A PLS PATH MODEL TO INVESTIGATE THE RELATIONS BETWEEN INSTITUTIONS AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

The paper studies the relations between types of institutions on different components of human development. A role of aggregate demand in determining the material components of human development is assumed. We thus divide institutions into those that create demand and those that are determined by the whole process of development. Similarly we divide human development in its three traditional components (economic development, health, knowledge). Both human development and institutions are assumed as multidimensional constructs; all the main components of these constructs are defined as latent variables, and the relations between them as structural relations. A Partial Least Squares (PLS) path model is developed: it is the aggregation (and simultaneous estimation) of an outer model relating observed or manifest variables to their own latent variable and of a structural model (inner model) relating some endogenous latent variable to other latent variables. From the goodness of fit point of view, our results seem to validate our theoretical assumptions.Structural Equations Models, Institutions, Human Development

Capacity Utilisation in the Long Run: A Reply to Serrano

The variability of long-run capacity utilisation has to be considered as an expression of the determining role of aggregate demand in the growth process. This paper discusses the model proposed by Serrano in which such determining role is apparently reconciled with condition of normal utilisation of capacity in the long run.Capacity Utilisation, Demand-led Growth

Some notes on Long-Run capacity utilisation, steady state and induced investment

The steady-state method of analysing long-run economic tendencies is inconsistent with accurate representation of the autonomous role played by aggregate demand in the growth process. This role implies long-run variability of capacity utilization, which is denied by assumption in steady-state models. As Kaleckian analyses of growth seek to represent this role of aggregate demand expansion by means of steady-state models, the clash between the two features generates an obvious contradiction. Kaleckians recognise this contradiction but fail to identify its true origin and attempt to deal with it by modifying their models.Demand-led Growth; Capacity Utilisation

The dependence of growth on the profitability of capital in the Kaleckian literature: a critical evaluation

Kaleckian models can be considered as the most relevant set of theoretical works which study growth as a demand-led phenomenon. In these models, the pace of accumulation depends on demand expansion and on different measures of capital profitability. The relevance of the latter is generally assumed without any in-depth scrutiny of theoretical principles. This article identifies the theoretical underpinnings of this alleged dependence and reconsiders and develops the criticisms of them which can be found in the literature. This analysis leads to argue that this fundamental assumption of the Kaleckian models is not sufficiently argued as much as its cruciality would require

The economics of consumption as a social phenomenon: a neglected approach to the analysis of consumption

The paper deals with the early history of a theoretical approach in which consumption is regarded as an essentially social phenomenon and the most important reasons prompting consumption expenditure as connected with the fact that consuming certain goods allows individuals to be identified with specific social groups. Accordingly, it is generally argued that standards of living and consumption expenditure tend to be irreversible and to increase along with the process of growth. In a first phase, covering the 1920ies and 1930ies, some little-known American women economists used in theoretical, empirical and historical analyses these theoretical principles on consumption originally put forward by T. Veblen. In a second phase the same principles were used by well-known economists in the debate of the 1940ies on the empirical results about marginal and average propensities to save. The approach, then, saw some crucial changes that opened up the way to its substantial abandonment

Early contributions to the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon

During the 1920s some American women economists developed theoretical, empirical and historical analyses that constituted a theory of consumption. The original formulations of this approach were based on the view, theorised by T. Veblen, that consuming certain goods makes it possible to identify with specific social groups. These analyses were explicitly alternative to the theories of consumption based on marginal utility. In the 1930s, however, the analyses of a second generation of women economists became exclusively empirical and the theoretical features that made the approach original and an alternative to marginalism were lost