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This paper examines Kirzner's contribution to the study of the equilibrating tendency in economics. By analyzing his interpretation of Jevons' law of indifference, we participate in the debate on Kirzner association with neoclassicals when discussing the equilibrating tendency. A reconstruction of Kirzner's use of Jevons' law is conducted, considering his argumentative strategy when presenting the Austrian economics ideas to other professionals in the field. We conclude that Kirzner drew close to neoclassical economics to emphasize the relevance and uniqueness of Austrian economics. By doing so, we highlight the main differences between the two currents of economic thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates Pure Neoclassical economics from a logical standpoint. After discussing validity criteria, it focuses on theoretical individualism, a core foundation of Neoclassical theorizing in all its variants. Careful analysis of this doctrine reveals that, while mathematically valid, it generates many propositional contradictions in all economic and social science theories grounded upon it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic theory has two inter-related, desiderata — valid argumentation, and scientific explanations of relevant realities. This paper explores whether these objectives can be achieved with a widely-deployed form of Neoclassical economics. Applying arguments drawn from logic to this type of theorizing produces far-reaching conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the fact that digital media commodities are easily reproduced once initially produced, this paper explains, against the backdrop of Marxist insights, just how these commodities are produced, distributed, and consumed in the current digital media environment. Working with Marx's definition of the value of commodities as the social labor time required for their production, we can thereby define the value and price of reproduced digital media commodities as zero, but the market price of these commodities as in fact constituting the Marxist monopoly price. These determinations are then supported by a review of the ways valueless digital media goods are commodified in a monopolistic real world. The approach here, borrowing from Marx's research methods, starts from commodity analysis to explain comprehensively the wider political and economic system of capitalism. This viewpoint of the inherent value of media products is foreign to neoclassical economics as well as to mainstream media and communication studies embracing the utility theory of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Land, Abstraction, and Housing Provision" explores the debate between the nomothetic and idiographic approaches in the social sciences, specifically in the study of housing provision. The author argues for a middle ground that combines both approaches, emphasizing the role of demand in determining land and housing prices. The article addresses criticisms and clarifies the author's position, discussing the historical record of global house prices and the inflationary role of land. The author defends their framework for analyzing housing provision under capitalism, considering the entanglement of rent extraction and capitalist production. They acknowledge the novelty of financialization in the construction industry and see their framework as an ongoing theoretical project. [Extracted from the article]

The second digital wave has positioned artificial intelligence and digital platforms as new general purpose technologies, has driven the emergence of new value sources: prediction and circulation values, and has created a new explanatory phase into the relationship between digitalisation and economy: the digital transition. The governance of the digital transition, fully inserted in globalised capitalism, are not being able to reduce polarisation, economic inequalities, or the worsening environment. The article argues that failure in economic policy is closely linked to failure in political economy. The prevailing neoclassical approach is not being able to comprehensively explain the foundations, behaviour and results of digital economic life. To overcome this limitation, the article proposes a new narrative, the emergence of a new explanatory figure of economic behaviour and exchange. Homo digitalis extends the egotistical, isolated, and rational precepts of Homo economicus, and incorporates the scope of social welfare and environmental sustainability as enabling goals. The main components of Homo digitalis are the emergence of multiple biological, social and virtual identities and worlds; the integration of new forms of artificial and intelligent life into our bodies and minds (transhumanism); and the consolidation of a new egalitarian rule based on the access-platform-collaboration identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Balkan countries undergoing the transition must advance their economies to be more competitive. The aim of this paper is to analyse economic growth with a primary focus on the analysis of economic convergence in the Balkan region in the period of 1997-2020. The research analyses the following Balkan economies: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. This study applies Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of economic growth and is based on the neoclassical economic growth model: the Solow's convergence concept. The results show that the Balkan countries experienced economic convergence with a speed of 1.82% in the cross-sectional model and 7.87% in the panel data model. It means that the initially less developed economies noted higher economic growth than those richer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitigation policies during the COVID-19 pandemic were justified on benefit-cost-analysis (BCA) grounds, with the value of a statistical life (VSL) measuring the benefit of saving lives. This essay argues that a BCA and VSL framework is not a value-neutral basis for pandemic policy: first because the characterization of labor-market behavior as choices merely regarding money and risk of mortality implicitly endorses those institutions that constrain such choices, as illustrated by pandemic economic conditions; and second because this characterization assumes that individual subjects have exogenous preferences, and accordingly have one "true" valuation, thus ignoring how subjectivity is constituted by capitalist institutions. Such VSL estimates in pandemic scholarship illustrate the search for a single valuation regarding elderly life, whereas the "good" of human life warrants valuation in our