FECES STANDARD MONEY: BEYOND TRANSACTIONS

Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering (Convergence of Science and Arts)Feces Standard Money (fSM), is a complementary currency that is different from other currencies in a number of ways. It is the first currency to adopt feces as its standard. In a world where objects and people are thought of as "goods and services," reality is compressed into conceptions of "use value" or "utility???. However, in the fSM system, feces and food waste that have traditionally and culturally been classified as ???human waste??? are used to produce biogas, creating value. Feces then becomes a representation of a new conception of value - one based on abundance instead of scarcity. This study aims to explore how the use of fSM can facilitate a redefinition of sustainable wealth. It begins by exploring neoclassical and modern theories of money and their relationship to the current state of money. It argues that economics??? failure to adequately account for the role of money as a basis of social relations contributes to the current unsustainable economic system. Building on the background and philosophical underpinnings of fSM, it postulates that money based on a feces standard might be a possible solution to developing a monetary system that can serve as the basis of social relations and facilitation of exchange as a means of instigating social change in attitudes towards global challenges like inequality and climate change. Social network analysis is used to investigate the social footprint of fSM in a game simulation of the fSM system. It is found that the mechanisms of fSM has the potential to imbue the network with tight knit connections -knots- that can contribute to a more inclusive monetary system.clos

THE ROLE OF CROSS-CLASS ALLIANCES AND ELITES IN COORDINATED EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN DENMARK. CES Open Forum Series 2018-2019, September 4, 2018

Explanations for coordination between labor and capital in Northern Europe continue to cause debate among scholars of comparative political economy. On one hand, power resource scholars argue that strong trade unions promoting equality are necessary for coordination. On the other hand, employer-centered theories argue that employers are the primary actors in promoting coordination due to the comparative advantages stemming from coordination. To inform this debate, we study the case of Denmark by combining a unique database of 5.000 elite affiliations with 80 stakeholder interviews spanning a decade. We argue that trade union power resources are necessary for coordination. However, only when certain segments of labor can forge powerful alliances with key employers for the economy will coordination persist. The network analysis identifies a powerful cross-class alliance between trade unions and employer associations in manufacturing. Interviews with stakeholders show that coordination in industrial relations and related institutional spheres such as education and industrial policies serves this alliance’s interests in safeguarding international competitiveness of manufacturing. However, intra-class allegiances ensure that the alliance constantly has to consider the interests of outsider organizations

Social Interaction, Observational Learning, and Privacy: the "Do Not Call" Registry

Many empirical studies have inferred contagion in behavior from a correlation between individual behavior and the behavior of others in the same social group, rather than from any direct evidence. The correlation has been variously attributed to social interaction, word of mouth communication, and observational learning. As Manski (1993) famously observed, such correlation might be explained by peer group influence, but also, similar responses to common environmental changes. More generally, correlation in behavior raises two questions – how information is transmitted and why individuals follow the choices of others. We address these questions in the context of subscriptions to the U.S. "do not call" registry in June-August 2003. Using a rich set of data culled from multiple sources, including longitudinal observations of household choice, we are able to separately identify -- Methods by which information is transmitted – social interaction and news media; -- Reasons why households follow the choices of others – observational learning and telemarketing diversion, and the impact of household heterogeneity on such learning and diversion. Among methods of information transmission, social interaction was relatively more important than news media. Among reasons for contagion, telemarketing diversion was relatively more important than observational learning, while the extent of learning decreased with social heterogeneity.

Incentive Regulation of Electricity Distribution Networks: Lessons of Experience from Britain

This paper reviews the recent experience of the UK electricity distribution sector under incentive regulation. The UK has a significant and transparent history in implementing incentive regulation in the period since 1990. We demonstrate the successes of this period in reducing costs, prices and energy losses while maintaining quality of service. We also draw out the lessons for other countries in implementing distribution sector reform. We conclude by discussing the place of incentive regulation of networks within the wider reform context, the required legislative framework, the need for appropriate unbundling, the importance of quality of service incentives, the regulatory information requirements and the role of sector rationalisation

Political Inequality and the Origins of Distrust: Evidence for Colombia

This paper aims to identify the effect of political exclusion on social capital in Colombia, suggesting social capital as an important channel through which political inequality has been central for Colombian economic development. I use the Colombian National Front agreement during 1958-1974 to test my hypothesis, as it institutionalized the political exclusion of non-traditional parties in that country. Whereas it affected all regions at the same time, it implied differential effects according to the municipalities’ initial political diversity. The empirical strategy deals with the potential endogeneity in the variation of the treatment by using region fixed effects and relevant control variables in a cross-section model, as well as performing robustness checks. I further use panel fixed effects models with electoral turnout as a measure of social capital. I find that political exclusion imposed by the National Front may have led to less trusting individuals today, to a higher perception of free riding behaviors and to lower levels of electoral turnout. I also find that a possible channel through which political exclusion in the past may be able to explain social capital in the present is distrust towards the state

Cross-validating administrative and survey datasets through microsimulation and the assessment of a tax reform in Luxembourg

Using EUROMOD, we cross-validate two types of micro-data presently available in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, administrative data on one hand and survey data on the other hand. While administrative data, extracted from the recently implemented Social Security Data Warehouse, contain information of the whole population of Luxembourg (449,000 observations) in 2003, survey data, extracted from the Luxembourg household panel PSELL3/EU-SILC for 2004 (incomes from 2003), is a representative sample of around 3,600 private households (9,800 individuals) living in Luxembourg with detailed information on incomes, household structure and other socio-economic dimensions. As a concrete application of this cross-validation, we analyze the 2001-2002 tax reform in Luxembourg. The main aspects of this reform are the reduction of the number of the tax brackets and the fall of the maximal marginal tax rate (from 46% in 2000 to 42% in 2001 and to 38% in 2002). The distributional effects of the tax reform are measured in terms of losers and winners, change in inequalities and poverty rates. The results issued from different types of input data are compared for cross-validation and allow us to emphasize methodological difficulties as well as to underline the advantages and limitations of each dataset.EUROMOD ; Microsimulation ; Tax reform ; Validation

Social capital and immigrants' labour market performance

This paper analyses the role of social capital on immigrants’ labour market outcomes. We use the “principal component analysis” (PCA) to build an index of social networks and explore its impact on the probability of getting a job and on wage levels using the Households Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) longitudinal survey data. We find a positive effect of social capital on migrants’ employment outcomes and wages, especially for women. Distinguishing employment into blue and white-collar jobs, we find that social capital only affects the probability of getting a white-collar job. These results suggest that promoting opportunities to create social capital has a beneficial effect on migrants’ integration in the host country

Multidimensional economic well-being. Is it measurable? The case of Lombardy

The definition and measurement of economic well-being is receiving growing attention, both in academic research and policy agenda, as a key issue to provide a solid basis for decision-making at all levels, both national and local. There is general agreement among economists and policy-makers about the necessity to go beyond GDP but the convergence towards a new and wider definition and measurement is far from being reached. This is why research and experiments that try to test different definitions and indicators can help, through empirical results, to the ongoing debate. This paper attempts to measure the multidimensional well-being of the Italian Region Lombardy, for the years 1995-2005, along the lines of the Index of Economic Well-Being (IEWB) proposed by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (Osberg, 1985; Osberg and Sharpe, 2002, 2005). The evolution of the index is aligned with that of per capita GDP from 1995 to 2001 but diverges in the following period because of the fall of regional per capita GDP and consumption in the period 2002-2005 and a contemporary strong growth of the health dimension and of the level of human capital stock (education).well-being, composite indicators, development