Journal of Economic Issues articles from September 1997

Journal of Economic Issues archives from September 1997

Consumed in theory: alternative perspectives on the economics of consumption.
September 1, 1997... In many disciplines, the study of consumption has become a dynamic, changing field. A new interdisciplinary area of research on consumption has emerged in the last 10-15 years, drawing contributions and participants from sociology, anthropology,...

Theoretical issues of gender in the transition from socialist regimes.
September 1, 1997... The majority of studies on the economic and political reforms in Eastern and Central Europe have failed to explicitly consider how men and women are differently affected by the transition from command to market economies.(1) This failure is...

Markets, flexibility, and family: evaluating the gendered discourse against pay equity.
September 1, 1997... Many writers on contemporary economic trends seem to agree that we are rapidly entering a new era of flexibility.(1) Yet what flexibility means and whether it is something to be embraced or thwarted is passionately debated, even among...

The working poor and welfare recipiency: participation, evidence, and policy directions.
September 1, 1997... Current welfare debates assume that the poor are taking unfair advantage of the government's largess by shunning work for welfare benefits. Yet many studies indicate that many of those who qualify for welfare benefits fail to receive assistance....

How institutions learn: a socio-cognitive perspective.
September 1, 1997... The evolutionary economics of institutionalists rests on theories of human choice that are in clear opposition to those of neoclassicalists. Institutionalists reject the neoclassical assumption that the economic person's character is that of a...

Mirowski's thesis and the "integrability problem" in neoclassical economics.
September 1, 1997... Questions concerning the origin of neoclassical theory are among the most basic, yet least satisfactorily resolved, questions in the study of economic thought. Disagreement has notably concerned two issues: whether the theory was "revolutionary"...

The political Coase theorem: identifying differences between neoclassical and critical institutionalism.
September 1, 1997... Institutional analysis has traditionally described the comparative performance of different economies and has attempted to explain the dynamics of economic transformation. This paper analyzes issues relating to institutional performance and to...

The nature of transition cost economics.
September 1, 1997... The emergence and development of Transaction Cost Economics (henceforth TCE) and New Institutionalism, more generally, have generated considerable debate about their relation to existing traditions.(1) Within economics, TCE is broadly conceived...

Perverse social capital - some evidence from Colombia.
September 1, 1997... Once again, education is at the heart of the economic debate in Latin America. Low investment in human capital has been identified as one of the main obstacles to growth for South American countries. As well, an increase in problems, such as...

The intellectual antecedents of Thorstein Veblen: a case for John Bates Clark.
September 1, 1997... In a thorough survey of Thorstein Veblen's "intellectual antecedents," Stephen Edgell and Rick Tilman provide a list of possible influences on Veblen's ideas [Edgell and Tilman 1989, 1003-1004]. A name missing is Veblen's one-time professor, John...

Job assurance - the job guarantee revisited.
September 1, 1997... The employment problem needs to be divided into two parts: the problem as it applies to those ready, willing, and able to work, and the problem as it applies to the handicapped. This article concerns itself with those able to work, rather than...

Crafting institutions and the determination of their hierarchy in environmental policymaking: the Platte River as a case study.
September 1, 1997... This paper deals with resource exploitation and changing relationships among users with a shared interest in common management issues. The particular focus is on conflicts among users of the waters of the Platte River; conflicts that have...

Empirical Studies in Institutional Change.
September 1, 1997... This is another interesting volume in Cambridge University Press's series, Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions. Volumes in the series are in the "new" institutionalist tradition, and the series editors are James E. Alt and Douglass C....

Poetic Justice.
September 1, 1997... Martha Nussbaum's slim but idea-packed volume, Poetic Justice, would not likely catch the eye of the typical economist browsing the bookstore for professional reading. Nor would it be likely to be shelved in the economics section of the store....

Women, Culture, and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities.
September 1, 1997... This is a large collection of essays that continues Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum's [1993] project of bringing together economics and philosophy, using the capabilities approach that Sen pioneered. The approach holds that: "The central goal of...

The Struggle for Australian Industrial Relations.
September 1, 1997... Braham Dabscheck's The Struggle r or Australian Industrial Relations examines developments in Australian industrial relations during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A sequel to his 1989 work, Australian Industrial Relations in the 1980s, this...

Accounting for Tastes.
September 1, 1997... It is fascinating to read Gary Becker's new book, Accounting for Tastes, for a number of reasons. First, it shows that arguments against Becker's work in the past have finally reached him. Work for which he is best known and with which he had...

Unlevel Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination.
September 1, 1997... Unlevel Playing Fields, intended for use as an undergraduate textbook, has a dual purpose: to describe the persistent wage inequality and employment discrimination suffered by women and African-Americans and to contrast the analytical frameworks...

The State of Americans.
September 1, 1997... In testimony before the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives in 1969, Urie Bronfenbrenner argued that "the process of making human beings human is breaking down in American society." While he identified numerous causes of...

Communication by Design: The Politics of Information and Communication Technologies.
September 1, 1997... Communication by Design is a tightly integrated compilation of eight multidisciplinary essays by six scholars, mostly from the University of Sussex, who explore relations between the design and use of information technologies (IT) on the one...

Institutions for Environmental Aid: Pitfalls and Promise.
September 1, 1997... This volume examines institutions that transfer financial aid for environmental protection. It belongs to a larger body of literature in political science and international relations that studies the structure, functioning, performance of, and...

Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of Ecological Economics.
September 1, 1997... When an article in the New Yorker last year [Cassidy 1996] suggested ". . . that a good deal of modern economic theory, even the kind that wins Nobel Prizes, simply doesn't matter much," economists were put on notice that our profession needs to...

Post Keynesian Economics: Debt, Distribution and the Macro Economy.
September 1, 1997... This is a good book and deserves wide readership, especially among those interested in macroeconomic theory. Tom Palley offers his view of the main propositions and conclusions of Post Keynesianism, as they contrast with mainstream...