Organizations & Markets
My posts as guest blogger at the Organizations and Markets blog, ranging from contract manufacturing to the future of capitalism. Some of these posts are reproduced below.
My posts as guest blogger at the Organizations and Markets blog, ranging from contract manufacturing to the future of capitalism. Some of these posts are reproduced below.
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By: Benito Arruñada
July 15th, 2009 , 13:27
Will Macroeconomists Solve the Crisis?
One may doubt it after observing that Ben Bernanke was one of those believing in the Great Moderation — the claim that macroeconomic volatility had been reduced. Macroeconomic policymaking seems to be as unsafe as firefighting: extinguishing small fires creates the conditions for hell. Shouldn’t macroeconomists learn something from forest management? (For a start: “Fire Must Be Ally in Forest Management.”) Of course, if coupled with an acid-suppressing pill, they could even dare to read Hayek’s “Pretence of Knowledge”.
See comments at the O&M Blog
By: Benito Arruñada
June 19th, 2009 , 00:47
Does Capitalism Suffer Cycles of Statism?
Does the current expansion of the State reverse a previous reduction, to be reduced once again in the future? Or, alternatively, is there a sort of ratchet effect, with a trend towards greater statism disguised by cycles along such increasing trend?
I am inclined to think that cycling has not taken place around a stationary average but around an increasing tendency (see the figures). But perhaps a better way of facing these questions would be to disaggregate in different dimensions. For instance, in several papers with Veneta Andonova I argue that freedom of contract has been in decline for more than a century in Western Law, both in civil- and common-law countries.
Something similar could probably be said about trade, but in the opposite direction. However, in both freedom of contract and trade, it might be the case that exchange opportunities have expanded mainly as a result of technological change (e.g., cheaper transportation and communications), whatever the legal constraints. In terms of research, how could these trends be measured? These thoughts were triggered by a timely and extremely suggestive paper by Witold J. Henisz presented at the Workshop on “Manufacturing Markets” organized last week in Villa Finaly, Florence, by Eric Brousseau and Jean-Michel Glachant. My next few blogs will address other aspects of Henisz’s views on the broader challenges facing capitalism.
Comments at the Organizations and Markets blog