Social Attributes And Economic Instability In Africa

How do the social characteristics of African economies affect their relative economic stability? This paper offers a new nominal definition of economic instability in terms of average standard deviations from the exponential growth path suggested by neoclassical growth theory under ideal conditions. We used the portion of the population that subsists on agriculture as an indication of how diverse and adaptable any particular economy is. Literacy rates may serve as a proxy for the quality and adaptability of the labor force in the various countries. Other variables used are urban population as a percentage of total population, life expectancy, infant mortality rates and the corruption perception index. These variables were all statistically significant in explaining economic instability with the exception of corruption perception index and infant mortality rates that were statistically insignificant

Social Attributes And Economic Instability In Africa

How do the social characteristics of African economies affect their relative economic stability? This paper offers a new nominal definition of economic instability in terms of average standard deviations from the exponential growth path suggested by neoclassical growth theory under ideal conditions. We used the portion of the population that subsists on agriculture as an indication of how diverse and adaptable any particular economy is. Literacy rates may serve as a proxy for the quality and adaptability of the labor force in the various countries. Other variables used are urban population as a percentage of total population, life expectancy, infant mortality rates and the corruption perception index. These variables were all statistically significant in explaining economic instability with the expectation of corruption perception index and infant mortality rates which were statistically insignificant

What’s in a Name? On Language, Concept Formation, and the Definition Disputes in the Entrepreneurship Literature

When it comes to entrepreneurship, the conceptual framework of economics is disjointed: On the one hand almost everyone agrees that entrepreneurial initiative and creativity are critical for economic progress. On the other hand neither initiative, nor creativity, plays any role in formal models of choice and economic behavior. This creates a blind spot on the behavioral aspects of entrepreneurship. It has also spawned a dichotomy between the functional and behavioral aspects of entrepreneurial actions in the economics literature. Most importantly, it prevents economists from developing a coherent unifying theoretical framework for making sense of entrepreneurs. The problem is reinforced by the language and semiotics of economics and is reflected by the lack of behavioral research on entrepreneurs in the literature. As suggested by Baumol (1968 and 2010) initiative and creativity are the obvious defining traits of entrepreneurship. Even so, the literature has spawned a variety of different and occasionally nonsensical definitions of entrepreneurship that obscure and divert our attention away from these defining characteristics. The divergent definitions in the literature are further exacerbated by discordant conceptual structures and ideas that cannot easily be translated from one field to another. In the absence of a unifying framework, different fields have focused narrowly on entrepreneurship from dissimilar angles. The bottom line is that researchers in different fields sometimes rely on such incompatible definitions of what constitutes entrepreneurship that interdisciplinary dialogue is impossible. The end result is akin to the problem of radical translation between different languages. The paper concludes that the definition debates will not be resolved without a unifying structure that focuses on initiative and creativity as the defining attributes of entrepreneurship. This calls for some new tools and behavioral models that can explicitly account for initiative and creativity as integral aspects of human choices and actions

On the Economics of Say and Keynes' Interpretation of Say's Law

J. B. Say argued that commercial crises were the results of effective demand failures, except, unlike Malthus he did not naively attribute effective demand failures to overproduction given some absolute limit on people's willingness to consume. Instead, Say built a theory of recessions based on coordination failures. Many of Say's contemporaries failed to understand his arguments. This in turn led to an escalating series of misquotes and misinterpretations that ultimately ended up as Keynes' supply creates its own demand rendition of Say's law.

On Gluts, Effective Demand, and the True Meaning of Say's Law

The meaning of Say's Law may seem an issue of little relevance to economists today. It would seem, on the face of it, of interest only to historians of economics. Whatever Say's Law might mean, the one thing we economists know, or at least think we know, is that it was comprehensively refuted by John Maynard Keynes in his "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money." Knowing the meaning of this ancient economic doctrine would appear a matter of no contemporary importance. Part of a Symposium entitled, "Say's Law Revisited", this paper argues that the disappearance of the guiding principles underlying Say's Law has grievously damaged our understanding of economic processes. The disappearance of Say's Law from amongst the conceptual tools employed by economists is in fact Keynes's most enduring legacy.Employment; Money

Population-level deficit of homozygosity unveils CPSF3 as an intellectual disability syndrome gene.

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked DownloadPredicting the pathogenicity of biallelic missense variants can be challenging. Here, we use a deficit of observed homozygous carriers of missense variants, versus an expected number in a set of 153,054 chip-genotyped Icelanders, to identify potentially pathogenic genotypes. We follow three missense variants with a complete deficit of homozygosity and find that their pathogenic effect in homozygous state ranges from severe childhood disease to early embryonic lethality. One of these variants is in CPSF3, a gene not previously linked to disease. From a set of clinically sequenced Icelanders, and by sequencing archival samples targeted through the Icelandic genealogy, we find four homozygous carriers. Additionally, we find two homozygous carriers of Mexican descent of another missense variant in CPSF3. All six homozygous carriers of missense variants in CPSF3 show severe intellectual disability, seizures, microcephaly, and abnormal muscle tone. Here, we show how the absence of certain homozygous genotypes from a large population set can elucidate causes of previously unexplained recessive diseases and early miscarriage.Sacchi Foundatio

On utilitarianism vs virtue ethics as foundations of economic choice theory

Purpose – Economic choice theory is built on utilitarian foundations. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether a foundation of virtue ethics might be more consistent with human nature. Design/methodology/approach – The paper focuses on utilitarianism vs virtue ethics as foundations of economic choice theory. Findings – Economic choice theory describes consumer choice in terms that are inconsistent with findings from recent research in behavioral economics, neuroeconomics, and psychology. The consumers' dynamic optimization problem, as outlined by traditional theory, is unsolvable in the sense that it contains too many unknowns. This means that the consumer must approach the problem in a different manner than is usually suggested by the literature. Moreover, new psychological theories of well-being suggest that we can, to some extent, choose what we want to want and that true happiness is based on our character as much as it is based on our consumption of goods. Practical implications – The idea that human choices may not be based on consistent preferences calls into question the policy suggestions of the literature on revealed preference and welfare economics. In particular, we cannot rely on past choices to draw inferences on people's preferences. Social implications – To maximize social welfare, society must value and promote the development of virtue and character. Originality/value – The paper highlights some of the differences between utilitarian and the virtue ethics perspectives on choice.Consumer behaviour, Economic theory, Ethics, Utilitarianism