Farmers and Capitalism

Most analyses of modern capitalism focus on bargains struck between workers, managers, and owners (and the different types of firms they inhabit). But considering the substantial influence of institutional inertia on modern outcomes, it is necessary to examine the origins, and to consider which actors were most important in the early construction of capitalist systems. In this regard, farmers have played a critical role. I examine four cases - early 19th Century United States, early 20th Century United States, post-WWII France, and post-WWII Japan - to assess farmers’ influence on the origins of contemporary institutions, and find that they have played an important, though frequently overlooked, role.political economy; capitalism; financial institutions; economic development

Partisanship at the Origins of Modern Capitalist Institutions

Analyses that gauge the relationship of partisanship to economic outcomes nearly always focus on the level of partisanship, and changes to it, at a time concurrent to the outcomes. However, partisanship at the time an institution was established may correspond more strongly to modern economic outcomes than contemporary partisanship measures. To test this argument, I develop a measure of partisanship at the time that modern capitalist institutions were created. Tests reveal that this measure correlates more strongly to many modern economic outcomes than more contemporary measures of partisanship, suggesting that other economic outcomes may be usefully reexamined in light of the partisanship that existed when the initial institutional bargains were struck.political economy; financial institutions; economic history; capitalism

Deducing Varieties of Capitalism

One of the key criticisms made of the Varieties of Capitalism perspective advanced by Hall and Soskice (2001) is that it is functionalist. Here, I offer a deductive model of capitalism that is consistent with their framework. Specifically, I deduce the structure of nations' capitalist institutions based on distributive welfare gains to those actors representing an economy's main factors of production - land, labor, and capital. Based on the coalitions and political battles that may be fought among these actors, I derive seven capitalist ideal-types that fall along the LME-CME spectrum.capitalism; political economy; financial institutions

Economic Backwardness in Security Perspective

Modern political economies are distinguished from each other by the institutions that mediate actors’ interactions, falling somewhere along a spectrum between pure market and non-market mechanisms. But how did these institutions originally emerge? With regard to the financial sector, I argue that higher levels of national security threats in combination with economic backwardness lead to a financial system more dominated by banking relationships. To evaluate the argument, I conduct a focused comparison of Japan and Germany before WWII since they had similar political and legal institutions and were both ‘backward’, but differed with regard to the security threats they faced. Germany confronted more menacing threats from neighboring great powers as well as greater domestic unrest following unification in 1871, which led the government to direct lending to sectors vital to the nation’s security via banks. Japan, by contrast, did not face the same level of threats to its security, and consequently securities markets were more dominant.Economic History; Germany; Japan; Government; War; Finance; Financial Institutions

Calendrical savants: Exceptionality and practice

The exceptionality of the skills of calendrical savants and the role of practice were investigated. Experiment 1 compared four autistic calendrical savants to Professor Conway, a distinguished mathematician with calendrical skills. Professor Conway answered questions over a greater range of years but some savants knew more calendrical regularities. Experiment 2 studied the development of a calendrical savant's ability to answer date questions for very remote future years. He started by making written calculations and progressed to mental calculation. His variation in response time for remote dates was similar to that for near dates. The findings are consistent with the view that calendrical savants develop their skills through practice

The Domestic Political Origins of Global Financial Standards: The Agrarian Roots of American Securities Regulations

America s securities markets constitute a central distinguishing feature of its brand of capitalism. What are their political origins? In contrast to arguments which point to business owners as determining the institutional foundations of America s political economy, this paper argues that farmers played a leading role. Indeed, the rules and regulations governing U.S. securities markets were created in opposition to the wishes of business owners, and without farmers political influence, the U.S. may have developed a financial system similar to that found in continental Europe. Moreover, to the extent that U.S. securities regulations serve as a template for international financial standards, the paper shows that the humble American farmer inadvertently contributed to the financialization of the modern global economy

Computability and Tiling Problems

In this thesis we will present and discuss various results pertaining to tiling problems and mathematical logic, specifically computability theory. We focus on Wang prototiles, as defined in [32]. We begin by studying Domino Problems, and do not restrict ourselves to the usual problems concerning finite sets of prototiles. We first consider two domino problems: whether a given set of prototiles S has total planar tilings, which we denote TILE, or whether it has infinite connected but not necessarily total tilings, WTILE (short for ‘weakly tile’). We show that both TILE ≡m ILL ≡m WTILE, and thereby both TILE and WTILE are Σ11-complete. We also show that the opposite problems, ¬TILE and SNT (short for ‘Strongly Not Tile’) are such that ¬TILE ≡m WELL ≡m SNT and so both ¬TILE and SNT are both Π11-complete. Next we give some consideration to the problem of whether a given (infinite) set of prototiles is periodic or aperiodic. We study the sets PTile of periodic tilings, and ATile of aperiodic tilings. We then show that both of these sets are complete for the class of problems of the form (Σ1 1 ∧Π1 1). We also present results for finite versions of these tiling problems. We then move on to consider the Weihrauch reducibility for a general total tiling principle CT as well as weaker principles of tiling, and show that there exist Weihrauch equivalences to closed choice on Baire space, Cωω. We also show that all Domino Problems that tile some infinite connected region are Weihrauch reducible to Cωω. Finally, we give a prototile set of 15 prototiles that can encode any Elementary CellularAutomaton(ECA). We make use of an unusual tileset, based on hexagons and lozenges that we have not seen in the literature before, in order to achieve this