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AbstractThe name “capitalism” derives from Marx’s false analogy between medieval land ownership and the “ownership of the means of production.” However, unlike medieval land, capital goods can be rented out, e.g., by Frank Knight’s entrepreneur, and then the capital owner does not hold those management or product rights. What then is the characteristic institution in our civilization? It is the voluntary renting of workers. What then is the relationship between Classical Liberalism, the dominant philosophy behind Economics, and a lifetime labour contract? Frank Knight had plenty to say about the doctrine of inalienable rights which disallows such contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractBehavioural economics has not only posed serious challenges for the empirical adequacy of rational choice, but also for its normative status. Since the 1990s, a large body of work has proposed various normative approaches that account for inconsistent choices. Focusing on the relevant approaches, history, methods, and limits, this article offers a literature review of the relationship between normative and behavioural economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several issues related to the normal degree of capacity utilisation have become crucial in the recent debate within demand-led growth theories. By going back over the history of economic thought, the paper aims to highlight the main findings that may nourish the current debate. Our reconstruction identifies the main factors affecting the firm's choice as to the size and degree of utilisation of productive capacity and draws attention to three points that appear to require particular attention in the debate on demand-led growth: firstly, the degree of utilisation corresponding to the maximum profit does not necessarily correspond to the minimum unit cost associated with the plant; secondly, the size of productive capacity depends on the variability of the output produced by the firm; finally, and in connection with the two previous points, the determination of normal utilisation requires defining the market structure in which the firm is supposed to operate and is therefore affected by the notion of competition adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper documents an early fork in the development of macroeconomics, by examining a debate between the Dutch economists Jan Tinbergen and Johan Koopmans. In a 1932 paper, Tinbergen argued that two firms could be stuck in a “bad” equilibrium in the absence of a coordinated action to incrase employment. Koopmans replied with a paper demonstrating that multiple equilibria in an exchange economy could not be ranked on the basis of their productive efficiency. This debate contributed to a larger turn away from dynamising the general equilibrium model, towards the new field of macrodynamics, with long-ranging consequences for the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper discusses the engagement of economists with the issue of the measurability of uncertainty. After a summary of the meaning attributed by authors such as Knight, Keynes, Shackle and Ellsberg to the contention that uncertainty is irreducible to risk and therefore unmeasurable, the paper investigates why this view did not emerge as a significant alternative to the mainstream up until recently. A main reason, never openly discussed in the literature, is shown to be the close link between Leonard Savage and the group of decision theorists at the Cowles Commission under the directorship of Jacob Marschak and Tjalling Koopmans. The paper aims to show that Koopmans, in particular, had a significant role in convincing economists that Savage’s axiomatization of a subjective version of expected utility was a decisive advance in the definition of rational behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper develops a methodological approach to assessing the supply chain management in small- and medium-sized businesses with further testing it in the companies in the post-Soviet economies. The research objectives were achieved in terms of a sophisticated multi-country project resulting in assessment of the supply chain management for small- and medium-sized businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan (256 businesses in total). The study was implemented through a phased application of online survey methods using closed-ended single-choice questions, including a 5-point Likert scale, mean score ranking, and ABC analysis using the Pareto principle. The assessment showed that, regardless of the surveyed country, almost all respondent businesses use a reactive supply chain design. Since the reactive design does not allow for the implementation of resilient supply chain development, the recommended practices, which have been developed during the pilot phase, deal with improving the supply chain management and gradual transformation of the reactive design into a cooperative management model to ensure resilient supply chain development under uncertainty.

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is crucial for appropriate immune responses against invading pathogens. Chickens possess a single predominantly-expressed class I molecule with strong associations between disease resistance and MHC haplotype. For Marek's disease virus (MDV) infections of chickens, the MHC haplotype is one of the major determinants of genetic resistance and susceptibility. VALO specific pathogen free (SPF) chickens are widely used in biomedical research and vaccine production. While valuable findings originate from MDV infections of VALO SPF chickens, their MHC haplotypes and associated disease resistance remained elusive. In this study, we used several typing systems to show that VALO SPF chickens possess MHC haplotypes that include B9, B9:02, B15, B19 and B21 at various frequencies. Moreover, we associate the MHC haplotypes to MDV-induced disease and lymphoma formation and found that B15 homozygotes had the lowest tumor incidence while B21 homozygotes had the lowest number of organs with tumors. Finally, we found transmission at variable levels to all contact birds except B15/B21 heterozygotes. These data have immediate implications for the use of VALO SPF chickens and eggs in the life sciences and add another piece to the puzzle of the chicken MHC complex and its role in infections with this oncogenic herpesvirus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is crucial for appropriate immune responses against invading pathogens. Chickens possess a single predominantly-expressed class I molecule with strong associations between disease resistance and MHC haplotype. For Marek’s disease virus (MDV) infections of chickens, the MHC haplotype is one of the major determinants of genetic resistance and susceptibility. VALO specific pathogen free (SPF) chickens are widely used in biomedical research and vaccine production. While valuable findings originate from MDV infections of VALO SPF chickens, their MHC haplotypes and associated disease resistance remained elusive. In this study, we used several typing systems to show that VALO SPF chickens possess MHC haplotypes that include B9, B9:02, B15, B19 and B21 at various frequencies. Moreover, we associate the MHC haplotypes to MDV-induced disease and lymphoma formation and found that B15 homozygotes had the lowest tumor incidence while B21 homozygotes had the lowest number of organs with tumors. Finally, we found transmission at variable levels to all contact birds except B15/B21 heterozygotes. These data have immediate implications for the use of VALO SPF chickens and eggs in the life sciences and add another piece to the puzzle of the chicken MHC complex and its role in infections with this oncogenic herpesvirus.

