The Origins of Inequality, and Policies to Contain It
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A NEW VISION of the KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY Brian Chi-Ang Lin National Chengchi University
A NEW VISION OF THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY Brian Chi-ang Lin National Chengchi University Abstract. To date, more than half of the output in the major OECD countries has been knowledge based. This paper argues, however, that the current growth- oriented exposition of the knowledge economy rooted in the conventional concept of free competition is insufficient for promoting the long-term development of human societies. Although we now live in a knowledge economy, most countries have been concurrently characterized by serious phenomena such as environmental degradation and growing economic inequality. The prospect of meeting global commitments, for instance, to reducing inequality, as outlined in the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen and endorsed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, is bleak and the global society as a whole has become less and less sustainable. Indeed, the world is better seen as composed of numerous (but finite) knowledge economies. To take up the challenge of sustainable development of human societies, we have to develop a pluralistic perspective of the knowledge economy and fully acknowledge the characteristics of each unique knowledge system (such as indigenous knowledge possessed by a small tribe). Once we can help each individual knowledge system develop into a specific set of economic institutions that freely exchange concepts and beliefs with each other in a global environment, we will be able to develop a global economy that embodies a value-committed basis that assures a sustainable path of development on earth. Keywords. Economic inequality; Growth; Indigenous knowledge; Sustainable development; The knowledge economy There are changes in other spheres too which we must expect to come. -
Diane Perrons Gendering the Inequality Debate
Diane Perrons Gendering the inequality debate Article (Accepted version) (Refereed) Original citation: Perrons, Diane (2015) Gendering the inequality debate. Gender and Development, 23 (2). pp. 207-222. ISSN 1355-2074 DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2015.1053217 © 2015 The Author This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/63415/ Available in LSE Research Online: September 2015 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Gendering the inequality debate Diane Perrons In the past 30 years, economic inequality has increased to unprecedented levels, and is generating widespread public concern amongst orthodox, as well as leftist and feminist thinkers. This article explores the gender dimensions of growing economic inequality, summarises key arguments from feminist economics which expose the inadequacy of current mainstream economic analysis on which ‘development’ is based, and argues for a ‘gender and equality’ approach to economic and social policy in both the global North and South. -
Marxist Crisis Theory and the Severity of the Current Economic Crisis
Marxist Crisis Theory and the Severity of the Current Economic Crisis By David M. Kotz Department of Economics Thompson Hall University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst, MA 01003, U.S.A. December, 2009 Email Address: [email protected] This paper was presented on a panel on "Heterodox Analyses of the Current Economic Crisis" sponsored by the Union for Radical Political Economics at the Allied Social Science Associations annual convention, Atlanta, January 4, 2010. Research Assistance was provided by Ann Werboff. It is a revised version of a paper "The Final Crisis: What Can Cause a System-Threatening Crisis of Capitalism," Science & Society 74(3), July 2010. Marxist Crisis Theory and the Current Crisis, December, 2009 1 The theory of economic crisis has long occupied an important place in Marxist theory. One reason is the belief that a severe economic crisis can play a key role in the supersession of capitalism and the transition to socialism. Some early Marxist writers sought to develop a breakdown theory of economic crisis, in which an absolute barrier is identified to the reproduction of capitalism.1 However, one need not follow such a mechanistic approach to regard economic crisis as central to the problem of transition to socialism. It seems highly plausible that a severe and long-lasting crisis of accumulation would create conditions that are potentially favorable for a transition, although such a crisis is no guarantee of that outcome.2 Marxist analysts generally agree that capitalism produces two qualitatively different kinds of economic crisis. One is the periodic business cycle recession, which is resolved after a relatively short period by the normal mechanisms of a capitalist economy, although since World War II government monetary and fiscal policy have often been employed to speed the end of the recession. -
2015 FOX Fall Forum