capacity as citizens in democratic institutions rather than as market agents. The language of overdetermination highlights the contradictory effects of the mutual constitution of institutions and the individual subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoclassical economics has established itself as the discipline of rational choice. Consequently, under methodological individualism and in the context of consumption, an agent's choice is based on the ordering of preferences determined exogenously, disregarding any emotional, biological influences, or factors from socio-economic dynamics. Therefore, this paper aims to present an alternative framework for the decision-making of economic individuals at a theoretical and formal-mathematical level, grounded in the principles of evolutionary economics and complex adaptive systems. It is argued that the process of making choices in consumption is inherent to social dynamics. From an individual-holistic perspective, the mechanism motivating action can be characterized as an evolutionary algorithm that integrates biological, historical, cultural, social class, and market competition influences as endogenous elements in determining choice and consumption behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary on Felix Mallin and James Sidaway's (2023) article on 'Critical geoeconomics' returns to the German Historical School of economics to recall their emphasis on geography, history and culture, but also their frequent advocacy for imperial expansion and colonial annexation. It revisits the divide between the Historical School's vision of the world economy and that of Austrian School marginalists and suggests that we can understand geoeconomics as the expression of a desire for sovereignty in an era of mutual interdependence. This response to Felix Mallin and James Sidaway's genealogy of the category of geoeconomics follows them in returning to early‐twentieth century debates in German‐language economics. It suggests that the divorce between geography and economics under neoclassical and neoliberal epistemology can be reconciled through geoeconomics, but that we should remain aware of the risks this entails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate and fiscal policy interact closely. The former imposes explicit prices for carbon emissions, while the latter affects emissions implicitly. We study the correspondence between explicit and implicit carbon pricing of a Ramsey-optimal fiscal policy in a neoclassical growth model of climate change. Our central result is that any arbitrary sequence of explicit carbon prices can be achieved implicitly through a blend of conventional taxes (e.g., consumption, energy, and income taxes), when lump-sum transfers are available. In a Ramsey setting, policy balances these taxes' traditional revenue-raising role with the Pigouvian role of fixing the climate externality. We characterize the Ramsey and Pigouvian components of optimal tax rates. We show that explicit carbon pricing is implicitly implementable through a mix of conventional taxes also in this framework. We extend these findings to scenarios compatible with net-zero emissions, adding carbon capture technologies and a cap on cumulative emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines public sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering time, space, and the severity of the event, and leverages the marginal rate of substitution (MRS). Based on the context of COVID-19 transmission in a mega-city, we set up a novel theoretical model of public sentiment, showing the time-space substitution effect. Then, using the daily panel data including all the prefecture-level cities in China, empirical results show that the level of public sentiment is positively related to the severity of the event, while it is negatively related to the distance and the length of the period. To make the level of public sentiment equal, 1 km farther from the center of the event will require 0.072 to 0.130 days closer to the starting time on average. We further investigate the relationship between the level of public sentiment and time, which can be better depicted as a reversed U-shape. The original contribution of the piece arises principally around the novel application of the concept of the marginal rate of substitution drawn from neoclassical economics, providing insightful policy implications for pandemic control. • This study examines public sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic. • We set up a novel theoretical model including severity, time, and space. • We show the time-space substitution effect of public sentiment toward major events. • The level of public sentiment is negatively related to the distance and the length of the period. • Marginal rate of substitution (MRS) is calculated as 0.072 to 0.130 on average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have largely debated and demonstrated the positive effect of economic liberalization on economic growth, but they have not clarified how and to which extent economic liberalization affects corporate investment, the main driver of a country's economic growth. This paper investigates the relationship between economic liberalization and corporate investment by modelling the microeconomic channels through which economic liberalization affects corporate investment. Our theoretical framework extends the standard neoclassical model of firm value maximization to incorporate the effect of economic liberalization on corporate investment via several microeconomic channels. We test the theoretical predictions of our model by using a large and heterogeneous sample of non-financial US firms for the period 2000–2019. The empirical results support our hypotheses that economic liberalization positively affects corporate investment both directly and indirectly through different channels. These effects hold, although with different intensity, for all dimensions of economic liberalization. • We investigate the relationship between economic liberalization and economic growth by modelling the microeconomics channels through which economic liberalization affects corporate investment and hence economic growth. • The theoretical predictions of the model are tested on a large and heterogeneous sample of non-financial U.S and Canadian firms over the period 2000–2019. • Empirical results suggest that economic liberalization positively affects economic growth by enhancing corporate investment via different channels or effects. • These different effects hold, although with different intensity, for many constituent components of economic liberalization/freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]