Journal of Economic Issues articles from March 2008

Journal of Economic Issues archives from March 2008

Symposium: John Kenneth Galbraith and institutional economics.(In memoriam)
March 1, 2008... Introduction What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet) Many of us who wear the label "original institutionalist" like to think of John Kenneth Galbraith...

"Ken".(Biography of Galbraith, John Kenneth)(Biography)
March 1, 2008... John Kenneth Galbraith loved words. Above all, he loved words written or spoken about himself. On this, "Galbraith's First Law" left no confusion: "Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue." This symposium in the Journal of Economic Issues would...

Galbraith and Robinson's second crisis of economic theory.
March 1, 2008... John Kenneth Galbraith was a giant public intellectual in the second half of the 20th Century. (1) His place in intellectual history is secure. His was a critical voice in a time of complacency, a complacency that proved to be as fragile as he...

John Kenneth Galbraith: cultural theorist of consumption and power.
March 1, 2008... This article has two purposes. The first is to articulate John Kenneth Galbraith's theoretical contributions to our understanding of power and consumption--two frequent topics in his writings. The second is to argue that Galbraith must be...

Galbraith and the problem of uneven development.(John Kenneth Galbraith)
March 1, 2008... John Kenneth Galbraith and "some of his younger colleagues" taught one of the first courses on economic development offered in the United States in the early 1950s. The course was motivated by "... the considerable number of students at Harvard...

Economic consequences of armaments production: institutional perspectives of J.K. Galbraith and T.B. Veblen.
March 1, 2008... Within the Institutionalist School, both the writings of John K. Galbraith (sometimes erroneously identified as a "real Keynesian") and Thorstein Veblen are of fundamental importance, although scarcely on a par (Parker 2005, 198; Stanfield...

Socially responsible investment and pro-social change.
March 1, 2008... Beginning with 1980s activism intended to stop foreign investment in South Africa, there has been a rise in "socially responsible investment" (SRI) in the United States and Europe. While definitions vary somewhat, SRI generally refers to the...

Determinants of housing loan patterns toward minority borrowers in Mississippi.
March 1, 2008... The issues of inequality and discrimination in bank lending have been studied widely and established as products of the broader institutional mechanism that underlie the greater society that is the U.S. capitalist system. Following Dymski and...

What accounts for intra-industry wage differentials? Results from a survey of establishments.
March 1, 2008... It is now well established in the literature that similar workers earn very dissimilar wages when working for different employers. Early research made a strong case for the existence of inter- and intra-industry wage differentials for similar...

Rationality as a social construction: what does individual behavior have to say about development in an Amazon community?
March 1, 2008... My first exposure to the psychological assumptions of economics was in a report that Bruno Frey wrote on that subject in the early 1970's. Its first or second sentence stated that the agent of economic theory is rational and selfish, and that...

American prosperity and the "race to the bottom:" why won't the media ask the right questions?
March 1, 2008... The problem of growing income inequality in the United States has become more serious over the past thirty years. A substantial number of books, scholarly papers, reports by think tanks, government data, and recently, special feature stories in...

Demand constraints and big government.
March 1, 2008... In a series of articles and books, John Walker and Harold Vatter attempted to make the case that the U.S. economy suffers from chronically insufficient demand that leads to growth below capacity. Of particular interest is a 1989 Journal of Post...

Uncertainty and exploitation in history.
March 1, 2008... Uncertainty is a pervasive feature in monetary production economies. Different social groups experience uncertainty in different ways. An investor may be worried about the future revenue streams of alternative investment projects. A worker may...

Institutionalism and new trade theory: rethinking comparative advantage and trade policy.
March 1, 2008... Institutionalism and New Trade Theory International trade theory has long been dominated by the theory of comparative advantage. That theory claims, subject to a few pathological exceptions, countries are made better off by international...

The ideology of the laissez faire program.
March 1, 2008... It is usually held that orthodox economic theory supports a (generally) laissez faire, noninterventionist position that is traceable to Adam Smith. Perhaps the strongest argument for this view emanates from Chicago (see, for example, Coase...