Malaysia ranks among the first twenty countries with the highest death rate from road accidents with death from motorcycle accidents accounting for more than sixty percent of this death rate. The Malaysian government, in the year 2010, started the enforcement of helmet (head protector) in an effort to reduce the rate of death from this source. This paper examines users‟ acceptance of helmet by motorcyclist, using the theory of reasoned action (TRA). The data for this study comes from field survey of motorcyclists in Malaysia. This data was analysed using structural equation modelling. It was discovered that different factors from the theory account for user acceptance of this novelty. The paper concludes by specifying the policy implications of this and recommends other ways of improvement.

Background: VAD therapy has revolutionized the treatment of end-stage heart failure, but infections remain an important complication. The objective of this study was to characterize the clinical and economic impacts of VAD-specific infections., Methods: A retrospective analysis of a United States claims database identified members ≥ 18 years with a claim for a VAD implant procedure, at least 6 months of pre-implant baseline data, and 12 months of follow-up between 1 June 2016 and 31 December 2019. Cumulative incidence of infection was calculated. Infection and non-infection cohorts were compared regarding mortality, healthcare utilization, and total cost. Regression models were used to identify risk factors associated with infections and mortality., Results: A total of 2,259 patients with a VAD implant were included, with 369 experiencing infection (12-month cumulative incidence 16.1%). Patients with infection were 2.1 times more likely to die ( p  < 0.001, 95% CI [1.5-2.9]). The mean 12-month total cost per US patient was $354,339 for the non-infection cohort and $397,546 for the infection cohort, a difference of $43,207 ( p  < 0.0001)., Conclusions: VAD infections were associated with higher mortality, more healthcare utilization, and higher total cost. Strategies to minimize VAD-specific infections could lead to improved clinical and economic outcomes.

Despite the importance of pioneering work by such precursors as Jean-Charles de Borda and Marquis de Condorcet in the 18th century, it was Kenneth Arrow and his general impossibility theorem that elevated the scientific status of social choice theory into an unprecedented plateau. This paper tries to highlight several unique features of his research program of social choice theory vis-à-vis the classical contributions of Borda and Condorcet, on the one hand, and the "new" welfare economics à la Bergson and Samuelson, on the other hand, as well as to identify several channels through which his impossibility impasse could be circumvented. It is concluded with several personal reminiscences of Kenneth Arrow based on the author's own experiences with him over four decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas many others have scrutinized the Allais paradox from a theoretical angle, we study the paradox from an historical perspective and link our findings to a suggestion as to how decision theory could make use of it today. We emphasize that Allais proposed the paradox as a normative argument , concerned with 'the rational man' and not the 'real man', to use his words. Moreover, and more subtly, we argue that Allais had an unusual sense of the normative, being concerned not so much with the rationality of choices as with the rationality of the agent as a person. These two claims are buttressed by a detailed investigation – the first of its kind – of the 1952 Paris conference on risk, which set the context for the invention of the paradox, and a detailed reconstruction – also the first of its kind – of Allais's specific normative argument from his numerous but allusive writings. The paper contrasts these interpretations of what the paradox historically represented, with how it generally came to function within decision theory from the late 1970s onwards: that is, as an empirical refutation of the expected utility hypothesis, and more specifically of the condition of von Neumann–Morgenstern independence that underlies that hypothesis. While not denying that this use of the paradox was fruitful in many ways, we propose another use that turns out also to be compatible with an experimental perspective. Following Allais's hints on 'the experimental definition of rationality', this new use consists in letting the experiment itself speak of the rationality or otherwise of the subjects. In the 1970s, a short sequence of papers inspired by Allais implemented original ways of eliciting the reasons guiding the subjects' choices, and claimed to be able to draw relevant normative consequences from this information. We end by reviewing this forgotten experimental avenue not simply historically, but with a view to recommending it for possible use by decision theorists today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines three outstanding contributions on the laws of costs and returns that were first presented at NOeG meetings in the interwar period. Oskar Morgenstern, in a paper presented in January 1930, provided a lucid account of the unresolved problems in the Marshallian approach to the construction of long-run industry supply curves. A few months later, Jacob Viner presented his classic paper on "Cost curves and supply curves". Viner's contribution, with its rigorous geometrical derivation of industry supply curves from the firms' cost situations in competitive conditions, became the model for innumerable textbook presentations of these issues, and a springboard for many further contributions. In another brilliant paper, first presented at a NOeG meeting in December 