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This paper analyzes how kin-related values, norms, and practices become entangled in the hegemony of global supply chains. Our collaboration focuses on the Made in Italy fast fashion sector, where the ultimate flexible workers are Chinese migrants. We home in on a paradox: half of the births in this Italian textile city are to foreign women, yet once weaned many of these babies are then sent to China. This circulation of children gives rise to a host of new discourses and interventions on parenting from various institutions and experts. We develop and use an encounter ethnography framework to contrast the expert views of childhood circulation with those of immigrant parents. We argue that global households underwrite capitalism through noncapitalist elements that are integral to the economic organization that fast fashion requires. Parents find value in circulating children in its power to activate systems of reciprocity across kin, to create networked bodies across territories, to secure affective bonds across generations, and to free up time so as to enhance their ability to work and make money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American employers are increasingly engaging their workers in the political process. Drawing on original surveys of firms and workers, this paper examines the extent to which employers act as political machines, channeling their employees into politics in ways intended to support corporate interests. I show that employer political requests greatly increased the likelihood that employees would report participating in politics around the 2014 election and employer requests were roughly as effective as those from unions and political parties. I also find that employer mobilization was most effective when employers used warnings of job loss to motivate participation and when employers could monitor the behavior of their employees, suggesting that employers are indeed acting as a type of political machine. My results shed light on the ways that American firms recruit workers into politics and show that employer mobilization of workers may be an important source of political power for business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic stability has become a visible problem of social justice. Despite this, a paradigm to justify distribution of stability both inside and outside production is lacking. This paper offers one kind of response by examining how a notion of property rights in stability changes how we conceive of the economic aspects of democratic rights and their rooting in common ownership and control of resources. To elaborate, the paper considers implications for the relation between egalitarian principles and policies and examines links between progressive public finance and the distribution of economic stability in more horizontal and hierarchical capitalist states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the hypothesis that increasing stocks of foreign direct investment (FDI) can lead to de facto decentralization in the form of autonomous reform experiments by subnational leaders. Because these reform experiments may attract FDI in subsequent years, there is a possibility of endogeneity. As a result, the methodology is a simultaneous equation model of 61 Vietnamese provinces between 1990 and 2000. Stocks of FDI as a percentage of GDP are regressed on a measure of autonomy derived from a content analysis of Vietnamese state-owned newspapers. Every time a province is cited in the papers for violating central laws on economic policy by engaging in reform experimentation, it is coded as a case of autonomy. The central question of the analysis is: how much FDI is needed for a province to believe it has the bargaining power to challenge central authority for the first time in a given year? Using this approach, I find strong evidence for the influence of FDI on local autonomous economic reform experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the impact of articles published in the Marine Resource Economics (MRE) and within the field of fisheries economics in general over the period 1954-2004. Specific attention is given to the years 1984-2004, which is the period that MRE has been published. The degree of influence is assessed using citation analysis. I present the most cited papers in MRE, the top ten all time cited fisheries economics papers, and the most cited papers during each decade over the last 30 years. By analysing the trend of recently published papers, I can assess which ones are projected to be most influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that an optimal merger policy requires consideration of efficiencies in enforcement decisions. However, as understanding of a market's equilibrium structure is required to integrate the efficiency defense into a merger analysis, efficiency evaluations are controversial. New Institutional Economics further complicates the discussion by highlighting the need to address a range of transaction cost issues. This paper reviews the debate and promotes the application of an institutionally-based business strategy analysis to evaluate both efficiencies and competitive concerns in an integrated frame- work. In special cases, formal mathematical analysis may be used to balance the two concerns, while in most situations a qualitative presentation will be required. The paper concludes with a discussion of the current state of the efficiency defense and a proposal for the qualitative use of customer opinions to balance competitive concerns with efficiency benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the link between political control of government bureaucracies and citizens' likelihood to stage disruptive protests. A public administration heavily controlled by politicians, and staffed to a large extent with political appointees, allows politicians to intervene in policy implementation and favor some groups over others in terms of access to public services. Such a system may induce citizens or civic associations to resort to disruptive actions to express demands and demonstrate political relevance, and thereby secure access to public goods. The effects are hypothesized to be more pronounced where civil