John R. Commons and John Maynard Keynes on economic history and policy: the 1920s and today.
March 1, 2008... In August 1925, John Maynard Keynes addressed the Liberal Party's Summer School. His presentation divided the pressing questions of the day into five categories--peace, government, sex, drugs, and economics--and each was discussed in turn. When...

The free lunch: arbitrage profits associated with credit cards.(NOTES AND COMMUNICATIONS)
March 1, 2008... This paper explains the recent changes in the credit card contract, provides a summary of the literature, discusses the availability of arbitrage profits on introductory balance transfer offers, and explains why these offers exist. ...

A Minsky moment: reflections on Hyman P. Minsky (1919-1996).
March 1, 2008... In March of 2007, a decade after economist Hyman P. Minsky succumbed to cancer, economist George Magnus of the Swiss bank UBS wrote a research paper entitled "The Credit Cycle and Liquidity: Have We Arrived at a Minsky Moment?" (Magnus 2007)....

Why is this cycle different from all other cycles?
March 1, 2008... The present expansion has lasted from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2007. All beginning and ending cycle dates used here come from the Department of Commerce, which gets them from the National Bureau of Economic Research,...

The Economics of Consumer Credit.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... The Economics of Consumer Credit, edited by Giuseppe Bertola, Richard Disney and Charles Grant. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2006. Hardcover: ISBN 0262026015, $40.00. 388 pages. From sub-prime mortgages to payday loans, many people are...

The Innocents at Cedro: A Memoir of Thorstein Veblen and Some Others.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... The Innocents at Cedro: A Memoir of Thorstein Veblen and Some Others, by Robert L. Duffus. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1944. Hardcover: ISBN-10: 067800885X, $35.00, 163 pages. I was visiting my dear colleagues Fadhel Kaboub and Zavdrka...

Adam's Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Adam's Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology, by Duncan K. Foley. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2006. Hardcover: ISBN 0 674 02309 9, $25.95. 265 pages. It is likely that few students make it through an economics course without an...

Globalization and the Politics of Pay: Policy Choices in the American States.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Globalization and the Politics of Pay: Policy Choices in the American States, by Susan B. Hansen. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 2006. Paper: ISBN 978 1 58901 088 8, $24.95. 231 pages. Within the American Federal system the...

Innovation and Its Discontents: How our Broken Patent System Is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do about It.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Innovation and Its Discontents: How our Broken Patent System Is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do about It, by Adam B. Jaffe and Josh Lerner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2006. Paperback: ISBN 0 691 12794 8,...

Economics Confronts the Economy.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Economics Confronts the Economy, by Philip A. Klein. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. 2006. Cloth: ISBN 1 84064 650 0. 75.00. [pounds sterling] 396 pages. Over the past few years arguments have been made claiming that...

Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches by Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 2006. ISBN-10:0 262 13464 0; ISBN-13:978 0 262 13464 4, $35.00. 252 pages. As the...

The Economics of Non-selfish Behavior: Decisions to Contribute Money to Public Goods.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... The Economics of Non-selfish Behavior: Decisions to Contribute Money to Public Goods, by Stephan Meier. Cheltenham, UK and Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2006. ISBN-13:978 1 84542 441 1, ISBN-10:1 84542 441 7, $85.00. 168 pages. News...

Governing Fortune: Casino Gambling in America.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Governing Fortune: Casino Gambling in America, by Edward A. Morse and Ernest P. Goss. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. Paperback: ISBN 978 0 472 06965 1, $29.95. 344 pages. Seeking to cash in on what appears to be an almost...

Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice, edited by Edward P. Stringham. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. 2007. Trade paperback: ISBN 1 4128 2579 1, $39.95, 698 pages. There is no mistaking the contents from the title of...

Institutions and the Environment.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Institutions and the Environment by Arild Vam. Cheltenham, UK and Northhamptom, MA: Edward Elgar. 2005. Hardback: ISBN 978 1 84376 100 6, $155. 496 pages. 2007. Paperback: ISBN 978 1 84720 121 8, $60.00. 496 pages. Given the urgency of...