2015 FOX Fall Forum FOX 100 Resource Center A Roundup of Leading Industry Knowledge amily Office Exchange (FOX) is pleased to present this year’s F selection of articles, reports and white papers devoted to the issues of most concern to wealth owners and family office executives globally. To assist in locating information of particular interest, Resource Center material once again is grouped by subject area: • Trusts, Tax and Estate Planning Page 2 • Security, Technology, Family Office Page 4 and Lifestyle Issues • Family Matters (Legacy Planning) Page 9 • Investment Page 11 • Family Office Issues Page 17 Soon after the conclusion of the Fall Forum unless noted as “print only” all Resource Center material will be available at: https://www.familyoffice.com/learning-events/forums/2015-fox-100 Presented in the Grand Foyer Lobby, JW Marriott 1 2015 FOX Fall Forum TRUSTS, TAX AND ESTATE APPLICATION OF THE 2-PERCENT FLOOR TO TRUST AND ESTATE EXPENSES PLANNING McGladrey LLP Though the IRS issued the final regulations for INBOUND WEALTH PLANNING FOR THE section 67 in May 2014 to require the GLOBAL FAMILY unbundling of a fiduciary's integrated fee, Northern Trust corporate fiduciaries and tax planners continue Determining exactly whose income, gains and to struggle with designing and implementing assets is subject to the U.S. Federal tax system procedures to ensure that the directive is is a daunting inquiry that requires a properly accounted for on returns during the comprehensive approach without shortcuts. upcoming tax filing season. And, just when the general rules of international tax principles under the Internal Revenue Code While most corporate fiduciaries have moved on (the Code) and related treasury regulations have to the task of applying the regulations to their been reviewed and applied, an applicable trusts and estates, some commentators still international tax treaty or a new tax law can contend that the regulations misinterpret the change everything. -
Copyrighted Material
PART 1 The World Property Market – A Beginner’s Guide There is no shortage of ‘experts’ when it comes to investing in prop- erty. Nearly everyone, everywhere, who bought property a decade ago is sitting on a unprecedented pile of ‘dough’. Nominally, that is, of course, because property profi t is notional until we cash in our chips. This ‘success’ has gone to our heads, while few of us did anything very clever to achieve this paper wealth. For the most part, we just rode the wave that swept us further and further up the profi t curve. While not many people remember the last property collapse, though 2007–8 may refresh some memories many more are still nursing losses from the stock market collapse that followed the ‘Dot Com’ bubble burst. The ‘expert’ investors who rode that wave up have discovered two important facts: what goes up a long way fast can come down just as dramatically; and that they had either forgotten or never really knew the fundamentals that underpin long-term share prices. Now, there are no absolute guarantees with any investment, except that your chances of success are improved exponentially if you understand something ofCOPYRIGHTED the forces at work in the market MATERIAL – in this case, the property market. If you really are an expert and your property investments have outperformed the general trend, then skip this chapter. If not, read on. Property – the backbone of wealth creation Property has been a worthwhile source of wealth for generations. More private individuals have become millionaires in this way than 10 PART 1 THE WORLD PROPERTY MARKET – A BEGINNER’S GUIDE by any other route to wealth. -
Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development, Selected Essays of Herman Daly ADVANCES in ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS Series Editor:Jeroen C.J.M
Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development, Selected Essays of Herman Daly ADVANCES IN ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS Series Editor:Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, ICREA Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain and Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Founding Editor:Robert Costanza, Director, University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics and Professor, Center for Environmental and Estuarine Studies and Zoology Department, USA This important series makes a significant contribution to the development of the principles and practices of ecological economics, a field which has expanded dra- matically in recent years. The series provides an invaluable forum for the publica- tion of high quality work and shows how ecological economic analysis can make a contribution to understanding and resolving important problems. The main emphasis of the series is on the development and application of new original ideas in ecological economics. International in its approach, it includes some of the best theoretical and empirical work in the field with contributions to funda- mental principles, rigorous evaluations of existing concepts, historical surveys and future visions. It seeks to address some of the most important theoretical questions and gives policy solutions for the ecological problems confronting the global village as we move into the twenty-first century. Titles in the series include: Economic Growth, Material Flows and the Environment New Applications of Structural Decomposition Analysis and Physical Input–Output Tables Rutger Hoekstra Joint Production and Responsibility in Ecological Economics On the Foundations of Environmental Policy Stefan Baumgärtner, Malte Faber and Johannes Schiller Frontiers in Ecological Economic Theory and Application Edited by Jon D. -
