in which capital gets accumulated and the specific historical trajectory of twentieth-century capitalism up to the present.arms; accumulation; capital flow; capitalism; conflict; corporation; crisis; distribution; elite; energy; finance; globalization; growth; imperialism; GPE; liberalism; Marxism; Middle East; military; national interest; neoclassical economics; neoliberalism; nomos; oil; OPEC; ownership; peace; power; profit; ruling class; security; stagflation; state; stock market; TNC; United States; US; utility; value; violence; war