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E.P. Thompsons lanserade 1971 begreppet ”moral economy” som ett sätt att begripliggöra arbetarklassprotester i England under 1700-talet. Kraven handlade om att priserna på bröd och spannmål skulle sättas utifrån moraliska principer snarare än marknadsekonomiska. Thompson exkluderar explicit paternalism och de praktiker av över och underordning som kopplas till begreppet från det han menar med moralisk ekonomi, men den här texten argumenterar för att det finns ett värde i att vidga begreppet till att omfatta alla typer av moraliskt och etiskt baserade ekonomiska logiker. Moralisk ekonomi används då som ett generiskt begrepp för att mer allmänt tänka kring de normer som gäller för ekonomiska relationer, bortom de specifika historiska skeendena. Ansatsen ligger i linje med James C Scotts användning av begreppet och det sätt som det använts i senare forskning. De teoritiska poängerna illustreras utifrån ett empiriska material och forskningsläge som behandlar vad som hände i den lilla gotländska orten Slite när den tidigare lokalt ägda cementfabriken 1931 köptes upp av storkoncernen Skånska Cementaktiebolaget. Materialet består i huvudsak av brev skriva till och av Ernst Wehtje den yngre, verkställande direktör för Skånska Cementaktiebolaget och centralfigur i Wehtje-koncernen, en av dåtidens mäktigaste företagsgrupper, samt högerpolitiker och ledande person i Industriförbundet. Moralisk ekonomi används i texten som ett sätt att betona föränderligheten i de värderingssystem som styr ekonomiska praktiker, hur de kan sammansmälta och förhandlas med alternativa moraluppsättningar och utifrån föränderliga maktrelationer. Begreppet ska inte ställas i motsättning till analyser som lyfter fram materiellt baserade maktordningar som klass, utan att den moraliska ekonomin blir det ideologiska uttryck som används för att förklara och legitimera de maktordningar som uppstår även utifrån andra logiker. Särskilt betonas de dubbelriktade relationer mellan arbetare och kapitalägare som är synliga i exemplet, där uppfattningar om legitima krav från arbetargrupper sammanvävs med föreställningar om kapitalägarnas förpliktelser, i linje med delar av forskningsläget och i anslutning till Gramscis hegemonibegrepp. E.P. Thompsons suggested in 1971 the concept of "moral economy" as a way of understanding working class protests in England in the 18th century. The protestors demand was that prices for bread and cereals would be based on moral principles rather than market economy. Thompson explicitly excludes paternalism and practises of domination and subordination linked to the term from what he means by moral economy, but this text argues that there is a merit in broadening the concept to all types of morally and ethically based logics of economy. Moral economy is thus used as a generic term to think more generally about the norms of economic relations, beyond the specific historical events. This approach is in line with James C Scott's use of the term and the way it has been used in resent research. The theoretical arguments are illustrated by an empirical material and research about what happened 1931 in the small town Slite on the island Gotland in Sweden, when the formerly locally owned cement plant was bought by the large group Skånska Cementaktiebolaget. The material consists mainly of letters written to and by Ernst Wehtje Jr., CEO of Skånska Cementaktiebolaget and the central figure in the Wehtje Group, at the time one of the most powerful corporate groups in Sweden, as well as a right wing politicians and leading person in the Industrial Federation. Moral economy is used in this text as a way to emphasize the changing character of the value systems that govern economic practises, how they can negotiate and merge with alternative sets of moral codes and in interaction with changing power relations. The concept should not be seen in opposition to analyses that emphasize material power relation such as a class, but instead that moral economy can be seen as the ideological framework used to explain and legitimize the power relations that arise from other logics. A particular emphasis is on the bi-directional relations between workers and owners that are visible in the example, where perceptions of legitimate demands from the workers are entwined with notions of obligations for the owners of capital. This in line with parts of the research field and connected to Gramsci's concept hegemony.