Unfree Labor, Capitalism and Contemporary Forms of Slavery
Unfree Labor, Capitalism and Contemporary Forms of Slavery Siobhán McGrath Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, New School University Economic Development & Global Governance and Independent Study: William Milberg Spring 2005 1. Introduction It is widely accepted that capitalism is characterized by “free” wage labor. But what is “free wage labor”? According to Marx a “free” laborer is “free in the double sense, that as a free man he can dispose of his labour power as his own commodity, and that on the other hand he has no other commodity for sale” – thus obliging the laborer to sell this labor power to an employer, who possesses the means of production. Yet, instances of “unfree labor” – where the worker cannot even “dispose of his labor power as his own commodity1” – abound under capitalism. The question posed by this paper is why. What factors can account for the existence of unfree labor? What role does it play in an economy? Why does it exist in certain forms? In terms of the broadest answers to the question of why unfree labor exists under capitalism, there appear to be various potential hypotheses. ¾ Unfree labor may be theorized as a “pre-capitalist” form of labor that has lingered on, a “vestige” of a formerly dominant mode of production. Similarly, it may be viewed as a “non-capitalist” form of labor that can come into existence under capitalism, but can never become the central form of labor. ¾ An alternate explanation of the relationship between unfree labor and capitalism is that it is part of a process of primary accumulation. -
Kopczuk and Saez, 2004)
Top Wealth Shares in the United States, 1916–2000 Top Wealth Shares in the United States, 1916–2000: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns Abstract - This paper presents new homogeneous series on top wealth shares from 1916 to 2000 in the United States using estate tax return data. Top wealth shares were very high at the beginning of the period but have been hit sharply by the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II shocks. Those shocks have had per- manent effects. Following a decline in the 1970s, top wealth shares recovered in the early 1980s, but they are still much lower in 2000 than in the early decades of the century. Most of the changes we document are concentrated among the very top wealth holders with much smaller movements for groups below the top 0.1 percent. Con- sistent with the Survey of Consumer Finances results, top wealth shares estimated from Estate Tax Returns display no significant increase since 1995. Evidence from the Forbes 400 richest Ameri- cans suggests that only the super–rich have experienced significant gains relative to the average over the last decade. Our results are consistent with the decreased importance of capital incomes at the top of the income distribution documented by Piketty and Saez (2003), and suggest that the rentier class of the early century is not yet reconstituted. The paper proposes several tentative explanations to account for the facts. Wojciech Kopczuk INTRODUCTION Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 he pattern of wealth and income inequality during the and Tprocess of development of modern economies has at- tracted enormous attention since Kuznets (1955) formulated NBER, Cambridge, MA his famous inverted U–curve hypothesis. -
Esther Duflo Wins Clark Medal
Esther Duflo wins Clark medal http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/duflo-clark-0423.html?tmpl=compon... MIT’s influential poverty researcher heralded as best economist under age 40. Peter Dizikes, MIT News Office April 23, 2010 MIT economist Esther Duflo PhD ‘99, whose influential research has prompted new ways of fighting poverty around the globe, was named winner today of the John Bates Clark medal. Duflo is the second woman to receive the award, which ranks below only the Nobel Prize in prestige within the economics profession and is considered a reliable indicator of future Nobel consideration (about 40 percent of past recipients have won a Nobel). Duflo, a 37-year-old native of France, is the Abdul Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and and Development Economics at MIT, was named the winner of the Development Economics at MIT and a director of 2010 John Bates Clark medal. MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Photo - Photo: L. Barry Hetherington (J-PAL). Her work uses randomized field experiments to identify highly specific programs that can alleviate poverty, ranging from low-cost medical treatments to innovative education programs. Duflo, who officially found out about the medal via a phone call earlier today, says she regards the medal as “one for the team,” meaning the many researchers who have contributed to the renewal of development economics. “This is a great honor,” Duflo told MIT News. “Not only for me, but my colleagues and MIT. Development economics has changed radically over the last 10 years, and this is recognition of the work many people are doing.” The American Economic Association, which gives the Clark medal to the top economist under age 40, said Duflo had distinguished herself through “definitive contributions” in the field of development economics. -
