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A Use of the University of Michigan: Samuel P. Hayes Jr. and Economic Development

Ethan Schrum

in The Instrumental University: Education in Service of the National Agenda after World War II

Chapter 5 examines how Samuel P. Hayes, Jr., an early Point Four official who later helped design the Peace Corps, tried to “use” the University of Michigan to establish a program of ... More

Chapter 5 examines how Samuel P. Hayes, Jr., an early Point Four official who later helped design the Peace Corps, tried to “use” the University of Michigan to establish a program of multidisciplinary organized research on economic development, the Center for Research on Economic Development (CRED). The resistance he encountered from university administrators and economics department colleagues suggests that traditional academic norms did not always yield completely to interdisciplinary organized research. Yet the establishment of CRED, which had parallels at the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt, and Yale, suggests the importance of economic development as a focus for organized research in the instrumental university. This chapter also provides an account of the new subfield of development economics and of the relationship between the economics discipline and the behavioral science paradigm.Less

Oil on the Waters? Middle East Studies and Economics for the Middle East

Karen Pfeifer

in Middle East Studies for the New Milleniu: Infrastructures of Knowledge

This chapter first reviews the reasons for the weak links between the fields of economics and Middle East studies (MES) in the United States. It then examines the growth of the economics profession ... More

This chapter first reviews the reasons for the weak links between the fields of economics and Middle East studies (MES) in the United States. It then examines the growth of the economics profession and its work in the Middle East and the shaping of this work by international and regional organizations, especially the Middle East Economic Association and the Economic Research Forum for the Arab World, Turkey, and Iran. It concludes by considering the contested boundaries between economics and MES and how the political uprisings of 2011 were both affected by and affect the work of economists in the region, as painful economic reality and the contest of economic ideas quietly underlay the louder and more dramatic political turmoil of 2011–13.Less

The war of ideas

Harry Blutstein

in The Ascent of Globalisation

At the same time as Keynes was celebrating success at Bretton Woods, neoliberal economist Friedrich Hayek started to publicly campaign against the liberal economic order, in what he called the ‘war ... More

At the same time as Keynes was celebrating success at Bretton Woods, neoliberal economist Friedrich Hayek started to publicly campaign against the liberal economic order, in what he called the ‘war of ideas.’ He fired the first shots in this war with the publication of The Road to Serfdom, and then established the Mont Pèlerin Society, where he hoped to rally fighters for his war. He turned out to be a poor field general and it looked like the war might be over before it started. Hayek, however, did inspire a young fighter pilot, Antony Fisher, who did have fire in his belly and was keen to face grapeshot in the war of ideas. In 1956, Fisher established the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). This think tank, together with others modelled on the IEA, helped spread pro-market ideas. The high point of their campaign came when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were elected, establishing neoliberalism as the new economic orthodoxy. In 1980, Hayek advised Fisher that he needed to seed the world with neoliberal think tanks. The result was the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which networks over 400 think tanks worldwide and they have helped spread the war of ideas.Less

:: The Early History of the NBER

Robert William Fogel, Enid M. Fogel, Mark Guglielmo, and Nathaniel Grotte

in Political Arithmetic: Simon Kuznets and the Empirical Tradition in Economics

This chapter discusses the history of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). It covers the prewar origins of the NBER; the role (and limitations) of economists during World War I; and the ... More

This chapter discusses the history of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). It covers the prewar origins of the NBER; the role (and limitations) of economists during World War I; and the founding of the NBER in 1920.Less

Who Are Criminals? A Review

in Criminals and Victims

Crime economic research seeks to understand why crime occurs and what mechanism can reduce its incidence or its consequences. This chapter gives a focused review of economic literature relating to ... More

Crime economic research seeks to understand why crime occurs and what mechanism can reduce its incidence or its consequences. This chapter gives a focused review of economic literature relating to criminal behavior. It provides a background on crime economic research and the theoretical and empirical advances that have been made in this discipline. It describes the economic model of crime and its theoretical variants. Gary S. Becker's economic model of crime, for example, offers insights about criminal behavior and the factors that influence criminal activities. The chapter also examines how economists have approached the empirical testing of specific hypotheses implied by the economic model of crime and its variants and summarizes what researchers have found after nearly forty years of studies.Less

US aid and the creation of an Irish scientific research infrastructure

Peter Murray and Maria Feeney

in Church, State and Social Science in Ireland: Knowledge Institutions and the Rebalancing of Power, 1937-73

