János Kornai: economics, methodology and policy

Kornai is an iconoclastic economist who developed an economic systems paradigm and applied it to the Leninist-Stalinist socialist system.His ideas overlapped with Marxism, with the Austrian school, with the Cambridge Social Ontology Group (CSOG), with Keynesianism, and with evolutionary economics. However, despite rejecting much of mainstream economics, Kornai did not retire to a heterodox bunker. Important results of his application of the systems paradigm were a rejection of market socialism, a rejection of price increases as a solution for shortages in the Leninist-Stalinist socialist system, and advocacy of a privatisation policy based on providing favourable conditions for the development of new private enterprises

Fathers, Divorce, and Child Custody

A great many fathers will have their fathering eliminated, disrupted, or vastly changed because they become divorced from the child’s mother. In fact, between 40% and 50% of marriages end in divorce (Cherlin, 2010). Although the divorce rate (measured as divorces per 1,000 people) is high by the standards prior to the late 1960s, it has actually fallen more than 30% since its peak in 1980. The decline in divorce rates in recent years has, however, been concentrated among the college-educated portion of the population; divorce rates among the less well educated may have even increased (Cherlin, 2010). But for both groups, divorce remains the most prevalent reason for changes in paternal parenting opportunities. For almost all divorced fathers (as well as for most mothers and children), divorce is a life-defining event, around which all other experiences are organized: before the divorce versus after the divorce. Although mothers’ parenting is generally changed by divorce, the revision to the parent-child interaction patterns is generally not as far-reaching as it is to fathers’ (Braver & Lamb, in press; Braver, Shapiro, & Goodman, 2005; Fabricius, Braver, Diaz, & Velez, 2010). The reason, of course, is the radical difference between the two parents’ custodial arrangements that typically occurs. As will be documented more precisely below, mothers generally become chief custodians of children, with fathers having visiting rights only. Although that situation has changed in recent years, due in large part to the fact that research has accumulated that illuminates the unintended negative consequences of that practice on fathers and children, it remains normative. Thus, no review of fathers and divorce can be complete or enlightening unless it also considers custody matters, as we do here

Tribute to Domenico Mario Nuti

This article is a tribute to the late D.M.Nuti who died at the end of 2020. It details his contributions to economic theory, economic policy, the analysis of actually existing socialism, transition economics and economic systems. It also draws attention to his role as a teacher and manager of research. He linked economists in Rome, Florence, Warsaw, Budapest, London and Cambridge. Influenced by Kalecki and the Cambridge Keynesians, he devoted his life to the study of variants of socialism and ended up advocating an updated version of social democracy. This would replace the perverted social democracy of Blair and Schroder

Child support judgments: comparing public policy to the public's policy

Any child support regime necessarily makes policy choices about how parental income should be shared between the two parental households. Those choices involve balancing the claims of the child, the claims of the custodial parent for help with the expense of providing for the child, and the claims of the support obligor for autonomy in deciding how to spend his own earnings. That balancing task is complicated by the fact that the child and the custodial parent necessarily share a living standard, so that any child support transfer, large or small, will unavoidably benefit the custodial parent as well as the child. This article reports the findings of an empirical study designed to reveal how the British public believe this balance should be struck. It then compares the public’s preferred policies to the policy choices implicit in the current UK child support schedule. It concludes that there are important gaps between the two, and recommends that consideration be given to amending the current UK law to better align it with the public’s values on these matters

The Development of Living Standards in Russia Before the First World War: An Examination of the Anthropometric Data

The development of living standards in Russia before the First World War and the relationship of this to the interpretation of the cause(s) of the 1917 Russian Revolution are controversial. This paper analyses one piece of evidence which has been cited in support of the ‘optimistic’ interpretation. This is the anthropometric data. The paper investigates the anthropometric data showing that it is more complicated, less easy to compare over time, and less free from reporting error, than has been argued previously. This weakens the ‘optimistic’ interpretation of living standards and the related interpretation of the cause(s) of the Russian Revolution. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group