1935, Karl Menger severely criticized the axiomatic acceptance of the law of diminishing returns. Menger showed that the existing a priori "proofs" of this law are invalid, and made a strong plea for empirical verification. The present paper re-examines the three contributions, discusses their importance for the further development of partial equilibrium analysis, and suggests some reasons for their continuing relevance for present-day microeconomics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the holographic subregion complexity in a three-dimensional black hole with vector hair. This three-dimensional black hole is dual to a (1+1)-dimensional |$p$| -wave superconductor. We probe the black hole by changing the size of the interval and by fixing |$q$| or |$T$|⁠. We show that the universal part is finite across the superconductor phase transition and has competitive behaviors different from the finite part of the entanglement entropy. The behavior of the subregion complexity depends on the gravitational coupling constant divided by the gauge coupling constant. When this ratio is less than the critical value, the subregion complexity increases as temperature becomes low. This behavior is similar to that of the holographic (1+1)-dimensional |$s$| -wave superconductor [M. K. Zangeneh, Y. C. Ong, and B. Wang, Phys. Lett. B 771 , 130 (2014)]. When the ratio is larger than the critical value, the subregion complexity has a non-monotonic behavior as a function of |$q$| or |$T$|⁠. We also find a discontinuous jump of the subregion complexity as a function of the size of the interval. The subregion complexity has a maximum when it wraps almost the entire spatial circle. Due to competitive behaviors between the normal and condensed phases, the universal term in the condensed phase becomes even smaller than that of the normal phase by probing the black hole horizon at a large interval. This implies that the condensate formed decreases the subregion complexity as in the case of the entanglement entropy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sir James Mirrlees, co‐recipient of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, passed away in August 2018. This article outlines how his work has transformed economists' understanding of their discipline – from the principles of tax design to the theory of contracts and beyond. By conceiving of policy questions in terms of information asymmetries between governments and taxpayers, Mirrlees demonstrated how to conduct convincing analysis of redistributive objectives together with incentive effects in the design of general tax systems and public policy more broadly. His ability to simplify complex problems in ways that reveal their tractable essence means that his work has yielded insights that have reverberated throughout the discipline. It has also proved highly fruitful for practical policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For nearly a century, economists have relied upon the neoclassical principle of a "profit-maximizing firm." Two modern challenges to this principle have arisen: the theory of the value-maximizing firm, and machine learning. In this article, we empirically compare the predictive power of both traditional and modern approaches to business decisions. To do so, we make use of an unusual natural experiment, and extensive data, as follows: (1) Outline competing models of business decision making from both traditional and modern approaches: Expert judgement; an income model of a profit-maximizing firm; a suite of machine learning models; and a recursive model of a value-maximizing firm. (2) Assemble data on costs, productivity, workforce, transit, and other factors for over 50 large North American cities. (3) Empirically compare these models to determine which best explains the selection of 20 cities by Amazon Inc. for its "HQ2." We observe first that expert judgement, of the type traditionally performed by business economists, outperformed all other approaches. Second, we observe that "supervised learning" machine learning models performed poorly, with results that were often worse than a coin flip. Third, we found that the model of a value-maximizing firm slightly outperformed an income model using the same underlying data, and handily outperformed machine learning. Based on these results, we conclude that expert human judgement remains superior over machine learning methods, and warns against naive reliance on such models when the penalty for an incorrect decision is high. We also recommend that businesses economists consider value methods for business strategy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prospect theory is the most influential descriptive alternative to the orthodox model of rational choice under risk and uncertainty, in terms of empirical analyses of some of its principal parameters and as a consideration in behavioural public policy. Yet the most distinctive implication of the theory—a fourfold predicted pattern of risk attitudes called the reflection effect—has been infrequently studied and with mixed results over money outcomes, and has never been completely tested over health outcomes. This article reports tests of reflection over money and health outcomes defined by life years gained from treatment. With open valuation exercises, the results suggest qualified support for the reflection effect over money outcomes and strong support over health outcomes. However, in pairwise choice questions, reflection was substantially ameliorated over life years, remaining significant only for treatments that offered short additional durations of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: The economic theory of the labor‐managed firm dates back 60 years. Here I review the intellectual history of this