Volkswirtschaft - Open Access LMU - Teil 01/03 Archiv

Bei der Festsetzung des Lohnsatzes für eine bestimmte Tätigkeit wird die Unternehmung den Lohnsatz weder unnötig hoch wählen noch so gering , dass es unwahrscheinlich wird, eine geeignete Arbeitskraft zu finden. So werden die Lohnsätze unter Berücksichtigung ihres Einflusses auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer erfolgreichen Stellenbesetzung optimal fixiert. Wenn Indikatoren wie Geschlecht oder Rasse typischerweise mit unterschiedlichem Angebotsverhalten verknüpft sind, wird die Lohnsetzung der Unternehmung zu Diskriminierung gemäß diesen Indikatoren führen. Der Ansatz kann als eine moderne Neuformulierung der Diskriminierungstheorie von Joan Robinson verstanden werden. Er führt zu mathematisch identischen Gleichgewichtsbedingungen, allerdings mit abweichender Interpretation und unter Vermeidung einiger Schwierigkeiten des ursprünglichen Ansatzes. Innerhalb des entwickelten Rahmens lässt sich die Möglichkeit langfristig anhaltender Diskriminierung aufweisen und so ein Beitrag zur Erklärung eines Phänomens leisten, das für andere Ansätze (Joan Robinson's eingeschlossen) gewisse Schwierigkeiten bietet

These notes, published in 1981, introduce the concept of the social multiplier: If the behavior of agents is positively influenced by what members of their reference group do, this enhances the power of economic incentives.

People tend, in many ways, to behave like the others they see around them. This note´shows that such reference group behavior tends to reinforce incentives (economic or other) that influence individuals directly only marginally. The workings or such incentives is augmented what might be called a "social multiplier."

The decomposition of a given time series into trend, seasonal component, and irregular component is formulated as a minimization problem. The trend is chosen such that it is as smooth as possible; the seasonal component is chosen such that it exhibits a seasonal pattern as stable as possible; and the trend and seasonal components are jointly chosen such that the given time series is explained as well as possible by these two components; that is, the irregular component is minimized

A labor market is considered that is characterized by job competition over job ladders. Firms paying more for comparable jobs can attract workers with better background characteristics (with general human capital) and will lose fewer trained workers (with general and firm-specific human capital). Optimizing behavior on the side of the firms gives rise to a wage structure that shows similar correlations between training and wages as would emerge in a human capital framework, but for different reasons. Further, the wage structure responds to other influences, like the degree of labor mobility.

The essay contains a highly speculative theory of social change together with an application to the theory of labour management. It draws on previous work done by the author (1972, 1978), partly in collaboration with C.C.v.weizsäcker (Weizsäcker/Schlicht 1979). In Part I the proposed theory of social change is developed in some detail. The argument leads to the conclusion that society interpets its rules of social organization and interaction as modifications of pure, or simple, or prototype rules, rather than viewing the prevailing set of rules as a self-sufficient archetype. This leads tothe proposition that continuous social changes might entail discontinuous switches in the scheme of social organization. Since the theory draws heavily on Gestalt psychology, these switches are termed Gestalt switches; discontinuous changes in superstructure brought about by smooth changes within the existing socio-economic framework. Part 2 deals with an application of this general kind of argument to the theory of labour management. Starting with a sketch of why labour immobility is a precondition for the viability of labour management in a competitive economy, it will be argued that technical progress will lead, through competitive pressure, to just that: a de-facto-immobility of labour. Thereby, the stage is set for the development of an efficient type of labour-managed organization which might evolve from competition; but immobility of labour will have another important consequence: The very notion of the firm will undergo a change, socially. People will cease to interpret employment relations as exchange relations. Rather, they will view the employment contract as establishing permanent rights and obligations. Since workers are tied permanently to a firm, firms will be considered as being constituted by their staff rather than by changing physicalequipment, just in the same way as a firm is viewed socially as being constituted by the owners of capital under capitalist conditions. Thus, firms will become ultimately identified with their staff rather than with the suppliers of capital, and the labour managed firm will appear as the "natural" form of organization. Actual firms will be considered as modifications of this pure form just in the same way as co-determination is considered as a modification of the pure capitalist mode of organization today. Thus, this precarious kind of theorizing leads to the conclusion that strong pressures are working towards a gestalt switch to labour management. The reader is kindly rtequested, however, not to take those conclusions at face value, since the foundations on which the theory is built are not excelling in firmness. Take all this, please, as a Gedanken-experiment, as one particular attempt towards a better understanding of social and economic change containing, perhaps, some elements of a fruitful approach

The analysis of multivariate dynamical models can sometimes be considerably simplified by the assumption that one or several variables move infinitely fast to their equilibrium values. The method is known as the ‘moving equilibrium method’. Various dynamical theories that build on equilibrated markets presuppose the validity of this method. The method is discussed and a theorem -- the moving equilibrium theorem -- is provided that establishes the validity of the approximation in the linear case.