MERG is launching 4 projects:
A) Cambridge University, Jane Cooley Fruehwirth (lecturer, Department of
Economics): role of the Church of England in times of recession, looking at
clergy supply (whether it increases during economic downturns) and church
attendance.
B) Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). This project aims to analyse
the effects that the proposed government policy of pay regionalisation in
the public sector would have in the UK.
C) The New Economics Foundation: Industrial Strategy. This is a project
modelling and analysing industrial strategies aimed at achieving 'good
jobs' that have the right balance between objectives such as income
equality, secure employment, and full employment. The research would be
steered by a task force including amongst others Ha-Joon Chang (Cambridge
University).
D) Building and Social Housing Foundation: UK Housing Research Team. Exact
project to be determined. For more details see:
http://www.bshf.org/ukhpp/?lang=00 Selection for membership of these
research groups will be competitive, and based on performance in a written
composition.
To be considered for selection, please choose your most preferred topic
(A-D) and find an existing piece of literature that you think will be
relevant to the research. Please review this critically and write a
250-word piece on how the paper relates to the topic. Please also rank the
projects 1 to 4 by your order of preference.
The deadline is 6pm on Sunday 12 February. Please send your submission,
including your name, course and year, to mergexternal@gmail.com.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
David Rennie, the Economist's 'Bagehot' and 'Charlemagne Correspondent
Thursday, Feb 2, 2012
at the Christ's Politics Society
Redactor: Ksenija Osmjana
In his talk at Christ’s College David Rennie discussed Britain’s current difficult relationship with the European Union.
According to Mr Rennie, entering the European Common Market was a bargain which included benefits but required compromises. Its main disadvantage was the excessive EU regulation, which requires compliance with employment and environmental laws. Its main benefit undoubtedly was the single market, which created jobs and employment.
Public opinion in Europe is wrong in the sense that it fails to understand that every country has a unique relationship with the EU, therefore each of them has its own reasons to be excited about it or not. Thus, Spain was very eager to enter EU because of its consitution, freedom and human rights that the country missed greately during the fascism years. Germany has its reason to like the European Union as a way to become a superpower, whereas France, despite being a nationalist country, enjoys its position of the horseman riding on the back of Europe. Britain, however, does not have any reason to be obsessed with the idea of EU anymore due to the historic implications. The UK finally entered the EEC in 1973 not because it fell in love with it, but because it wanted to get rid of its sick-man-of-Europe position since Europe appeared to be more dynamic and more successful, which opened great prospects for trade and growth, so much needed to Britain in the post-war era. Nowadays, however, two things went wrong. First, Europe is not dynamic anymore, especially at the time of the eurocrisis. Second, Europe has become a synomim to immigration and Britain is not eager at all to bear its negative consequences.
David Rennie thinks there is no prospect for the situation to get better, hence it is a perfect time to leave the common market. However, he admits that there is no better alternative. UK is running a huge trade deficit with Europe since 50% of its trade is with EU and 40% with the Eurozone. Britain thinks that this gives her a possibility to dictate its own conditions, which is not true. The EU trade with UK does not constitute such a great proportion and, above all, trade deficit is not the reason for having a right to exert power.
Single market does not offer anything that could not be achieved through bileteral relationship. However, why would any other country establish an FTA with Britain and give her such a gift? Should UK leave the European single market, much of production, such as Nissan plants, would quickly move to the continent to avoid tariffs. For example, each car imported into the country is subject to a tariff of minimum 10%. Moreover, Britain definitely cannot become another Switzerland because it is is a large free-trade country, which, if walks out of the EU, will cause a great disbalance of power (Germany sees Britain, together with the Scandinavians, to be the counterbalance to the French).
British are eurosceptics because they assume that better alternatives do exist. In reality, as points Mr Rennie, there are none and EU also realizes that it is only one of our fantasies. Hence, there is no prospect for improvement in the situation, which is likely to stay as it is.
at the Christ's Politics Society
Redactor: Ksenija Osmjana
THE UK AND EUROPE'S CRISIS
According to Mr Rennie, entering the European Common Market was a bargain which included benefits but required compromises. Its main disadvantage was the excessive EU regulation, which requires compliance with employment and environmental laws. Its main benefit undoubtedly was the single market, which created jobs and employment.