field, with critical remarks and proposals for future development. The decades of the 1960s–1980s saw a burst of theoretical speculation that generally did not hold up well under empirical scrutiny. By the 1990s, progress on the mainstream theory of the firm was overtaking some of this early research. At the same time, a growing body of econometric work on labor‐managed firms was providing new stylized facts for theorists to explain. While the earlier period was characterized by an excess supply of theories relative to facts, more recently the balance has begun to tip in the opposite direction. I close by suggesting new theoretical directions that might shed light on the empirical asymmetries between capital‐managed and labor‐managed firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert W. Clower's article “A Reconsideration of the Microfoundations of Monetary Theory” (1967) deeply influenced the course of modern monetary economics. On the one hand, it questioned Don Patinkin's (1956) project to integrate monetary and Walrasian value theory. On the other hand, it was the fountainhead of the cash-in-advance modelsà laRobert J. Lucas (1980), one of the most widely used approaches to monetary theory since the 1980s. Despite this influence, Clower's project to integrate monetary and value theory remains an enigma. My paper intends to resolve it. This is a difficult task since Clower never completed the monetary theory outlined in his 1967 article. To overcome this difficulty, I characterise the intellectual context from which Clower's contribution emerged and have recourse to a reconstruction of his project. This reconstruction is based on the analysis of published and unpublished materials, written by Clower before and after the 1967 article. It is argued that Clower sought to elaborate a disequilibrium monetary theory whilst retaining the two pillars of Patinkin's integration, i.e., the introduction of money into utility functions and the real-balance effect. I trace the origins, account for the originality, and discuss the challenges of this project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper reconstructs the history of the experimental attempts to measure the cardinal utility of money between 1950 and 1985 within the framework provided by expected utility theory (EUT). It is shown that this history displays a definite trajectory: from the confidence in EUT and the EUT-based measurement of utility of the 1950s to the scepticism that, from the mid-1970s, haunted the validity of EUT as well as the significance of the utility measures obtained through it. By exploring the diverse aspects and causes of this trajectory, the paper covers new ground in the history of both decision theory and utility measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In December 1933, John Maynard Keyes published an open letter to President Roosevelt, where he wrote: ‘The recent gyrations of the dollar have looked to me more like a gold standard on the booze than the ideal managed currency of my dreams.’ This was a criticism of the ‘gold-buying program’ launched in October 1933. In this article I use high-frequency data on the dollar–pound and dollar–franc exchange rates to investigate whether the gyrations of the dollar were unusually high in late 1933. My results show that although volatility was pronounced, it was not higher than during some other periods after 1921. Moreover, dollar volatility began to subside towards the end of the period alluded to by Keynes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Knightian uncertainty is not a special kind of uncertainty; it's just uncertainty. And it raises the issue how we may model uncertainty. The paper gives a brief overview over non-probabilistic measures of uncertainty, starting with Shackle's functions of potential surprise and mentioning non-additive probabilities, Dempster-Shafer belief functions, etc. It arrives at an explanation of ranking theory as a further uncertainty model and emphasizes its additional epistemological virtues, which consist in a representation of belief, i.e., of taking something to be true (which is the basic notion of traditional epistemology and admits of degrees as well) and a full dynamic account of those degrees. The final section addresses the issue how these uncertainty measures and in particular ranking theory may be used within a decision theoretic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is twofold. The first is to question the claim that the price system is the only form of coordination of individual actions. The attempt to overcome this assumption highlights the need for other forms of coordination to regulate behaviours that are not price-related, proposing the concept of Keynesian Convention as a special kind of coordination. The second is an effort to define the theoretical-political dimension of the economics of conventions. In fact, focusing on the strategic approach of conventions, depending on whether the concept of a convention is used to resolve problems finding a balance in coordination games, it seems reasonable to seek a political dimension of the economics of conventions. We will show how the assumptions underlying the theory of general economic balance are extremely restrictive, because they assume a complete lack of uncertainty or strategic interaction between the different agents. For the purpose of ensuring objectivity, we will highlight the role of the concept of the convention as a mechanism of coordination that transcends prices. Finally, although the standard theory strives to prove otherwise, the narrow path of validation is proof that an analysis of coordination cannot consider only the price system and is inseparable from the concept of rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]