The stronger the level of economic integration between countries, the greater the need to study the formation patterns of the stock market reaction to the financial information signals. This concerns the Ukrainian stock market, which is now in its infancy, and which reaction to financial information signals is sometimes ambiguous. The research aims to identify the formation patterns of return and volatility indicators of the Ukrainian stock market reaction to the US financial information signals. To assess the direct nature of (...) US financial information signals effect on the PFTS stock index, the GARCH econometric modeling toolkit was applied. The research information base is the PFTS stock index and the Federal Reserve System financial information signals at the discount rate for 2000–2019. The fetch is divided into intervals corresponded to the ascent and decline phases of the financial cycle. It was found that an unforeseen increase in the discount rate at the financial cycle decline phase by 25 basis points decreases the PFTS stock index return, on average by 2.9%. Besides, the hypothesis about the general change stabilizing effect in the discount rate on the Ukrainian stock market volatility at the financial cycle growth phase was confirmed. Nevertheless, for investors, the most essential is the regulator’s monetary signals in the discount rate at the financial cycle decline phases rather than at the ascent phases because there is a more significant increase in the volatility level. (shrink)

The article provides a critical assessment of The Central Bank of the Russian Federation policy in response to the sanctions of the US, the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea and a number of other countries. The effect of sanctions on the Russian economy and its financial market is viewed through the prism of credit, interest rate, and currency risk, and the risk of a decline in business activity. Special attention is paid to the inflationary component and inflationary (...) expectations of the Russian Federation, as well as to the forecasts for a decline in business activity in Russia. A critical assessment is given to the actions of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the economic bloc of the government of the Russian Federation as a whole in response to the sanctions of the civilized world, which disable the normal existence of the economy and the main purpose of which is not to destroy the economy of the Russian Federation but to ensure the end of hostilities on the European continent. The results of our study will be useful to everyone who studies the problems of the effect of economic sanctions on the resource-based economy and the processes of stimulating political decisions by economic methods. (shrink)

Abstract : This research work examined how major macro economic variables in Nigeria such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) and National Savings (NS) reacted to International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionality from 1986 to 2016. Many policy makers and researchers have questioned the benefits of IMF credit facilities to developing nations. This work therefore seeks to evaluate the impact of IMF conditionality like Reduction in Government Expenditure (TGE), Devaluation of Local Currencies (RER), and Trade (...) openness (TO) on the Identified Macro Economic Variable in Nigeria. The data for the analysis were sourced from the data bank of World Bank. Granger causality test and ordinary Least Square (OLS) method were used to test the formulated hypotheses. The result revealed that IMF conditionality has significant effect on GDP, GFCF and NS of Nigeria. Devaluation of local currency is the greatest IMF conditionality that exerts great negative influence on economic growth of Nigeria. The work recommends among others that: instead of currency devaluation, protectionist policies via guided liberalization should be promoted combined with the use of fiscal policy in order to encourage local production and usage of locally produced goods. TGE that showed significant positive effect on GDP, GFCF and NS is an indication that government can positively influence the economic positions of Nigeria with the use of fiscal policy. (shrink)

Since time immemorial, poverty reduction interventions in Sub‐Saharan Africa like everywhere in the South, have focused on the individual as the basic ingredient of a moral society (ethical individualism). According to this perspective, in order to lift human persons out of poverty, it is imperative to integrate poor persons into poverty eradication interventions irrespective of sex, social status and gender. Scholars and institutions that subscribed to this conception of poverty thought that individuals were poor because of personal weaknesses (case poverty).This (...) perspective has been greatly challenged due to the upsurge of gender and human rights scholarship in the 20th century. Gender scholars have painstakingly argued that in order to understand poverty, we need to look at society (ethical collectivism). They have rejected the Women in Development(WID) discourse that aims at integrating women into the development process in favour of the Gender and Development(GAD) approach to development and poverty reduction that aims at confronting power relations between men and women (empowerment).This GAD perspective looks at poverty in terms of the powerlessness speared head by prevailing structures in society (structural poverty) and hence the need to empower vulnerable persons such as women to challenge structures and strictures of oppression. The International Monetary fund (IMF) and World Bank as vehement promoters of economism in Sub‐Saharan Africa for decades have urged governments to include the perspectives of the poor in poverty polices through what they call participatory poverty assessments (PPAs). Despite its deceptive appearance, this PPAs stance of the IMF and World Bank tacitly looks at poverty as a case and not structural issue and that is why Uganda’s ambitious poverty reduction policy though greatly informed by Participatory Poverty Assessments greatly ignores structures and strictures that render women vulnerable to poverty. This paper critically assesses the obliviousness of Uganda’s Agricultural poverty policy to structures and how this has militated on the gender poverty production in Uganda. The paper contends that in order to realise engendered poverty eradication in Uganda, it is pertinent for the agricultural policy to ultimately make paradigm shift from focusing on the individual as the basic ingredient of a moral society (ethical individualism) to confronting structures and strictures that disempower and vulnerablelise individual moral agents (ethical collectivism). (shrink)