This chapter broadens out the focus from Irish sociology to examine Irish scientific research. Its central theme is the way in which resources provided or jointly controlled by US actors underpinned ... More

This chapter broadens out the focus from Irish sociology to examine Irish scientific research. Its central theme is the way in which resources provided or jointly controlled by US actors underpinned the development of a modern scientific research infrastructure within the state in the period after the Second World War. The scientific fields principally affected by these financial injections were applied research related to agriculture, industry and economics. Money flowed into these fields from two major sources: the Grant Counterpart Fund, which was a legacy of Ireland’s participation in the Marshall Plan, and private US foundations. In other fields, such as management and `human sciences’, significant resource transfers took place in kind as much as in cash through productivity and technical assistance programmes. The infrastructure developments that clustered in the late 1950s and the early 1960s interacted with older scientific institutional configurations laid down under the Union with Britain and subjected to emaciating neglect after the advent of political independence.Less

A Historiography of Early NBER Housing and Mortgage Research

Kenneth Snowden

in Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective

As the U.S. grew rapidly and urbanized between 1870 and 1930, nonfarm residential construction and home mortgage debt became increasingly important to the nation’s capital formation, financial ... More

As the U.S. grew rapidly and urbanized between 1870 and 1930, nonfarm residential construction and home mortgage debt became increasingly important to the nation’s capital formation, financial structure, and short-run aggregate performance. However, during this period, both activities remained highly localized, institutionally diverse, and unevenly regulated activities. This all changed during the Great Depression when the Federal Government responded to the worst housing and mortgage crisis in the nation’s history with a five-year burst of regulatory initiatives. The NBER played a central role in the academic discussion of residential construction and mortgage finance that blossomed over the next quarter century. Between 1935 and 1960, the Bureau sponsored six distinct research programs that produced thirteen major monographs examining the performance and transformation of the housing and mortgage markets. When viewed collectively, these works provide a broad and deep analysis of residential construction and financing before World War I, through the boom and bust of the interwar years, and during a remarkable post-World War II expansion.Less

What Kind of Re-Imagining Does Economic Sociology Need?

Neil Fligstein

in Re-Imagining Economic Sociology

From the beginning, economic sociology resembled a social movement where participants agreed to a broad definition of the field to attract the widest number of scholars. Many of the research programs ... More

From the beginning, economic sociology resembled a social movement where participants agreed to a broad definition of the field to attract the widest number of scholars. Many of the research programs that grew up under this umbrella are now quite mature. Some recent work by Dan Wang maps out how scholars teach economic sociology. He shows that these research programs form a kind of set of canonical works, but, having said this, most do not actively try and take other programs into account. This leads to the argument that to re-imagine economic sociology we must do so against what already exists. Real progress can be made when scholars work at the interstices between research programs and apply what is already known in one context to new contexts. Without such cross fertilization, the field is likely to never be much more than a set of faddish projects.Less

Comment on Barbera: Your Gift Will Make You Rich

Casey B. Mulligan

in The Economists' Voice 2.0: The Financial Crisis, Health Care Reform, and More

This chapter presents Casey B. Mulligan’s response to Robert Barbera’s commentary entitled “If It Were a Fight, They Would Have Stopped It in December of 2008” in Chapter 24. Mulligan claims that ... More

This chapter presents Casey B. Mulligan’s response to Robert Barbera’s commentary entitled “If It Were a Fight, They Would Have Stopped It in December of 2008” in Chapter 24. Mulligan claims that Barbera appears to disagree with his article and to deeply dislike modern macroeconomics. Barbera’s view is not based on a reading of the academic literature that is being debated, nor even a balanced examination of his own portfolio of economic research and forecasting but, rather, on just two observations: (1) that Mulligan and some of the other modern macroeconomists do not think that an interruption of activity in the banking sector (where Mr. Barbera works) is all that critical to the rest of the economy, and (2) that Mulligan made one incorrect forecast in October 2008.Less

Economic outcomes

Robert E. Drake, Gary R. Bond, and Deborah R. Becker

in Individual Placement and Support: An Evidence-Based Approach to Supported Employment

Because of pressure to expand Individual Placement and Support (IPS) capacity from clients and other stakeholders, several economists and policy experts have reviewed the economic research on IPS in ... More

Because of pressure to expand Individual Placement and Support (IPS) capacity from clients and other stakeholders, several economists and policy experts have reviewed the economic research on IPS in the United States and elsewhere. This chapter discusses economic issues, some related to rehabilitation services in general and others specific to IPS.Less

