“Globalization” can be understood as a grand experiment to test the laissez-faire doctrine of neoclassical economics, which claims that a capitalist economy will become more efficient and stable as markets spread deeper and wider around the world. The “once a century” global economic crisis of 2007-9 stands as a testament to the failure of this grand experiment.
Following the lead of Wicksell and Keynes, this article argues that a capitalist economy is subject to an inevitable trade-off between efficiency and stability because of its essentially “speculative” nature. First, while a financial market requires the participation of a large number of professional speculators to support its risk-diversifying function, competition among professionals can be likened to a Keynesian beauty-contest that constantly exposes financial markets to the risks of bubble and bust. Second and more fundamentally, the use of “money” itself—the ultimate source of efficiency in a capitalist economy—is also the ultimate source of its instability. To hold money is to take part in the purest form of the Keynesian beauty contest, since we accept money only because we expect everybody else to accept it as money in turn. A speculative money bubble can plunge the real economy into depression, while a speculative money bust eventually leads to hyperinflation. Indeed, the Wicksellian theory of cumulative process shows that any disturbance in monetary equilibrium triggers a disequilibrium process that cumulatively drives all nominal prices further away from equilibrium. The Keynesian principle of effective demand demonstrates that it is the stickiness of nominal wages that saves the capitalist economy from its inherent instability, albeit at the expense of full employment. This article also contends that in the context of the current global crisis, monetary instability has manifested itself in the form of the collapse of liquidity in the financial markets as well as in the form of the loss of confidence on dollar as the key currency of global capitalism.
In institutional studies various concepts and terms have been proposed to describe institutional phenomena and their nature. They include behavioral regularity, habituation, collective intentionality, common knowledge, shared beliefs, artifacts, rules of the game, system of signs, and many more. Depending on which of these are adopted as major concepts, varied methodologies may be distinguished. This paper attempts to relate some of these concepts into a unified framework for an understanding of institutional phenomena and processes. Specifically, it interprets some achievements in epistemic and potential game theory in the context of institutional studies. Although game theory is sometimes regarded as a quintessential example of the theoretical approach based on methodological individualism, it suggests that notions of external artifacts (public representations) and internal mental states (internal representations), as well as those of agency and sociality, should not be taken as opposing concepts. The combination of these four elements suggests the dual-dualities of institutional processes.
Disequilibrium Dynamics -- A Theoretical Analysis of Inflation and Unemployment, Cowles Foundation Monograph, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981). http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cm/m27/index.htm
『貨幣論』(筑摩書房, 1993. 3;ちくま学芸文庫, 1998.3).
『会社はこれからどうなるのか』.(平凡社, 2003.2;平凡社ライブラリー, 2009.9)
Recent Works:
“The Second End of Laissez-Faire-- Bootstrapping Nature of Money and Inherent Instability of Capitalism,”a paper presented at Interdisciplinary Workshop on Money at Berlin Free University, June 2009; 改訂版:CIRJE Discussion Paper, F-646東京大学経済学部, Oct. 2009.
“What Will Become of the (Japanese) Corporation? A Comparative Perspective,” 9th John Whitney Hall Lecture delivered at Yale University, Nov. 7, 2007; to be expanded into a book.
“A Theory of Fiduciary Relationships – Non-Contractual Foundation of Duty of Loyalty, Disgorgement Damages, and Strict Liability,” in preparation.
Yuji Genda, Ayako Kondo, and Souichi Ohta “Long-term Effects of a Recession at Labor Market Entry in Japan and the United States,” /Journal of Human Resources/ Vol.45, No.1 Winter 2010, pp.157-196.
参考論文:"Institutions as Cognitive Media: Between Strategic Interactions and Individual Beliefs"(http://www.vcasi.org/node/620)
はじめに、以後の議論への導入として、青木昌彦(比較制度分析)が社会のルール(societal rules)の暫定的定義("Commonly-organized, salient features of the ways by which the societal games is recursively played and expected to be played.")を提案した。その上で、社会のルールについて考える際の思考の軸となりえるいくつかの問いを挙げた。事前の設計の対象か自生的秩序か、選択に対する制約か選択の帰結か、行動の規則性か認知の一範疇か。そして、一層具体的に、公的標識(public indicators)を通じた共有知識(common knowledge)の形成、人工物の社会的構築とその機能、文化の神経・言語機能への影響といった主題群を簡単に描写した。その後の発表や討論は、これらの問題提起を消化しつつ、問題意識や分析手法を更新していくための手がかりを与えるものだったと言っていい。以下では、それぞれの発表・討論におけるキーワードを列挙していく。
「ニッチ構築としての文化」
参考論文:"Micro-Macro Dynamics of the Cultural Construction of Reality: A Niche Construction Approach to Culture "(http://www.vcasi.org/node/554)
参考書籍:『文化心理学』(増田貴文との共著、培風館(近刊))(当日配布予定)
キーワード:文化心理学vs進化心理学、説明概念と実在概念、自己成就の心理学的バージョンと社会学的バージョン、社会的真空室、文化的ゲームプレイヤー、デフォルト戦略、ペン選択・認知能力試験実験
参考論文:"An Experimental Study from the Perspective of Inductive Game Theory" (竹内あい、船木由喜彦、J. Jude Klineとの共同研究)(???)