"Owners and capital. Class and gender among capital owners in Sweden 1918-1939" The thesis examines practices of gender and class among capital owners in Sweden during the period 1918-1939, through the analysis of two of the most powerful families of the time: Broström and Wehtje. The theoretical frame is an attempt to develop an intersectional perspective through the combination of several theoretical perspectives: Eric Olin Wright's model of class analysis; Pierre Bourdieu´s concept of social and cultural capital, Raewyn Connell´s understanding of gender and hegemonic masculinity and Robert Miles analysis of racism through the term racialisation. The empirical material is a qualitative text analysis based on personal/private letters and business correspondence. Four relevant outcomes have been identified. The first one point to the difficulties in defining class on the basis of cultural criteria due to the variation in cultural practices among capital owners, which make the group appear as elusive and contradictory. Instead, the thesis argues for a distinction between class as position, which in line with Wright’s model is defined by the relation to the means of production, and class as a practice, which is examined on the basis of Bourdieu's metaphor of cultural and social capital. The second highlights variations in the practices of masculinity visible in the empirical material, variations that confirms Demetriakis Demetrious’ expansion of the concept of hegemonic masculinity toward the notion of a hegemonic block. The third illuminates the concept of moral economy as a means to analyse the contradictory norms that shaped and regulated the capital owner´s economic behaviour. The study also analyses the emotional regime expressed in the ways through which the capital owners studied relate to key topics as technology and management, and emphasises how norms and emotions influence economic decisions. Finally, some women within these families had, despite their subordinated position, an arena for agency and relative autonomy. Avhandlingen är en fallstudie som undersöker praktiker av klass och kön hos kapitalägare i Sverige under perioden 1918-1939, utifrån exempel från två av tidens mäktigaste familjer: Broström och Wehtje. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten är ett försök att ur ett intersektionellt perspektiv förena en klassanalys utifrån Eric Olin Wrights modell med Bourdieus begrepp socialt och kulturellt kapital, kombinerat med analyser av genus framför allt inspirerade framför allt av Raewyn Connells begrepp hegemonisk maskulinitet och analyser av rasism utifrån Robert Miles begrepp rasifiering. Det undersökta materialet utgörs i huvudsak av personliga brev och affärskorrespondens vilka analyserats i en kvalitativ textanalys. Undersökningens har fyra centrala teoretiska poänger. För det första att klass är svårt att definiera utifrån kulturella kriterier, då variationen i kulturella praktiker gör att gruppen kapitalägare framstår som svårfångad och motsägelsefull. Istället argumenteras för en uppdelning i klass som position, som i linje med Wrights modell definieras utifrån relationen till produktionsmedlen, och klass som praktik vilket undersöks utifrån Bourdieus kapitalmetafor. Undersökningens andra poäng är att lyfta fram spännvidden i de maskulinitetspraktiker som blir synliga i materialet, något som bekräfta Demetriakis Demetrious utveckling av begreppet hegemonisk maskulinitet till att förstås som ett hegemoniskt block, där de maskulinitetsuttryck som knyts till gruppen kapitalägare förstås som föränderliga och motsägelsefulla. En tredje poäng är att lyfta fram begreppet moralisk ekonomi som ett redskap för att fånga in de motsägelsefulla praktiker och normsystem som styrde kapitalägarnas ekonomiska agerande. Undersökningen betonar också den emotionella dimension som kapitalägarna gav uttryck för i relation till teknik och administration, något som understryker behovet av att analysera hur känslor och normer påverkar ekonomiska överväganden. En fjärde poäng berör det handlingsutrymme som kvinnor hade inom familjerna, där undersökningen visar att även om en genushierarki som premierade underordnade femininitetskonstruktioner upprätthölls, så fanns det ett visst utrymme för självständigt agerande och alternativ kvinnligheter från några av de här undersökta kvinnorna.

