Institutionalist Approaches to the Environment and Inequality
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Swissotel Chicago, St Gallen 2
- Chair: Scott Fullwiler, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Technological and Institutional Interaction in the Shale Oil [R]evolution
Abstract
A decade ago, peak oil was a widely discussed topic. By early 2015, US oil production reached 9.7 million barrels per day, a figure not seen since the nation’s previous peak production in 1970. The dramatic increase in US production is commonly referred to as the shale oil revolution. It is often alleged that the shale oil revolution was the result of technological change, particularly horizontal drilling and fracking. Technological change was an important contributing factor to the increase in production but such change involved much more than horizontal drilling and fracking. Institutional changes also contributed in a major way to the shale oil revolution. Upstream, midstream and downstream markets changed dramatically. Global markets changed in surprising ways. New mechanisms of financing exploration and production were facilitated by low interest rates and quantitative easing. The political and regulatory environments changed dramatically as well. Institutionalists have long argued that markets consist of more than simple supply and demand curves. Rather, markets are a set of rules (institutions) that govern transactions. This paper will investigate the peculiar interaction of institutions and technology in the shale oil industry between 2010 and 2015.The Meritocratic Elite Versus the Common Man: Income Inequality in the Affluent OECD Countries
Abstract
The goal of this inquiry is to highlight the relationship between "vested interests" of meritocratic elite and deteriorating situation of the common man on the example of rising income inequality in the affluent OECD countries over the past 30 years. The results showed that income inequality is growing despite the increase in labour productivity, which is proved by using a robust panel regression model. This finding could be explained by the effect of "extreme meritocracy” that describes a situation in which the wages of workers with an extreme level of human capital is growing faster than their labour productivity, which is actually another term for the wage stagnation for workers with a median level of human capital. The gap between wage and labour productivity growth indicates that much of the income gained by the meritocratic elite can be treated as "free income". As a result of meritocratization, income inequality becomes less static though not necessarily smaller. Consequently, the debate about income inequality has to be shifted from functional to personal income distribution — i.e., from class conflict to meritocratic deliberations. The privileged positions of those who have "vested interests" in such hyper-meritocratic society are not denying but it seems to be justified as natural moral or right. The final result is that the common man gradually adopts social conventions according to which rising income inequality is inevitable in modern globalized economy, causing the weakening of trade union power and slowing down the institutional changes towards greater redistribution of income and wealth.Wealth Inequality Revisited: Lessons From the 400 Wealthiest Americans
Abstract
This paper uses Forbes magazine’s annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans to study how the wealthiest Americans have fared over recent decades as a group and as unique individuals. The list suggests they fared well as a group in both absolute and relative terms. Their wealth increased in absolute terms, even if it is measured by its purchasing power over conspicuously expensive goods and services. Their wealth also increased in relative terms as they took home a larger share of aggregate wealth despite shrinking as a share of the population. If the wealthiest Americans are seen as unique individuals rather than as a group, then their fortunes have been more varied with some becoming wealthier and others becoming poorer or simply dying, but intra- and inter-generational mobility seem stagnant. The paper reflects on the causes and consequences of that rising inequality and stagnate mobility. Of note, the title of this paper is based on the title of James Peach’s “Regional Income Inequality Revisited: Lessons from the 100 Lowest-Income Counties in the United States.” The methods adopted by the paper are also based on the institutionalist methods he adopts there and elsewhere. He joins a descriptive analysis of the degree of inequality with tentative conclusions about causes and consequences and also a call for greater equality.Premature Deindustrialization and the Defeminization of Labor
Abstract
Moving up the industrial ladder has a male bias. At the micro level, we know a little bit as to why this might occur. It may be due to reduced labor cost pressures in capital-intensive production, gender biases and norms, or lack of job training for women. At the macroeconomic level, very little is known about what conditions the link between industrial upgrading and women’s relative employment outcomes. In fact, dramatic regional differences between Asian and Latin American feminization and deindustrialization patterns suggest that the macroeconomic environment is a fruitful arena to explore the factors that condition the link between industrial upgrading and (de)feminization of labor.We aim to fill this gap by analyzing how the (de)industrialization-(de)feminization link is condition by differing “deindustrial regimes”. We do this by bridging three separate strands of the literature: (i) deindustrialization [i.e. works like that of Singh (1977) and other Cambridge writers that build on the work of Kaldor (1966, 1967, 1968)], (ii) the fallacy of composition and Prebisch-Singer [i.e. Razmi and Blecker (2008)] and (iii) the feminist scholarship on feminization of labor [i.e. Elson and Pearson,(1991)Standing,(1989, 1999)]. From this we argue that the competitive position of manufacturing is the link between premature deindustrialization and defeminization trends. We use this lens to estimate the industrial upgrading – defeminization link across two deindustrial regime types. Given that very little is known about the consequences of premature deindustrialization, our results are novel and indicate that this process is likely to amplify the male bias of industrial upgrading.
JEL Classifications
- D3 - Distribution
- Q5 - Environmental Economics