Economic Development and the Family Structure: from the Pater Familias to the Nuclear Family

We provide a theory that is able to account for the observed comovement between the shift in intergenerational living arrangements from coresidence to non-coresidence and economic development. Our theory is consistent with the diminution in the status of the elderly documented by some sociologists. The results from our analysis show that, when technical progress is fast enough, the economy experiences a shift from stagnation to growth, there is a transition from coresidence to non-coresidence, and the social status of the elderly tends to deteriorate.Unified Growth Theory, Intergenerational Living Arrangements, Bargaining Power, Family Economics

Labour markets in a Post-Keynesian growth model: the effects of endogenous productivity growth and working time reduction

We study endogenous employment and distribution dynamics in a Post-Keynesian model of Kalecki-Steindl tradition. Productivity adjustments stabilize employment and the labour share in the long run: technological change allows firms to replenish the reserve army of workers in struggle over income shares and thereby keep wage demands in check. We discuss stability conditions and the equilibrium dynamics. This allows us to study how legal working time and its reduction affect the equilibrium. We find that a demand shock is likely to lower the profit share and increase the employment rate. A supply shock in contrast tends to have detrimental effects on employment and income distribution. Labour market institutions and a working time reduction have no long-term effect on growth, distribution and inflation in the model. The effects on the level of capital stock and output however are positive in a wage-led demand regime. Furthermore, an erosion of labour market institutions dampens inflation temporarily. The model provides possible explanations as to the causes of several current economic phenomena such as secular stagnation, digitalisation, and the break-down of the Philips curve.Series: Ecological Economic Paper

The East German wage structure in the transition to a market economy

An important question for the development of the East German labour market in the transition to a market economy is whether wage differentials by qualification, industry or region which were relatively small in the former GDR adjust to those in market economies which are more in line with differences in productivities and economic conditions. We estimate empirical earnings functions to quantify the contribution of various important factors shaping the earnings distribution in the East German transition process. Estimation is based on the first six waves of the Labour Market Monitor which is a representative panel data set of the East German workingage population covering the period 1990 to 1992. The specification of the estimated earnings functions is motivated by the various hypotheses of the development of the East German wage structure in the transformation process. Although we do find some similiarities with the existing wage structure in West Germany, the East German wage structure still differs in some important dimensions. --

Beyond Bathsheba: Managing Ethical Climates Through Pragmatic Ethics

This paper explores the puzzling nature of leader behavior in order to understand the conditions that encourage unethical decision-making. Building on the extant literature of pragmatic ethics, I explore how leaders can increase the quality of ethical decision-making within their organizations by understanding the incentives of rational choice. I have developed a rational choice-based ethical decision-making model to understand the incentives behind ethical leader behavior and find that ethical behavior is likely to be rational as long as audience costs remain higher than the savings benefits incurred by unethical behavior. I conclude with analysis of how the ethical rational model compares to other prominent theories that explain unethical leader behavior and propose that the probable outcomes derived from my model better explain bad leader behavior than competing control-oriented models. The results of this inquiry underscore the transactional and practical characteristics of leadership as a tool to help leaders manage their ethical climates, improve business practices and management policies, understand the nature of individual incentives, and capture transactional components of leader behavior

Wage curves for Spain. Evidence from the family budget survey

This study explores the existence of a wage curve for Spain. To quantify this relationship for the Spanish economy, we used individual data from the EPF 1990-1991. The results show the presence of a wage curve with an elasticity of 0.13. The availability of very detailed information on wages and unemployment has also shown that less protected labour market groups young workers, manual workers and building sector workers- have a higher elasticity of wages to local unemployment. These results could be interpreted as a greater facility of firms in these segments to settle wages as a function of the unemployment rate.regional labour markets, unemployment rate, wage curve

Is there any scope for corporatism in stabilization policies?

This paper studies corporatism as the outcome of bargaining between the government and a representative labor union. We show that if negotiations between these two parties only relate to macroeconomic stabilization, corporatism can never be beneficial to both parties. As corporatist policies are nevertheless commonly observed in this context, we discuss possible explanations that reconcile the theory with actual observations. The policy implications of these explanations are also discussed.Social pacts; axiomatic bargaining; unions; issue linkage

What future for codetermination and corporate governance in Germany?

Contrary to the prognosis derived from the variety of capitalism literature, since the mid-90s the significant restructuring of large German corporations in the direction of shareholder value seems to have been compatible with the persistence of a genuine configuration of industrial relations, including co-determination at the firm level. This article investigates whether this is a long lasting compatibility and tests various research programs in institutional economics and thus explores the consequences alternative hypotheses about institutional complementarity or hierarchy, comparative institutional analysis, comparative historical analysis, hybridization and finally régulation theory. Even if the process is highly uncertain, one major conclusion emerges: the old German model is probably irreversibly transformed and is evolving towards an unprecedented configuration, with only mild and distant relations to a typical liberal brand of capitalism.variety of capitalisms ; codetermination ; shareholder value ; german capitalism ; institutional complementarity / hierarchy ; comparative institutional analysis ; hybridization ; "régulation" theory ; german crisis

Cultural Paradigms in Property Institutions

Do “cultural factors” substantively influence the creation and evolution of property institutions? For the past several decades, few legal scholars have answered affirmatively. Those inclined towards a law and economics methodology tend to see property institutions as the outcome of self-interested and utilitarian bargaining, and therefore often question the analytical usefulness of “culture.” The major emerging alternative, a progressive literature that emphasizes the social embeddedness of property institutions and individuals, is theoretically more accommodating of cultural analysis but has done very little of it. This Article develops a “cultural” theory of how property institutions are created and demonstrates that such a theory is particularly powerful in explaining large-scale institutional differences between societies. Empirically, it argues that, in the two centuries before large-scale industrialization, China, England, and Japan displayed systematic and fundamental differences in their regulation of property use and transfer. It further argues that these legal and institutional differences are best explained by certain aspects of social culture, specifically by the criteria for sociopolitical status distribution. Some of these criteria are distinctly “cultural” in the sense that they were probably generated by the widespread social internalization of moral values, rather than by utilitarian bargaining. Cultural paradigms can exist, therefore, in property institutions. If we assume, as conventional law and economics urges, that individuals generally approach property use and regulation through a self-interested and utilitarian mindset, their pursuit of personal utility can nonetheless be constrained or empowered by cultural norms of status distribution that determine their relative bargaining power

Norms, strategies and political change: explaining the establishment of the convention on the future of Europe

Norms affect political outcomes by shaping the strategies that political actors use to advance their interests. Norms do so by shaping the terms of the debates that underpin political decision making. Unlike existing literature that highlights the importance of persuasion, this article demonstrates that through the mechanism of rhetorical action, norms induce self-interested political actors to adapt their strategy and accept political change that they would normally oppose. The case of the advent of the Convention on the Future of Europe examined here shows that by considering the impact of norms on the behaviour of the opponents of change, ideational analyses can incorporate agency in the explanation of political change