"Transpersonal Understanding through Social Roles, and Emergence of Cooperation"(J. Jude Klineとの共同研究)(http://qurl.com/n6tlg)
参考論文:"Dynamic Social Adaptation of Motion-Related Neurons in Primate Parietal Cortex"(日原さやか、入來篤史との共同研究)(http://qurl.com/ycpcj)
"Long-term asynchronous decoding of arm motion using electrocorticographic signals in monkey"(Zenas C.
Development of a comprehensive evolutionary framework for institution analysis based on naturalism and its applications with a special focus on culture
Recent Thoughts:
Recently, I discovered the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce is a father of American pragmatism and of semiotics, and influenced the early American instituionalists. I begin to connect his thought with the modern philosophical positions of externalism and naturalism, especially in the philosophy of mind. Building on this, I hope to create a theory of institutions that treats institutions in a similar way as linguistic artefacts. What makes my mind buzzing is that this approach can be even given a role in the physical context.
Publications:
The Economics of Identity and Creativity. A Cultural Science Approach. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2010.
International Market Access Rights and the Evolution of the International Trade System, in: Journal of Theoretical and Institutional Economics, 164(2), 2008, 302—326;
Cultural Species and Institutional Change in China, in: Journal of Economic Issues XL(3), 2006: 539-574.
A Neurolinguistic Approach to Performativity in Economics, Forthcoming in: Journal of Eco-nomic Methodology, Frankfurt School Working Paper Series 123. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1414167 (penultimate version)
Neuroeconomics stays in the center of the ongoing naturalistic turn in economics. It portrays the individual as a complex system of decision making mechanisms and modules. This results into a conceptual tension with the standard economic notion of the unity of the actor that is a systemic property of economic coordination. I propose to supplement neuroeconomics with a naturalistic theory of social coordination. Recent neurobiological and psychological research strongly supports claims made by some heterodox economists that the identity of actors emerges from social interaction, especially in the context of the use of language. Therefore I argue that the completion of the neuroeconomic paradigm requires a naturalistic theory of language. I provide some sketches based on teleosemantics and memetics, and exemplify the argument by a naturalist account of money.
What makes institutions ‘real’? One central notion has been emerging recently in sociology, which is ‘performativity,’ a term borrowed from the philosophy of language. I propose a neurolinguistic approach to performativity that is based on John Searle’s theory of institutions, especially his concept of a ‘status function’ and his explanation of rule-following as a neurophysiological dispositions. Positing a status function is a performative act. I proceed in two steps to establish the neurolinguistic framework. Firstly, I apply the concept of ‘conceptual blending’ borrowed from cognitive science on the status function, and give empirical applications from the research on performativity in financial markets. Second, I sketch the underlying neuroscience framework following the neural theory of metaphor, which I illustrate empirically with examples from behavioral finance and neuroeconomics.
Ìn the past decades, economists have rediscovered culture. Yet, they do not build on earlier traditions, such as the old American institutionalism or German sociologists such as Weber and Sombart. The contemporary economic concept of culture is lacking a clear theoretical foundation, especially with relation to the humanities. Very often, it argues crudely reductionist because of the need to make culture compatibel with econometric methodology. I propose that a reconsideration of culture in economics has to start out from culture as a mechanism for reducing uncertainty, following North. This conception can also be reconciled with recent biological approaches to culture. Further, culture serves to stabilize individual identities in social interactions. An important conclusion from this is that single cultural traits rarely have a function or have adaptative value, but culture as a whole has a function.
Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, Alexander Libman and Yu Xiaofan
Date:
Wed, 2010-02-10
Abstract:
In the past two decades, controversial evidence has been produced supporting the case for local protectionism in China. This paper overviews the most important contributions and presents a new approach which applies spatial econometrics on prefectural-level data. The main advantage of this method is to rely on a theoretically less biased and internal benchmark for assessing the impact of provincial borders on spatial interdependences, as we compare within province and across province growth spillovers for neighboring prefectures. We show that provincial borders exert a strong impact on spillovers. Further, we also analyze spillovers of local public expenditures, which could be interpreted as proxies for government interventions. Again, provincial borders matter. Yet, we are cautious in interpreting this as evidence for local protectionism, and propose the notion of ‘cellularity’ as an alternative explanantion. Cellularity results from a comfluence of different factors, such as administrative structure, institutional changes and regional culture.