著者

宇仁 宏幸

出版者

京都大学経済学会

雑誌

経済論叢 (ISSN:00130273)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.183, no.3, pp.19-33, 2009-07

被引用文献数

1

著者

宇仁 宏幸

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.53, no.3, pp.101, 2016 (Released:2018-10-09)

著者

宇仁 宏幸

出版者

京都大学

巻号頁・発行日

2004-04

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平成13-15年度科学研究費補助金(基盤研究(B)(1))研究成果報告書 課題番号:13430002 研究代表者:宇仁宏幸(京都大学大学院経済学研究科教授)

著者

宇仁 宏幸

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.51, no.2, pp.77-88, 2014-07-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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According to K. W. Kapp, the principle of cumulative causation is at the core of institutional economics and sets it apart from earlier and contemporary non-institutional approaches, and particularly from the mechanistic equilibrium approach. Cumulative causation, in short, means that changes in multiple factors proceed in parallel and cumulatively through mutually reinforcing effects working among these factors. There are two streams in the theory of cumulative causation, whose themes are different. The first stream originated from Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. Its main theme is two-way causation between the evolution of human instincts and the evolution of social institutions. The second stream is macroeconomic dynamics that applies the concept of cumulative causation, which originated from A. Young's paper in 1928 and was developed further by G. Myrdal, N. Kaldor and R. Boyer. They analyzed two-way causation between various economic variables such as labor productivity growth and demand growth, where institutions play the role of mediating causation. However, there is no explicit reference to cumulative causation in J. R. Commons' primary work, Institutional Economics that consists of about 900 pages. Furthermore, Commons was never taken up in historical studies on theories of cumulative causation. Nevertheless, does Commons' system of institutional economics not include the principle of cumulative causation? This paper will consider this issue, based on Institutional Economics and a manuscript written in 1927 that was newly found by the author. In comparison with this 1927 manuscript, Commons' theory in Institutional Economics published 1934 has developed greatly. Between 1927 and 1934, there was Great Depression, the rise of Stalinism and fascism, revitalization of the labor movement and the start of the New Deal. These drastic social and economic changes affected Commons' theory. I think that, through his consideration of this large-scale lack of demand, Commons changed his view on scarcity from the one of emphasizing the supply side to the one of taking count of both sides of supply and demand. I assume that the unbalanced description in the 1927 manuscript, emphasizing only sellers' control of the quantity of supply, was deleted as a result of this conceptual expansion of "proprietary scarcity." Moreover, by including institutional economic adjustments at the macro and meso levels, the concept of "rationing transaction" is expanded significantly in Institutional Economics, as compared with "judicial transaction" in the 1927 manuscript. As a result, although Commons did not use the words "cumulative causation" in Institutional Economics, he reached very close to an idea of cumulative causation similar to that of Kaldor and Boyer by expanding the concepts of "proprietary scarcity" and "rationing transaction."

著者

宇仁 宏幸

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, no.3, pp.79-89, 2012-10-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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A majority of economic theories, including that of Marx, have focused on the production and reproduction of wealth, productive capacity, and labour productivity. Attempts to analyse the destructive power of human activities on the ecosystem began in the mid-twentieth century. It is now widely recognized that the production of wealth relates to the destruction of the ecosystem today; however, theoretical and quantitative analyses concerning this theme are few, and we cannot find an established theory. The first purpose of this paper is to clarify 'stylised facts' by a quantitative analysis of the relationship between GHG emission and economic growth in advanced countries since the 1990s. The important fact is that the reduction of GHG emissions is compatible with economic growth under certain institutional conditions. The second purpose of this paper is to analyse the stylised facts using a cumulative causation model. In the case that the reduction of GHG emissions is compatible with economic growth, a partial dilemma exists between them. Therefore, whether a country gives priority to the reduction of GHG emissions or to economic growth becomes a political choice. Section II critically examines existing opinions. Intuitively, the higher the economic growth rate is, the higher the rate at which GHG emissions increase. Pessimistic opinions that economic growth is not compatible with the reduction of GHG emissions are based on this intuition. Moreover, this intuition sometimes leads to the extreme opinion that zero or negative economic growth is necessary to reduce GHG emissions. We show that these opinions are faulty owing to inadequate processing of data. Section III explains the results of a panel data analysis and a time series data analysis with regard to the relationship between the decreasing rate of emission intensity and economic growth rates in eighteen advanced countries. There is a positive correlation between the economic growth rate and the decreasing rate of emission intensity since the 1990s. Moreover, the introduction of an environment tax increases the decreasing rate of emission intensity. Section IV shows that there is trade-off between the effects of dynamic increasing returns on labour inputs and GHG emissions. The decreasing rate of emission intensity is equal to the increase rate of the real GDP per unit of GHG. Therefore, a decrease in emission intensity can be considered to be an increase of returns on GHG emissions. We measure also the Verdoon coefficients that show the strength of dynamic increasing returns on labour inputs. These two dynamic increasing returns have a trade-off relationship. In other words, the dynamic increasing returns on labour inputs are weak in countries where the dynamic increasing returns on GHG emissions are strong. Most of these countries introduced environment taxes in the 1990s. Section V explains the manner in which the transformation of innovation to reduce GHG emissions affects growth regime using a cumulative causation model. The decreasing rate of emission intensity represents the change in the broadly-defined labour productivity considering destructibility of the ecosystem. We call this 'broadly-defined productivity growth'. We examine influences of the transformation of innovation on the demand regime, the productivity regime and the broadly defined productivity regime. Thus, we show the structural reason why economic growth and labour productivity growth were partially sacrificed in countries that promoted the transformation to economy innovations by the introduction of environment taxes.