society is stronger. We test the arguments empirically on data from 19 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the findings are consistent with the hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I rehearse the thinking steps J. K Gibson-Graham developed in order to theorize diverse economies and reveal a landscape of economic difference. Reading with and against Clifford Geertz's 1973 essay "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," I discuss how "thick description" of diverse economic practices can be combined with weak theory to produce a performative rethinking of economy centered on the well-being of people and the planet. I discuss the difficulties of resisting the influence of "strong theory"-that is, powerful discourses that organize events into understandable and seemingly predictable trajectories. I outline the diverse economy, a reframing that allows for a much wider range of social relations to be seen to bear on economic practices including, to name just some, trust, care, sharing, reciprocity, cooperation, coercion, bondage, thrift, guilt, love, equity, self-exploitation, solidarity, distributive justice, stewardship, spiritual connection, and environmental and social justice. In the complexly overdetermined field of a diverse economy, we are invited to trace multiple dynamics at play. It is in the apprehension of these diverse determinations that ethnographic thick description comes into its own and leads the way toward rethinking the economy. For ethnographers today, no task is more important than to make small facts speak to large concerns, to make the ethical acts ethnography describes into a performative ontology of economy and the threads of hope that emerge into stories of everyday revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests three predictions about consumer behavior derived from a behavioral economics perspective against the predictions of the rational choice model in the market for new credit cards. First, behavioral economics implies that because immediate rewards reduce the pain of paying, consumers who obtain a new rewards card should be more likely to carry a balance on the card than those who obtain new cards lacking the rewards feature. In contrast, rational choice argues that consumers should be less likely to carry a balance on a new rewards card, because they should seek to maximize the volume of transactions. Second, behavioralists have argued that because of hyperbolic discounting, credit cards lead to increases in indebtedness over time. Thus, the probability of carrying a balance on a new card should increase over time. Rational choice has no such implication. Third, some have argued that cards with no annual fee reduce the immediate pain of paying, and therefore should be associated with an increase in the likelihood of carrying a balance. In contrast, rational choice implied that consumers who plan to revolve should choose cards with higher annual fees and lower interest rates to reduce the overall cost of borrowing. We use data from a long-running survey of consumer spending and payment choices commissioned by Visa USA to examine these predictions among consumers who acquired new credit cards between 1994 and 2003. We follow consumers' use of new cards for up to two years after they are obtained. Consistent with the rational choice predictions, we find that consumers are less likely to revolve on a rewards card than another new card. We also find that the longer consumers have a card, the less likely they are to carry a balance. Finally, we find that consumers are less likely to revolve on a card with no annual fee. These conclusions are not sensitive to several alternative specifications of the empirical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Deng Xiaoping actively participated in, effectively implemented and strictly supervised Mao's notorious utopian project, the Great Leap Forward, which claimed the lives of tens of millions of Chinese people. The paper will also consider the negative influences of Deng on the political processes of the Chinese Communist Party during the devastating campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nakassis et al., in their contribution to this Forum, argue that the term "redistribution" has been used with a range of meanings in the context of the Aegean Bronze Age and so obscures rather than illuminates the emergence and functioning of political economies. They call for detailed empirical investigation rather than reliance on ambiguous idealized types. Lupack and Schon concur, arguing respectively that the palace shared control of the Mycenaean economy with sanctuaries and local communities and that centralized production of craft goods (an,d thus elite strategies of wealth finance) developed late at the palace of Pylos. Pullen finds little archaeological support for Renfrew's extrapolation of centralized redistribution to the Early Bronze Age, while Christakis uses evidence of storage to argue the same for Prepalatial Crete and to play down the scale and importance of elite redistribution in the Minoan palaces. The calls for circumspect use of the term "redistribution" and for detailed empirical investigation are applauded, although these five papers arguably do not all attack the same form of redistribution. This response argues that redistribution sensu Polanyi, Finley, and Killen (i.e., centrally administered movements of goods and services without equivalence of value) retains considerable heuristic value in investigation of both textual and archaeological evidence for Bronze Age political economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows largely bypass the developing world? The objective of this article is to study this question by focusing on the effect of an increase in the level of democracy on FDI inflows into developing countries. An increase in the level of democracy provides the right macro and micro conditions for larger FDI inflows. The econometric results indicate that a one standard deviation increase in the level of democracy is associated with increased FDI inflows. My empirical findings support a direct relationship between enhanced levels of democracy and FDI inflows, and the results call into question the