Economics Faculty Works

The Utility of Value: The "New Solution," Unequal Exchange, and Crisis

James Devine — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:04:51 PDT

The Law of Value and Marxian Political Ecology

James Devine — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:04:50 PDT

The Cause of the 1929-33 Great Collapse: A Marxian Interpretation

James Devine — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:04:49 PDT

Roemer's "General" Theory of Exploitation Is a Special Case: The Limits of Walrasian Marxism

James Devine et al. — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:47:10 PST

In a series of recent writings, John Roemer (1982a, 1982b, 1985, 1988) has made a provocative claim: exploitation and class are merely second-order concepts within Marxian theory, because both phenomena derive directly from differential ownership of productive assets (DOPA); indeed, exploitation remains a consistent index of economic injustice only if a “property relations” conception of exploitation replaces the common “labor-value” view. In sum, property relations, not the labor exchange, the labor proces, labor values, or even capitalist accumlation should be the central concern of Marxian theory.

Openness, Economic Growth, and Development: Some Further Results

Zaki Eusufzai — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:47:09 PST

Economic Crisis and Policy Choice: The Politics of Adjustment in the 3rd World, by J.M. Nelson

Zaki Eusufzai — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:47:08 PST

The IMF and the South: The Social Impact of Crisis and Adjustment, by D. Ghai

Zaki Eusufzai — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:47:07 PST

Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy

Andrew Healy et al. — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:47:06 PST

Do voters effectively hold elected officials accountable for policy decisions? Using data on natural disasters, government spending, and election returns, we show that voters reward the incumbent presidential party for delivering disaster relief spending, but not for investing in disaster preparedness spending. These inconsistencies distort the incentives of public officials, leading the government to underinvest in disaster preparedness, thereby causing substantial public welfare losses. We estimate that $1 spent on preparedness is worth about $15 in terms of the future damage it mitigates. By estimating both the determinants of policy decisions and the consequences of those policies, we provide more complete evidence about citizen competence and government accountability

Distributing Indivisible Goods Fairly: Evidence from a Questionnaire Study

Dorothea K. Herreiner et al. — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:28:18 PDT

We report the results of a questionnaire study on the fair distribution of
indivisible goods. We collected data from three different subject pools, first- and secondyear students majoring in economics, law students, and advanced economics students with some background knowledge of fairness theories. The purpose of this study is to assess the empirical relevance of various fairness criteria such as inequality aversion, the utilitarian principle of maximizing the sum of individual payoffs, the Rawlsian “maximin” principle of maximizing the payoff of the worst-off individual, and the criterion of envy-freeness (in the sense of Foley, 1967).

Inequality Aversion and Efficiency with Ordinal and Cardinal Social Preferences – An Experimental Study

Dorothea K. Herreiner et al. — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:25:03 PDT

In this paper, we report on a series of free-form bargaining experiments in
which two players have to distribute four indivisible goods among themselves. In one treatment, players are informed about the monetary payoffs associated with each bundle of goods; in a second treatment only the ordinal ranking of the bundles is given. We find that in both cases, inequality aversion plays a prominent role. In the ordinal treatment, individuals apparently use the ranks in the respective preference orderings over bundles of goods as a substitute for the unknown monetary value. Allocations that distribute the value (money or ranks, respectively) most equally serve as natural “reference points” for
the bargaining processes. Frequently, such “equal split” allocations are chosen by our subjects even though they are Pareto dominated; but also if they are rejected for that reason they matter in a specific way: whether a Pareto optimal allocation is chosen or not depends on whether or not it is a Pareto improvement relative to the equal split. Interestingly, we find much less Pareto-damaging behavior due to inequality aversion in the ordinal treatment.

Envy Freeness in Experimental Fair Division Problems

Dorothea K. Herreiner et al. — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:19:44 PDT

Envy is sometimes suggested as an underlying motive in the assessment of
different economic allocations. In the theoretical literature on fair division, following Foley (1967), the term “envy” refers to an intrapersonal comparison of different consumption bundles. By contrast, in its everyday use “envy” involves interpersonal comparisons of well-being. We present and discuss results from free-form bargaining experiments on fair division problems in which inter- and intrapersonal criteria can be distinguished. We find that interpersonal comparisons play the dominant role. The effect of the intrapersonal criterion of envy-freeness is limited to situations in which other fairness criteria are not applicable.