Trade and Development in the Global South
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Swissotel Chicago, Monte Rosa
- Chair: Adem Yavuz Elveren, Fitchburg State University
Characterizing SSAs and Identifying Transitions: Conceptual and Methodological Issues
Abstract
Various analysts of Social Structures of Accumulation in the United States have characterized SSAs in somewhat different ways,. They have also sometimes identified different years as the year of transition from one SSA to the next. This paper asks questions about the methods used to characterize SSAs and to identify transitions from one SSA to the next, with the goal of putting SSA analysis on a somewhat more rigorous footing. First, it reviews the quantitative variables whose time series are explicitly or implicitly used in SSA analysis, as well as the qualitative categories used for which time series apparently do not exist (although in some cases there may exist satisfactory proxies). Second, it reviews the method by which quantitative variation in the relevant series appears to inform the decision about what years are transition years between SSAs, and the decision about what is the best way to characterize each SSA. Third, it discusses problems in interpreting the data for certain variables—in particular, the fact that reported profit rates are distorted by the tax avoidance strategies of multinational corporations, which include profit shifting to tax havens, so that reported profit rates in the US may in some cases understate the global profitability of US multinational corporations.Is Mercantilism Passé?
Abstract
The development of international trade theories has turned “mercantilism” into an obsolete boutique that appears in the beginning of most of international trade textbooks. People often forget that historically mercantilists were the first group of people who were concerned about an inherent contradiction in capitalism – micro level wage-suppression that leads to macro level sluggish aggregate demand – the famous fallacy of composition problem as later identified by Keynes. According to them, export market is a solution to this contradiction. In this paper, we argue that in today’s world, mercantilism is not passé – but it is not what it once was. In the name of export-led growth, the mercantilist mechanism is still effective in suppressing wage share around the globe, making the wage-led growth regime more and more difficult to attain. We illustrate this argument by using a Post-Keynesian trade-focused model. Furthermore, using China as an example, we point out that the most convenient way out of the mercantilist curse might be the increase the propensity to consume out of wage by providing better social safety net for workers.Explaining the Changing Pattern of Nutritional Intake by Class in Contemporary China
Abstract
This study explores the changing pattern of nutritional intake by social class in contemporary China. Using individual-level data from the Chinese Health and Nutritional Survey (CHNS), we find that the relationship between social class and nutritional intake in China has reversed in the recent two decades: in the early 1990s, social class and nutritional intake was not closely related, and physical activity level among other factors was the strongest determinant; twenty years later, however, social class became dominant in determining the consumption of nutrition. For example, in 1991, small peasants—whose jobs were the most physically demanding—on average consumed more calorie and protein than the rural and urban capitalists; whereas in 2011, the capitalist class on average consumed the most calorie and protein among all other classes. Based on our econometric analysis, we further argue that the current class-nutrition nexus was the consequence of China’s increasing class differentiation and market-oriented reforms in the last two decades.Discussant(s)
Jeannette Wicks-Lim
, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Aaron Pacitti
, Siena College
Anirban Karak
, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Mohammad Moeini-Feizabdai
, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
JEL Classifications
- F1 - Trade
- O1 - Economic Development