Robert Vienneau: Thoughts Economics

Special Cases in the Analysis of Rent TypeLandAgricultural ProcessesIndustrial ProcessesExtensive rentMultiple types of land, each of a given qualityFor a given type of land, one process producing corn is availableFor a given commodity other than corn, one process for producing it is availableIntensive rent properOne type of homogeneous landFor the given type of land, multiple processes are available for producing cornFor a given commodity other than corn, one process for producing it is...

The Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel this year goes to David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens. I cannot say much about instrumental variables, Angrist, or Imbens. Since I have been pointing to Card's work with Alan Krueger on minimum wages for decades, I thought I might say somthing about his half of the prize. I do not have much new to say. I find both natural experiments and meta-analysis intriguing. Both Card and Krueger's natural...

Figure 1: Three Patterns Across The Wage Axis And One Three-Technique Pattern This post continues the approach in this post and in this post. As previously stated, I consider the same two examples. In both examples, three processes are known for producing the numeraire, called "corn". In the example for the left panel, corn is a non-basic commodity, and a different basic commodity is used in each of the three techniques. In the example for the right panel, all three corn-producing processes...

Figure 1: Three Patterns Across The r Axis And One Three-Technique Pattern This post continues the approach in this post. I consider the same two examples. In both examples, three processes are known for producing the numeraire, called "corn". In the example for the left panel, corn is a non-basic commodity, and a different basic commodity is used in all three techniques. In the example for the right panel, all three corn-producing processes require inputs of labor power, corn, and labor (in...

Alex Thomas on Krishna Bharadwaj as an ideal economist. Her daughter, Sudha Bharadwaj is a political prisoner. The first page of this Jeremy Rudd paper is getting noticed. A lot of mainstream economics is "arrant nonsense." National Public Radio has a rememberance of Charles Mills. Liam Bright has a tribute, too.

Table 1: A Common Structure Example1.0 Introduction This post presents partitions of (a part of) parameter space for two examples of models of prices of production with a choice of technique. The examples have a different structure and are parametrized differently. Yet, I want to argue, the partitions are the same, at some level of abstraction. 2.0 Thing 1 The first example is an instance of the Samuelson-Garegnani model. Table 1 presents the coefficients of production for this example....

Here is John Stuart Mill stating a principle that sounds noble, and then immediately making a strange caveat. "The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or...

This blog, over years, presents a welter of fluke cases. I created many of the numerical examples to illustrate the reswitching of techniques, capital reversing, or some such so-called 'perversity'. Fluke cases can be combined. For example, a fluke switch point at a rate of profits of zero can also be a fluke switch point at which three wage curves intersect. Or two switch points on the wage frontier can both be fluke switch points at which four wage curves, not necessarily the same,...

In Mark Twain's novels, Huckleberry Finn is just a kid in what you might think is the most despised group in society. His mother ran away, and his father, who rarely is home to look after him, is the town drunk. Huck does not go to school, dresses in rags, and often sleeps outside in some barrel down by the waterfront. But Huck is quite conscious that some hard-working adults are looked down on worse than him by respectable people. 'That's all right. Now, where you going to sleep?' 'In...

The Four Circuits of Capital Marx describes three circuits of capital in the opening chapters of Volume 2 of Capital. But when I draw a diagram, as above, a fourth circuit seems to be missing. So I have added the circuit of advanced capital. The circuit of advanced capital begins with commodities, consisting of means of production and labor power, in the hands of or under the direction of capitalists. They have purchased these commodities with monetary advances. The capitalists, at this...