The “Ill Kill'd” Deer: Poaching and Social Order in the Merry Wives of Windsor
The “ill kill’d” Deer: Poaching and Social Order in The Merry Wives of Windsor Jeffrey Theis Nicholas Rowe once asserted that the young Shakespeare was caught stealing a deer from Sir Thomas Lucy’s park at Charlecote. The anecdote’s truth-value is clearly false, yet the narrative’s plausibility resonates from the local social customs in Shakespeare’s Warwickshire region. As the social historian Roger Manning convincingly argues, hunting and its ille- gitimate kin poaching thoroughly pervaded all social strata of early modern English culture. Close proximity to the Forest of Arden and nu- merous aristocratic deer parks and rabbit warrens would have steeped Shakespeare’s early life in the practices of hunting and poaching whether he engaged in them or only heard stories about them.1 While some Shakespeare criticism attends directly or indirectly to the importance of hunting in the comedies, remarkably, there has been no sustained analysis of poaching’s importance in these plays.2 In part, the reason for the oversight might be lexicographical. The word “poaching” never occurs in any of Shakespeare’s works, and the first instance in which poaching means “to take game or fish illegally” is in 1611—a decade after Shakespeare composed his comedies.3 Yet while the word was not coined for another few years, Roger Manning proves that illegal deer killing was a socially and politically explosive issue well before 1611. Thus, the “ill kill’d deer” Justice Shallow refers to in Act One of The Merry Wives of Windsor situates the play within a socially resonant discourse where illegal deer killing brings to light cultural assumptions imbedded within the legal hunt. -
World Economic Forum
Income inequality in the US: a version of the story you won't have ... https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/new-data-shows-what-h... Income inequality in the US: a version of the story you won't have heard Inequality trends since 2000 actually are different from those during the 1980s and 1990s. Image: REUTERS/Las Vegas This article is published in collaboration with the Washington Center for Equitable Growth 20 Apr 2017 Nick Bunker Policy Analyst, Washington Center for Equitable Growth How much has income inequality risen in the United States? Well, how do you define income? And what time period are you looking at? The most well-known statistics about income inequality—including the famous data from economists Thomas Piketty at the Paris School of Economics and Emmanuel Saez at the University of California, Berkeley—are based on tax data and show a significant increase in inequality since the late 1970s. But are the trends revealed in those data over that time period still holding up? 1 of 4 4/27/17, 1:49 PM Income inequality in the US: a version of the story you won't have ... https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/new-data-shows-what-h... Digging into the data reveals that inequality trends since 2000 actually are different from those during the 1980s and 1990s. A paper released last week as a National Bureau of Economics Research paper takes a look at how income inequality has changed in the 21st century. The two authors, Fatih Guvenen of the University of Minnesota and Greg Kaplan of the University of Chicago, take a look at two different sources of income data. -
Adam Smith: Founder of Economics
Adam Smith: Founder of Economics Robert M. Coen Professor Emeritus of Economics Northwestern Alumnae Continuing Education January 5, 2017 Adam Smith, 1723-1790 John Rattray, 1707-71 Signatory of First Rules of Golf (1744) Ways of Coordinating Economic Activity Traditional Structures Authoritarian Structures Market structures Reasons for Slow Development of Markets Popularity of Mercantilism Government promotes exports, stifles imports Favored industries get subsidies, protection, monopoly franchises Establish and exploit foreign colonies Accumulate riches (gold) for royalty Reasons for Slow Development of Markets Popularity of Mercantilism Avarice regarded as sin False Principles of Trade Boston Minister John Cotton, 1639 A man might sell as dear as he can and buy as cheap as he can If a man lose some of his goods, say by accident at sea, he may raise the price of the rest He may sell at the price he bought, even though he paid too much Reasons for Slow Development of Markets Popularity of Mercantilism Avarice regarded as sin Indifferent attitudes toward personal betterment Prevalence of local taxes on movement of goods Lack of standardization of weights and measures Multiple currencies Resistance to innovation Land, labor, and capital not developed concepts Factors Promoting Development of Markets Enclosure of commons Ringleaders of the Enclosure Movement Rural Life After Enclosure of the Commons Factors Promoting Development of Markets Enclosure of commons Political consolidation and centralization Decay of religious spirit Bernard Mandeville,