Yearly Archives: 2013

“Loss & Damage” Beyond Charity, into Solidarity, and Suffused with Climate Justice?i

By Patrick Bond, a political economist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies in Durban, South Africa, where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society. Originally published at Triple Crisis.

An important article about one facet of the Warsaw Conference of Polluters 19, “Loss & Damage”, was published last week in The Star (Malasia) by the very highly-regarded political-ecologist/economist [and regular TCB blogger] Martin Khor (New climate deal on loss and damage). As always, the South Centre and Third World Network provide invaluable information, and Martin has taught me incalculable amounts since we first met in Johannesburg in 1990.

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Modern Monetary Theory Meets George Lakoff

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

MMT’s Bill Mitchell narrates a slide presentation of a paper (draft) co-authored with Louisa Connors, Member, Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing, University of Newcastle. I wish the paper had an abstract, so lazy people like me could just grab it, but here are what I see as the key paragraphs in the introduction:

It is reasonable to expect that professional failure on the scale of the GFC would lead to a re-evaluation of the paradigm with in which these economists work, and major changes in economic curricula and research. Mainstream economists, however, have re-energised their anti-government free-market biases and effectively reconstructed what was a private debt crisis into a sovereign debt crisis, obscuring their role in the crisis and deflecting attention from the flaws in their model. The dynamics that created the crisis (deregulation, reduced financial oversight, etc) continue to be advocated by the mainstream as solutions. The fact that mainstream macroeconomics has retained its hegemonic status in the face of its failure to resonate with reality is [and inability to master simple Excel macros as well they’ve mastered hegemonic status seeking, despite their field’s carefully cultivated reputation for scientific rigor], in no small way, due to the way economic debates are framed in the public discourse. Framing refers to the way an argument is conceptualised and communicated by speakers and listeners. Processes of conceptualisation proceed by way of adaptive reasoning on the basis of models and representations. Research in cognitive philosophy and cognitive linguistics suggests that the models that constrain our thinking operate at a largely unconscious level, and that the abstract concepts we draw on are “largely metaphorical”, “imaginative”, and “emotionally engaged” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999:3-4).

So, light the fire in the woodstove with the Sunday Times, get a cup of coffee, and listen Mitchell’s laconic narration (and charming Australian accent):

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Our Uneconomic Methods of Measuring Economic Research

By Stan Liebowitz,Ashbel Smith Professor of Economics, University of Texas at Dallas; Head of the Center for the Analysis of Property Rights and Innovation (CAPRI). Originally published at VoxEU.

Lambert here: Screamingly funny, in a deadpan sort of way, and reminiscent of Outis Philalithopoulos’s seminal work on academic choice theory.

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Academic economists – especially in the US – are continuously evaluated, with salaries and promotions hanging on outcomes. This column argues that the methods – identified from a survey of economics department chairs – are likely to reduce the amount of research created, perpetuate inefficiently sized research teams, promote false authorship, and penalise honest researchers. They also provide departments with excessive leeway to engage in potentially capricious behaviour.

In the movie Moneyball, a nerdy Ivy League economics major, working for a general manager played by Brad Pitt, found undervalued baseball players by applying clear-headed logic and statistical techniques.1 Many economists watching this movie probably felt a tinge of pride in seeing our tools portrayed as rigorously objective. After all, economists have long been proponents of using logic to eliminate inefficiencies and rent-seeking in the economy (e.g. Tullock 1967). Given this, it is surprising how infrequently that penetrating gaze has been focused on our own profession.

But some attention is warranted. Our methods for measuring and rewarding research – the key component for promotions and salaries – create inefficiencies and are inconsistent with what we teach our students about efficient production. Further, this inefficiency might be caused by economists’ own rent-seeking through the vehicle of departmental politics.

The manner in which we credit coauthorship and evaluate articles induces overly large research teams, encourages false authorship, enhances subjectivity, and penalises honest researchers.

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The BLS Report Covering November 2013: Effects of the Government Shutdown Fade, Part Time Work Increases

In the household survey on employment, seasonally unadjusted, the October government shutdown took out expected October highs and created losses in numerous categories. In November, these were largely reversed. The biggest ongoing hit is to the labor force which is still 490,000 smaller than it was in September. And while employment increased, unadjusted, 631,000, most of this was in part time jobs (554,000). Unemployment fell 504,000, reflecting that most of the net change in employment came from the unemployed finding work, and not from an influx of those defined as outside the labor force.

The end of the government shutdown was also reflected in the decline of the official (adjusted) unemployment rate from 7.3% to 7.0%. My alternate calculation of this returned to its pre-shut down level of 12.6%.

In the business survey in November, seasonally adjusted (trendline) 203,000 jobs were added to the economy. Taken together with October, 403,000 jobs were added. This is essentially unchanged from the 407,000 added during this period last year. And this November’s number is 44,000 smaller than last November’s 247,000. Trendline, job creation for the first 11 months of 2013 is running 9,000 a month higher than in 2012 (188,000 vs. 179,000). The general rule of thumb is that only job creation substantially over 200,000/month will significantly affect the nation’s unemployment crisis.

Unadjusted, total nonfarm jobs increased 421,000, and the private sector grew by 309,000. Most of these jobs continue to be crap. One bright note was hours and earnings were both up slightly. Earnings for all workers are running ahead about 2.3% year over year.

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