Economic Measurement

Ben S. Bernanke

in Measuring Economic Sustainability and Progress

Ben Bernanke’s opening remarks reflect on the importance of measurement in economic decision-making. The ultimate purpose of economics is to promote wellbeing, and variables in economic policy making ... More

Ben Bernanke’s opening remarks reflect on the importance of measurement in economic decision-making. The ultimate purpose of economics is to promote wellbeing, and variables in economic policy making must therefore include determinants of wellbeing, including those that go beyond aggregate statistics which can obscure individual experiences. Increasing the attention paid to microeconomic data could better capture the diversity of experience across households and firms. The measurement of life satisfaction or wellbeing as a direction for economic policy research has generated alternative measures of well-being that are frequently survey-based and incorporate elements such as psychological wellness, the level of education, physical health and safety, community vitality and the strength of family and social ties, and time spent in leisure activities.Less

Introduction

Michael D. Bordo and Athanasios Orphanides

in The Great Inflation: The Rebirth of Modern Central Banking

This introductory chapter first discusses the dimensions of the Great Inflation from 1965 to 1982, which caused significant damage to the US economy and to the economies of many other countries, and ... More

This introductory chapter first discusses the dimensions of the Great Inflation from 1965 to 1982, which caused significant damage to the US economy and to the economies of many other countries, and then surveys the themes that have dominated the research on the Great Inflation from the 1970s to the present. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Shared Capitalism in the U.S. Economy: Prevalence, Characteristics, and Employee Views of Financial Participation in Enterprises

Douglas L. Kruse, Joseph R. Blasi, and Rhokeun Park

in Shared Capitalism at Work: Employee Ownership, Profit and Gain Sharing, and Broad-Based Stock Options

This chapter gives an account of the current forms and extend of shared capitalism in the U.S. economy and provides an overall portrait of shared capitalism using the General Social Survey (GSS) and ... More

This chapter gives an account of the current forms and extend of shared capitalism in the U.S. economy and provides an overall portrait of shared capitalism using the General Social Survey (GSS) and National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER) data sets. Both the NBER data set and the nationally-representative GSS data set indicate that while shared capitalism exists broadly throughout the economy, it is not distributed randomly across firms and employees. One important finding is that, shared capitalism plans are more likely in larger establishments, where free riding is likely to be the highest. To counter free riding, firms may combine shared capitalism with other policies to create a cooperative culture. An examination of risk aversion in the NBER data set shows that, risk aversion is linked to lower participation in several types of plans and less positive views of shared capitalism.Less

Creating a Bigger Pie? The Effects of Employee Ownership, Profit Sharing, and Stock Options on Workplace Performance

Joseph R. Blasi, Richard B. Freeman, Christopher Mackin, and Douglas L. Kruse

in Shared Capitalism at Work: Employee Ownership, Profit and Gain Sharing, and Broad-Based Stock Options

This chapter analyzes the relationship of various forms of shared capitalist compensation to six workplace outcomes—turnover, absenteeism, perceived effort of co-workers, loyalty to the firm, ... More

This chapter analyzes the relationship of various forms of shared capitalist compensation to six workplace outcomes—turnover, absenteeism, perceived effort of co-workers, loyalty to the firm, willingness to work hard, and frequency of worker suggestions to improve productivity from the perspective of shared capitalism. It also examines employee responses to questions about their response to shared capitalist incentives and analysis using the General Social Survey (GSS) and NBER data sets. It states that shared capitalism affects workplace performance and substantiated by the fact that the results from the NBER sample are broadly similar to the results from the nationally-representative GSS. Shared capitalism is linked to lower turnover and greater loyalty and willingness to work hard, particularly when combined with high-performance policies, low levels of supervision, and fixed pay at or above market levels. Workplaces where workers average more shared capitalist compensation report greater employee effort along several dimensions.Less

Introduction

Karl Wärneryd

in The Economics of Conflict: Theory and Empirical Evidence

This introductory chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to present a wide range of economic research on conflict. It brings together a variety of approaches, from the purely game-theoretical ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to present a wide range of economic research on conflict. It brings together a variety of approaches, from the purely game-theoretical to the experimental, that all have in common a rational-choice perspective on conflict—a topic that often in the past has been thought to involve the inherently irrational. It is argued that economics needs a theory of conflict because economic transactions, even when they are not outright conflicting, necessarily take place in the shadow of conflict. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less