idea that developing countries receive less capital inflows if they choose to democratize. Moreover, a reanalysis of Li and Resnick's influential 2003 paper essentially overturns their findings in support of a direct association between an increase in the level of democracy and greater FDI inflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper disaggregates government accounts to examine whether and how representation affects the level and distribution of taxation. Using panel data for over 100 countries from 1970 to 1999 and cross-sectional data for approximately 75 democracies from 1990 to 1998,we find that both democratization and voter turnout induced a modest but highly systematic increase in revenue from regressive taxes on consumption. While one-third of the increase due to democratization reflects a shift from more inefficient and similarly regressive taxes on trade, most of it was new revenue. Less convincingly, democratization and voter turnout also increased total tax revenue. By contrast, neither democracy, nor voter turnout systematically increased revenue from progressive taxes on income and capital. With reasonable assumptions about tax incidence and participation patterns, these findings shed light on competing conceptions of taxation and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the political economy of agricultural producer support in the OECD countries between 1986 and 2001. We review the variety of theories of agricultural protection created by economists to explain this apparent anomaly. Most of these theories give short shrift to institutional features of the political system by simply assuming that politics is determined by underlying economic factors. We explicitly include political institutional factors, such as veto players, federalism, party fragmentation, and the timing of elections, alongside traditional economic factors to model agricultural producer support. A political economy model demonstrates that agriculture should not be treated as the exception to our understanding of protectionism as is often the conclusion of previous econometric studies. The results of several cross-sectional time-series analyses suggest that agricultural producer support conforms to general patterns of protectionism in other areas of industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, certain ethnic and tourist arts have become highly valued by collectors, gallery owners, and museum curators in the United States, Canada, and Europe. This paper examines the extent to which economically successful woodcarvers in the Mexican state Oaxacan have been able to gain the attention of the gatekeepers and tastemakers of the art world. The woodcarvers confront formidable obstacles in their efforts to have their work accepted as fine art. The recent invention of Oaxacan wood carving may make the craft seem inauthentic. Because carvings are usually made by a group of related family members, even some of the most aesthetically pleasing pieces cannot be attributed to an individual artist. The relatively low standard of living of most woodcarvers prevents them from adopting an "art for art's sake" philosophy emphasizing experimentation, originality, and lack of concern for commercial possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of positive marginal monitoring and enforcement costs, 'policing cost,' on the optimal exploitation of a fishery under the management of a marine protected area. It is shown that with positive marginal policing cost, the objective of maximum economic yield is no longer optimal, and that some dissipation of economic rent is socially optimal. The relevance of environmental education, the efficacy of policing, and the weightiness of punishments to optimal rent dissipation is discussed. Relevance of the model to other fisheries institutions is claimed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tuna resources of the Western and Central Pacific are the world's largest and most valuable fisheries of their type and are of significant economic importance to the Pacific island countries through whose waters they migrate. Two major concerns exist with the current governance of this fishery. First, Pacific island countries receive only a small share of the resource rents from the tuna fisheries. Second, the current management structure of the fisheries will not ensure the long-term sustainability of the resources. This paper derives a model to show that the sustainability of the resource can be improved when a single policymaker acts as Stackelberg leader and sets a tax, or an equivalent quantity instrument, to maximize rents from the resource. A practical institutional mechanism is presented that mimics the model's rent maximization outcome and that offers substantial benefits to both Pacific island countries and distant water fishing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of how management response to pollution in a fishery affects the incidence of economic damages. We develop a spatially explicit bioeconomic model which is used to examine the effects of an acute pollution event. Two scenarios are considered, both involving a prohibition on shellfish harvesting in the area affected by pollution, but distinguished according to the freedom given to vessels to move out of the affected area. The model suggests that closing an area to fishing may have widespread economic repercussions if it is linked biologically or technically with others. The decision to allow or disallow boats to move from an affected area is shown to make a crucial difference in the level and variability of profits in the fishery system as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines several elements of "the constitutional way of thinking" beginning with a discussion of the commonality problem in patterns of thinking. Later sections address the productivity of reductionist classification schemes and how this is usefully applied to politics. More specifically, the discussion focuses first on why economists, in particular, have difficulty with this approach; second on the general problem of adhering to idealist thinking in political theory; and third on speculation into the conditions necessary to acquire 'the constitutional way of thinking.