História aberta e temporalidades mistas em Daniel Bensaïd.

Daniel Bensaïd reveals an “other” Marx, a Marx who does not reproduce the “mechanics” of his time in his own field of investigation. History is not reduced to a succession of modes of production. It is not teleological. The present is the dominant temporality because it includes the range of possibilities of future evolution, as well as the keys opening the coffers of the past. The past is not a simply disappeared temporality because it haunts the present. It reappears in modified form in capitalist modernity, in the form of “setbacks”, “anachronism”, “irregularities”. Modernity is a differentiated and hierarchical space of mixed and discordant temporalities. Duration does not work like a cause but like a chance. It is in this context that we must think of the revolution, which is nev- er “ripe”: it is essentially untimely, it intervenes “between already more and not yet”. The historic bet is a melancholy bet: it is always a question of not accepting defeat, thus giving it a definitive character.Daniel Bensaïd revela un “otro” Marx, un Marx que no reproduce la “mecánica” de su tiempo en su propio campo de investigación. La historia no se reduce a una sucesión de modos de producción. No es teleologica. El presente es la temporalidad dominante porque incluye el rango de posibilidades de evolución futura, así como las claves que abren los cofres del pasado. El pasado no es simplemente una temporalidad desaparecida porque persigue al presente. Reaparece en forma modificada en la modernidad capitalista, en forma de “reveses”, “anacronismo”, “irregularidades”. La modernidad es un espacio diferenciado y jerárquico de temporalidades mixtas y discordantes. La duración no funciona como una causa sino como una oportunidad. Es en este contexto que debemos pensar en la revolución, que nunca está “madura”: es esencialmente inoportuna, interviene “entre ya más y aún no”. La apuesta histórica es una apuesta melancólica: siempre se trata de no aceptar la derrota, lo que le da un carácter definitivo.Daniel Bensaïd révèle un « autre » Marx, un Marx qui ne reproduit pas la « mécanique » de son temps dans son propre domaine d’investigation. L’histoire ne se réduit pas à une succession des modes de production. Elle n’est pas téléologique. Le présent est la temporalité dominante car il  comprend l’éventail des possibilités de l’évolution future, ainsi que les clefs ouvrant les coffres du passé. Le passé n’est pas une temporalité simplement disparue car il hante le présent. Il réapparait sous forme modifiée dans la modernité capitaliste, sous forme de « contretemps »,  d’ « anachronisme », d’ « irrégularité ». La modernité est un espace différencié et hiérarchisé des temporalités mêlées et discordantes. La durée ne fonctionne pas à la manière d’une cause mais à la manière d’une chance.  C’est dans ce contexte qu’il faut penser la révolution, qui n’est jamais « mure » : elle est par essence intempestive, elle intervient « entre déjà plus et pas encore ».  Le pari historique est un pari mélancolique : il s’agit toujours de ne pas accepter la défaite lui donnant ainsi un caractère définitif.Daniel Bensaïd revela um “outro” Marx, um Marx que não reproduz a “mecânica” de seu tempo em seu próprio campo de investigação. A história não se reduz a uma sucessão de modos de produção. Não é teleológica. O presente é a temporalidade dominante porque inclui o leque de possibilidades da evolução futura, bem como as chaves que abrem os cofres do passado. O passado não é uma temporalidade simplesmente desaparecida, porque assombra o presente. Ele reaparece de forma modificada na modernidade capitalista, na forma de “contratempos”, “anacronismo”, “irregularidades”. A modernidade é um espaço diferenciado e hierárquico de temporalidades mistas e discordantes. A duraçãonão funciona como uma causa, mas como uma oportunidade. É neste contexto que devemos pensar a revolução, que nunca é “madura”: é essencialmente intempestiva, intervém “entre jamais e ainda não”. A aposta histórica é melancólica: é sempre uma questão de não aceitar a derrota, dando-lhe um caráter definitivo

SPECIALIZATION, THE INTERMEDIATE NATURE OF TRADED PRODUCTS AND THE MYTH OF IMPORT DRIVEN WAGE INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES

Using a model that recognises the prevalent cross-country specialization in production and the intermediate nature of all traded products, I investigate the effect of observed trends in the prices of ordinary intermediate and semi-final imports on the expanding wage differential between skilled and unskilled labour in the USA. Contrary to widely accepted stylised facts, my results suggest that decreases in import prices increase both wage rates, while compressing their differential. Sources of wage dispersion are, however, found in skill-biased economy-wide dynamic processes of capital accumulation and technical change. Copyright 2007 The Author Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Unprotective Tarriffs, Ineffective Liberalization and Other Mysteries: An Investigation of the Endogenous Dimensions of Trade Policy Formation in Australia

At the forefront of empirical research on Australia's trade policies two items seem to have attracted considerable interest: (i) the host of determinants of the highly dispersed tariff concessions, and (ii) the impact of liberalization on imports. Studies that investigate the former, in the context of endogenous trade policy formation, examine the impact of import penetration on tariffs, and studies that investigate the latter consider the effect of tariffs on import penetration. Despite the obvious simultaneity of these variables, research lines (i) and (ii) followed separate paths by only considering uni-directional causal relationships. And yet, these paths do converge. The meeting point: perplexing results! Tariffs are found to protect those industries that have the least use for protection, and liberalization is often determined to be entirely ineffectual in stimulating imports. In this paper we argue that the source of these puzzling results is found in the misspecification of the employed frameworks of analysis that ignore relevant feedback effects. This is illustrated using a model that facilitates the simultaneous determination of import penetration and tariffs. The results are startling. When the bidirectional causal relationship between the two variables is "disentangled" the estimated impact of import penetration on the tariff level increases by a fivefold, and that of tariffs on import penetration doubles

The role of imports in expanding the demand gap between skilled and unskilled labour in the US

A unit cost function is employed, in the context of the production theory approach, to estimate the Allen - Uzawa effect of aggregate imports on skilled and unskilled labour in the US. The model corrects for two ubiquitous shortcomings of similar studies: (i) their disregard for the role of nonmanufactured imports, including imports of services, in domestic production, and (ii) their inability to capture, in addition to the conventional domestic-output-substitution effects of the Stolper-Samuelson variety, the impact of imports on the demand for primary factors that is generated via domestic factor-using downstream processes. To circumvent curvature related problems, often associated with similar studies that do not invoke separability, we combine the global imposition of concavity with a symmetric normalized quadratic representation of the unit cost function (that remains flexible after curvature enforcing reparametrizations). The results confirm the notion that imports hurt unskilled labour. However, they also reveal a previously ignored positive impact of aggregate imports on the demand for skilled labour that is qualitatively independent of the measure of skill employed. This result is attributed to skill intensive downstream processes of aggregate imports and reaffirms the importance of 'downstream handling' in stimulating labour demand first identified by Aw and Roberts (Review of Economics and Statistics, 67, 109-17, 1985).

New light on the 'impressionistic view' of the balancing item in Australia's balance of payments accounts

Recently, Fausten and Brooks offered (what they refer to as) an ‘impressionistic view’ of the temporal evolution of Australia's balancing item, which is a measure of the accuracy of the balance of payments accounts. They claim that the balancing item ‘has been increasing in magnitude and volatility, violating with increasing frequency internationally agreed acceptability criteria for smallness. In the present paper it is shown that Fausten and Brooks results derive from data that incorporates excessively a dynamically asymmetric concentration of revisions and is therefore unsuitable for statistical analysis. This paper develops, and empirically evaluates, a model of the process of revisions of balance of payments data. This model illustrates that dynamically inconsistent time series of the balancing item, such as that employed by Fausten and Brooks, are bound to generate an artificial impression that it follows an ‘explosive’ time trend. Subsequently, it is illustrated that when alternative, dynamically consistent editions of the balancing item data for the same period as that examined by Fausten and Brooks are employed, their results are reversed. Indeed, the findings here contradict diametrically the conclusions of these authors by suggesting that the decline in the frequency of balancing item ‘violations’ observed in the latter portion of the relevant time period is unparalleled in the history of the balance of payments accounts.

XIAOKAI YANG: SOME RECOLLECTIONS

No abstract received.

Curvature enforcement and the tenuous flexibility of the transcendental logarithmic variable profit function

This paper shows that the new trend in econometric methodology of enforcing curvature indirectly in the case of the popular translog variable profit function (when curvature fails in the first round of estimations) is flawed: This approach inadvertently destroys the flexibility of this functional form, leading to biased parameter estimates