Journal of Economic Issues articles from December 1995

Journal of Economic Issues archives from December 1995

John R. Commons's puzzling inconsequentiality as an economic theorist.
December 1, 1995... "Veblen, Commons, and Mitchell [are the great triumvirate of institutional economics]. These men, both in regard to their influence and their personal stature, stand far above their contemporaries. Of the three, Commons . . . probably [will be]...

Veblenian institutionalism: the changing concepts of inquiry.
December 1, 1995... When Clarence E. Ayres synthesized Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey, he gave a vitality to the Veblenian branch of institutionalism that has endured for half a century. Ayres's [1952; 1961; 1978] work provides a benchmark for analysis of the...

The economic roots of environmental decline: property rights or path dependence?
December 1, 1995... Environmental economics has developed over the last 25 years by exploiting the theoretical apparatus of neoclassical microeconomics. In particular, environmental problems have been viewed through the lens of property rights: pollution arises...

Aggressive greenhouse gas policies: how they could spur economic growth.
December 1, 1995... Recent years have witnessed increasing concern about the environmental dangers posed by global warming. The buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases raises the possibility of climate change, including a change in the...

The restructuring of the hospital services industry.
December 1, 1995... As policymakers debate various health care proposals, the pace of structural change among hospitals is accelerating principally via mergers and acquisitions. This paper, after documenting the reasons for structural change, will empirically...

An instrumentalist critique of "cost-utility analysis".
December 1, 1995... The philosophy of instrumentalism developed by John Dewey establishes a political imperative and a criterion of truth. The political requirement seeks integrity and vitality of democratic decision making via the widest possible participation by...

Institutional bias, risk, and workers' risk aversion.
December 1, 1995... The collapse of central planning in Central and Eastern Europe has brought greater attention to labor-managed firms (LMFs) as alternatives to both Soviet-type enterprises and conventional capitalist firms. LMFs are firms where labor either holds...

The culture-of-poverty thesis and African Americans: the work of Gunnar Myrdal and other institutionalists.
December 1, 1995... [T]he poor, or at least a subset of them, are different from the nonpoor in terms of their attitudes, values, or aspirations and that these personality traits produce behaviors that mire them in long-term poverty. A softer version of this...

Pigou's influence on Clark: work and welfare. (economists A.C. Pigou and J.M. Clark)
December 1, 1995... In an earlier article, Hans Jensen documented institutional elements in the work of Alfred Marshall but concluded that they did not have an influence on institutionalism because "these potential foundations were never discovered" by...

Markets and power.
December 1, 1995... Mainstream economists have paid scant attention to the concept of social power and its ramifications for their discipline. Elsewhere in the social sciences - in sociology, political science, and history - the concept of power has an importance...

Economic growth versus economic development: toward a conceptual clarification.
December 1, 1995... Institutional and heterodox economists have long since drawn the conceptual distinction betwee economic growth and development. This paper will further clarify this distinction, one not usually incorporated in the mainstream of modern economic...

Ayres on institutions - a reconsideration. (economist Clarence Ayres)
December 1, 1995... The core attitude of institutionalists toward institutions has been conditioned by the Veblenian dichotomy. From this vantage point, economic progress is essentially a process in which the cumulative force of dynamic technology ultimately...

Comment on T. Larson and P. Ong, "imbalance in part-time employment". (response to Tom Larson and Paul Ong, Journal of Economic Issues, vol. 28, no. 1, p. 28, March 1994)
December 1, 1995... In their March 1994 article, Larson and Ong (L-O) question the "contingent labor thesis" which holds that contingent jobs are rising at the direct expense of full-time jobs. They examine U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) series on part-time...

A critique of the contingent labor thesis: a reply to "comment on T. Larson and P. Ong, imbalance in part-time employment". (response to Lonnie Golden in this issue, p. 1197)
December 1, 1995... In our original article [Larson and Ong 1994], we examined reasons for changes in involuntary part-time employment and did not directly address the broader topic of changes in the use of contingent labor, so it is certainly true that we did not...

Institutional Economics Revisited.
December 1, 1995... My generation of undergraduate and graduate economics students were blissfully unaware of anything like Institutional Economics. We were schooled in gratuitous statements such as: The theory of growth is not a theory of economic history .... ..

Japan's Capitalism.
December 1, 1995... My generation of undergraduate and graduate economics students were blissfully unaware of anything like Institutional Economics. We were schooled in gratuitous statements such as: The theory of growth is not a theory of economic history .... ..

Elgar Companion to Institutional and Evolutionary Economics, 2 vols.
December 1, 1995... It is both a privilege and a daunting task to review such an impressive achievement as the two-volume Elgar Companion to Institutional and Evolutionary Economics. Some 120 of the most noted scholars of institutional and evolutionary economics...

The United Nations at the Crossroads of Reform.
December 1, 1995... At the time I was preparing this review, rogue U.S.-based militia, with their often expressed fear that the United States will be "invaded" by UN forces, were getting substantial exposure in the aftermath of the bombing of the federal building in...

Evolutionary Concepts in Contemporary Economics.
December 1, 1995... The increasing popularity of evolutionary theorizing within economics has been a source of both interest and trepidation for many institutionalists, including myself. My interest stems from enthusiasm for a wider discussion of evolution (of...

Activist Unionism, the Institutional Economics of Solomon Barkin.
December 1, 1995... This is an intellectual biography of Solomon Barkin, written by one of his former students at the University of Massachusetts with the active cooperation of the subject, who read and commented on the manuscript in draft. In his foreword, Clark...

International Organization and Industrial Change.
December 1, 1995... This book is about global governance from the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1980s, viewed through the lenses of "Liberal Internationalism" and "Global Keynesianism" but broadly informed and inspired by Antonio Gramsci's blend of "pessimism...

Rethinking the Development Experience: Essays Provoked by the Work of Albert O. Hirschman.
December 1, 1995... It is highly fitting that the contributions of Albert Hirschman to development economics are being honored, discussed, and reinterpreted in these two volumes in his 80th year. The first contains the proceedings of what must have been a lively...

Development Projects Observed.
December 1, 1995... It is highly fitting that the contributions of Albert Hirschman to development economics are being honored, discussed, and reinterpreted in these two volumes in his 80th year. The first contains the proceedings of what must have been a lively...

The Role of Economic Theory.
December 1, 1995... This volume is part of a series published by Kluwer focusing on "Recent Economic Thought." Its topic is perhaps the broadest and most ambitious of the series, for unlike most of the others (e.g., Taking Property and Just Compensation), it has no...

Strong Managers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Finance.
December 1, 1995... Economic historians and others who stress the evolutionary process of economic systems will find Mark Roe's work useful and illuminating. By applying political theory to the emergence of the American system of corporate governance, Roe shows that...

The Uma-Economy: Indigenous Economics and Development Work in Lawonda, Sumba (Eastern Indonesia).
December 1, 1995... The message of this book is that one needs a thorough knowledge of an existing indigenous Third-World economy before potential welfare-improving policies can be considered. The author spent six years studying the economy of Lawonda in the process...

Development From Within: Towards a Neostructuralist Approach for Latin America.
December 1, 1995... We have neo-liberals, neo-Schumpeterians, and neo-institutionalists, so why not neo-structuralists? Neo-structuralism was born out of the dissatisfaction with the old state-dominated, inward-looking, import-substitution-industrialization model...