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the optimal management of the Northern Atlantic bluefin tuna, both eastern and western stocks. The analysis is based on a deterministic multi-gear and age-structured bioeconomic model. In order to assess the importance of the gear structure in this fishery, the model is optimized in two scenarios. In the first, the strategies are restricted to the gear mix of the base year, whereas in the second, the optimal gear mix is estimated. For both scenarios, optimal constant strategies are determined. The corresponding optimal use is then compared with an open-access scenario. Also, optimal non-constant strategies are explored. As expected, the gear structure of the fishery proved to be highly relevant in the optimal payoffs. In particular, the unrestricted strategies yield rents substantially higher than the restricted ones. Also, the optimal management of the bluefin tuna fishery, in both the East and West Atlantic, would imply significant reallocation of the gear shares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the empirical literature on the economic value of marine recreation fishing, beach visits, and boating. Questions addressed include: What values do people place on changes in the attributes of recreation sites and activities? What do we know about how water pollution control policy affects these attributes? And, is it feasible to use the value information obtained for specific sites and/or activities to estimate the benefits of improving marine water quality? The literature establishes that some measures of pollution reduce the values of trips to beaches and that improved fishing success is valued by recreational anglers. However, there is substantial variation in value measures across studies. Welfare estimates can be sensitive to model specification and estimation. In the case of marine recreational fishing, the links between pollution control policy and the attributes of the activity that people value (catch rate) have not been established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high price of flying fish eggs in Japan encourages South Sulawesi fishermen in Indonesia to harvest increasing quantities of eggs every year. Similarly, the increasing local demand for flying fish encourages Indonesian fishermen to use gill nets to catch more fish. As a consequence of this increasing quantity of eggs harvested and fish caught, Indonesia has become concerned about the overexploitation of the flying fish population. Thus far policy suggestions concerning the management of the flying fish fishery have been based on a static biological model, since the data needed to construct a dynamic bioeconomic model are very limited. This paper presents a method for constructing a dynamic bioeconomic model of the Indonesian flying fish fishery with very limited data on the fish population. A calibration technique is developed to build the dynamic biological model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taxing pure rents is usually considered the least distortionary method for raising revenues. In the literature on fishery economics, the term "rent" is regularly employed, suggesting that pure rents exist in that sector. Indeed, with the recent development of individual transferable quotas, the resulting market value of quota has been treated as reflecting pure resource rents. In this paper, the view that the market value of quota represents a pure rent that can be readily extracted in a nondistortionary manner by the taxing authority is challenged because that argument ignores both economic incentives and political realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the eighteenth Century practice followed by booksellers and publishers of issuing supplements to previous editions to placate readers and still ensure profits. Topics include how the authors of the time like James Anderson reassured their readers of supplements for subsequent editions as a marketing strategy, and the financial sense made by paid supplements to purchasers and authors.

The author comments on Mayfair Mei-hui Yang's article on economic hybridity, Bataille, and ritual expediture. He states that the facts in Yang's paper are simple enough and the ethnographic description is the most valuable part. He asserts that the article considers the multiple-modes-of-production perspective proposing to use "hybridity" in its stead. The hybridity analogy introduces a whole series of biological metaphors that should not be included in such analysis. He believes that the paper has presented a phenomenon with a lot of innovative theoretical posturing.

A biography of English master printer John Windet is presented in the context of the evolution of the book trade in Great Britain in the years between 1584 and 1610. Windet was born in 1554 in Exeter, England in the family of David Windet and Anne Vowell. The author discusses Windet's printing house, this business and risk management abilities, and literary items he had printed. Special attention is paid to the printer's collaboration with bookseller John Wolfe.

The author comments on Mayfair Mei-hui Yang's article on economic hybridity, ritual expenditures and Georges Bataille's concept of "general economy." He states that Yang's paper has unsettled the dominant productivity stance which considered to be one of the major orthodoxies of economic anthropology. He asserts that Yang has offered a sobering reflection about the nature of global capitalism and on the current fascination in management-school circles with the phenomenon of the so-called Confucian capitalism.

The author comments on Mayfair Mei-hui Yang's article on economic hybridity, ritual expenditures and Georges Bataille's concept of "general economy." He states that religious practice and the ritual expenditure on spectacular performances of sacrifice and destruction are not activities usually associated with rapid regional economic development. He asserts that the paper did not unfold stories of religious squandering, general sacrifice, indulgent consumption and tomb building into the dominant narrative of global capitalist penetration. What Yang aimed to confront in her search for new conceptual vocabularies is the lingering influence of economic determinism.