Public opinion in Europe is wrong in the sense that it fails to understand that every country has a unique relationship with the EU, therefore each of them has its own reasons to be excited about it or not. Thus, Spain was very eager to enter EU because of its consitution, freedom and human rights that the country missed greately during the fascism years. Germany has its reason to like the European Union as a way to become a superpower, whereas France, despite being a nationalist country, enjoys its position of the horseman riding on the back of Europe. Britain, however, does not have any reason to be obsessed with the idea of EU anymore due to the historic implications. The UK finally entered the EEC in 1973 not because it fell in love with it, but because it wanted to get rid of its sick-man-of-Europe position since Europe appeared to be more dynamic and more successful, which opened great prospects for trade and growth, so much needed to Britain in the post-war era. Nowadays, however, two things went wrong. First, Europe is not dynamic anymore, especially at the time of the eurocrisis. Second, Europe has become a synomim to immigration and Britain is not eager at all to bear its negative consequences.
David Rennie thinks there is no prospect for the situation to get better, hence it is a perfect time to leave the common market. However, he admits that there is no better alternative. UK is running a huge trade deficit with Europe since 50% of its trade is with EU and 40% with the Eurozone. Britain thinks that this gives her a possibility to dictate its own conditions, which is not true. The EU trade with UK does not constitute such a great proportion and, above all, trade deficit is not the reason for having a right to exert power.
Single market does not offer anything that could not be achieved through bileteral relationship. However, why would any other country establish an FTA with Britain and give her such a gift? Should UK leave the European single market, much of production, such as Nissan plants, would quickly move to the continent to avoid tariffs. For example, each car imported into the country is subject to a tariff of minimum 10%. Moreover, Britain definitely cannot become another Switzerland because it is is a large free-trade country, which, if walks out of the EU, will cause a great disbalance of power (Germany sees Britain, together with the Scandinavians, to be the counterbalance to the French).
British are eurosceptics because they assume that better alternatives do exist. In reality, as points Mr Rennie, there are none and EU also realizes that it is only one of our fantasies. Hence, there is no prospect for improvement in the situation, which is likely to stay as it is.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The Cambridge Realist Workshop: Dave Elder-Vass on Towards a social ontology of markets
Monday 30 January 2012
Dr Elder-Vass began by claiming that economists spend surprisingly little time thinking about what a market actually ‘is’. The problem of what something actually ‘is’ is the focus of the philosophical field of ontology. Correspondingly, the study of what ‘is’ in the social realm is called social ontology.
Dr Elder-Vass structured his seminar in three parts. First, he discussed an interpretation of ontology. Second, he discussed a social ontology. Finally, he applied this social ontology to markets.
He began by giving an account of causality. In it, events are caused by interacting causal powers. These ‘powers’ are emergent properties of entities. An emergent property is an attribute that a collection of objects only has when it is combined in a particular way. He gave the example of a torch. Together, the bulb, the battery, the lens and the other components give the torch the power to shine. Individually, none of the parts has this property. The power to shine is an emergent property. Put another way, the torch is more than the sum of its parts.
He noted that this philosophy, in which properties are emergent, is not consistent with the view of mainstream economics, which he described as reductionist.
In the second part of the seminar, by applying this model to the social world, Dr Elder-Vass explained his social ontology. His stated goal was to ask the following questions: ‘What entities exist?’, ‘What powers emerge?’, and ‘By what mechanism do they emerge?’
He discussed one of the entities that exist in his model: the norm circle. He explained that this is an example of what sociologists would refer to as a normative social institution. Norm circles are composed of people who enforce the norm’s rules (the people correspond to, for example, the battery and lens of the torch example). He gave the example of a norm circle composed of students who want to uphold the norm of quietness in a lecture theatre. Norm-circle members will shush a noisy student because they have the backing of other group members. This influence gives the group emergent causal powers.
In the third part of the seminar, Dr Elder-Vass looked at markets from a social ontological perspective. He said that his project was to examine the motivation, mechanism and strategies that are present in markets. He stated that exchange is fundamentally institutional. This means that it is not meaningful to think of exchange taking place outside a social context because exchange of property is equivalent to the exchange of property rights. Property rights only exist because of social institutions. As a consequence of this, exchange can only take place in a social context.
Dr Elder-Vass gave an example of a mechanism through which exchange can occur: preferential attachment. This occurs when a buyer’s strategy is to develop an attachment to a seller because of convenience, a social relationship, or risk-reduction. The seller’s strategy is, simply, to seek buyer attachment. The effects of this strategy include a stabilisation of price differentials. For example, a consumer might continue buying shirts from a local retailer with whom she has built up a relationship, rather than shop at a cheaper chain store. This allows a price differential to stabilise.
Dr Elder-Vass concluded by describing an economy as a set of events produced by the interacting causal powers of people, organisations and markets.
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