Reforms in recent decades have sharply reduced the distortions affecting agriculture in developing countries, particularly by cuts to agricultural export taxes and by some reductions in government assistance to agriculture in high-income countries, but international trade in farm products continues to be far more distorted than trade in nonfarm goods. This paper summarizes a series of empirical studies that focus on the effects of the remaining distortions to world merchandise trade for poverty and inequality, especially in developing countries. To obtain different insights into the various impacts, two global studies are undertaken using the World Bank's Linkage model, one multi-country study uses the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model, and ten country case studies are also included, each using a national economy-wide model. The Linkage model results suggest that liberalization will reduce international inequality, largely by boosting farm incomes and raising real wages for unskilled workers in developing countries, and will reduce the number of poor people worldwide by 3 percent. The analysis based on the GTAP model for a sample of 15 countries, and the ten stand-alone national case studies, all point to larger reductions in poverty, especially if only the non-poor are subjected to increased income taxation to compensate for the loss of trade tax revenue.

This paper analyzes the economic effects of agricultural price and merchandise trade policies around the world as of 2004 on global markets, net farm incomes, and national and regional economic welfare and poverty, using the global economy wide Linkage model, new estimates of agricultural price distortions for developing countries, and poverty elasticity's approach. It addresses two questions: to what extent are policies as of 2004 still reducing rewards from farming in developing countries and thereby adding to inequality across countries in farm household incomes? Are they depressing value added more in primary agriculture than in the rest of the economy of developing countries, and earnings of unskilled workers more than of owners of other factors of production, thereby potentially contributing to inequality and poverty within developing countries (given that farm incomes are well below non-farm incomes in most developing countries and that agriculture there is intensive in the use of unskilled labor)? Results are presented for the key countries and regions of the world and for the world as a whole. They reveal that, by moving to free markets, income inequality between countries will be reduced at least slightly, all but one-sixth of the gains to developing countries will come from agricultural policy reform, unskilled workers in developing countries the majority of whom work on farms will benefit most from reform, net farm incomes in developing countries will rise by 6 percent compared with 2 percent for non-agricultural value added, and the number of people surviving on less than US$1 a day will drop 3 percent globally.

The purpose of this handbook is to provide policy makers with a framework to assess a tax system in its entirety, measure its various parameters and how it is administered, and defines best practices for tax policy and administration that will yield a tax system that is simple and predictable and does not create an undue burden on private enterprise. This handbook is primarily designed for policy makers and tax practitioners. The goal is to analyze the impact of income tax, the value added tax (VAT), and other local taxes that are imposed on business. This handbook does not analyze the effects of trade and labor taxes such as social security. The administration of the customs duty is unique and has been addressed extensively in the literature on customs modernization. Labor taxes primarily imposed on salaried individuals are not covered by this handbook, even though their incidence affects business. VAT has been included even though it is a tax on consumption because the administrative burden to comply with it is primarily on business.

Earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies as well as by governments of richer countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies, which reduce national and global economic welfare and contribute to global inequality and poverty, have been undergoing reform since the 1980s. Using the linkage model of the global economy and modifications to the pre-release of version 7 of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) protection database for 2004, this paper seeks to compare the effect of those reforms to date with those that would come from removing remaining agricultural and trade policies. Two sets of results are thus presented: one showing the effects of policy reforms between 1980-84 and 2004, the other showing what the removal of remaining distortions as of 2004 could be. Both sets of results indicate improvements in the real value of agricultural output and exports, the real returns to farm land and unskilled labor, and real net farm incomes in most developing country regions despite the adverse effect on the international terms of trade for some developing countries that are net food importers or are enjoying preferential access to agricultural markets of high-income countries. Landowners in those high-income countries still offering their farmers price supports could readily afford to compensate them from the benefits of removing remaining agricultural protectionism.

A political economy model of protection is used to determine endogenously the intersectoral patterns of protection. Three propositions are derived that are consistent with the stylized patterns of tariff protection in rich and poor countries: Nominal protection rates escalate with the degree of processing, protection is higher on average in poor countries, and rich countries protect agriculture relatively more than they protect manufacturing, whereas poor countries do the reverse. Numerical simulations for archetypal rich and poor economies confirm that the endogenously determined structure of protection is broadly consistent with observed patterns of protection.