In this article, we describe what cryptocurrency is, how it works, and how it relates to familiar conceptions of and questions about money. We then show how normative questions about monetary policy find new expression in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. These questions can play a role in addressing not just what money is, but what it should be. A guiding theme in our discussion is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely (...) technical results of disciplines like computer science and economics. Note: this article is the first entry within a two-part sequence on the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Cryptocurrency. (shrink)

The article presents an analysis of global trends in setting the inflation target and the acceptable corridor of inflation target fluctuations. Inflation targeting is an important attribute of the monetary regime of inflation targeting, its main quantitative parameter. The tendency of the inflation targeting regime in 70 countries all over the world are considered, of which 41 countries have official recognition by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding the inflation targeting regime. It was found that most countries set (...) the inflation target at 5% or below, and the level of the corridor of fluctuations in relative terms hovers around 20-50% of the target value. The latest trends related to changes in the monetary policy of the European Central Bank have been studied, recommendations for determining the acceptable corridor of fluctuations of the inflation target in small and open economies on the example of Ukraine are provided. (shrink)

Corporate bond appeared in 1992-1994 in Vietnamese capital markets. However, it is still not popular to both business sectors and academic circles. This paper explores different dimensions of Vietnamese corporate bond market using a unique and perhaps, most complete data set. State not only intervenes in the bond markets with its powerful budget and policies but also competes directly with enterprises. The dominance of state-owned enterprises and large corporations also prevents small and medium enterprises from this debt financing vehicle. Whenever (...) a convertible term is available, bondholders are more willing to accept lower fixed income payoff. But they would not likely stick to it. On the one hand, prospective bondholders could value the holdings of equity when realized favourably ex ante. On the other hand, the applicable coupon rate for such bonds could turn out negative inflation-adjusted payoff when tight monetary policy is exercised and the corresponding equity holding turns out valueless, ex post. Given the weak primary market and virtually non-existent secondary market, the corporate bond market in Vietnam reflects our perception of the relationship-based and rent-seeking behaviour in the financial markets. For the corporate bonds to really work, they critically need a higher level of liquidity to become truly tradeable financial assets. Updated entries in 2010 affirm the findings and conclusions. (shrink)

Several philosophers have embraced the view that high-level events—events like Zimbabwe's monetary policy and its hyper-inflation—are causally related if their corresponding low-level, fundamental physical events are causally related. I dub the view which denies this without denying that high-level events are ever causally related causal emergentism. Several extant philosophical theories of causality entail causal emergentism, while others are inconsistent with the thesis. I illustrate this with David Lewis's two theories of causation, one of which entails causal emergentism, the (...) other of which entails its negation. I then argue for causal emergentism on the grounds that it provides the only adequate means of squaring the apparent plenitude of causal relations between low-level events with the apparent scarcity of causal relations between high-level events. This tension between the apparent abundance of low-level causation and the apparent scarcity of high-level causation has been noted before. However, it has been thought that various theses about the semantics or the pragmatics of causal claims could be used to ameliorate the tension without going in for causal emergentism. I argue that none of the suggested semantic or pragmatic strategies meet with success, and recommend emergentist theories of causality in their stead. As Lewis's 1973 account illustrates, causal emergentism is consistent with the thesis that all facts reduce to microphysical facts. (shrink)

The main goal of this thesis is to provide a clear basis for the analysis of alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, LETS, Local currencies, the WIR or Carbon currencies. It attempts to determine whether alternative currencies might constitute just and workable alternatives, either in the form of small-scale experiments or in the form of more radical reforms. The first chapter proposes a new way to classify currencies. The second examines the case in favour of monetary plurality. The third analyses (...) the claims in favour of restricting the use of money locally, within a community, or to certain goods. The fourth studies the link between money and the market. Finally, a post-scriptum focuses on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. This thesis highlights that these currencies are drivers of several potential conflicts. Their widespread use might conflict with the adequate management of monetary policy, with social justice, and with liberal values. These conflicts are potential, for they would come into existence only if alternative currencies increased in scope. However, there is no reason to disregard potential conflicts when the case in their favour relies mostly on their potential benefits. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the proposal that central banks should issue digital currencies (CBDC) to provide a public alternative to private digital accounts and cryptocurrencies. We build on some The promises and perils of central bank digital currencies recent themes in political economy research to give a broader and more balanced perspective than the existing literature, highlighting both the promises and perils of CBDC. We argue that, on the one hand, the present state of the private financial sector is problematic and (...) regulators should seek to tackle the issues of financial power, financial instability and lack of adequate monetary policy options. On the other hand, implementing CBDC comes with risks of its own, such as that of creating a “Frankenstein scenario” where too much power is given to unelected technocrats. Our tentative conclusion is therefore that CBDC should be seen as a second-best option, while the primary focus of policy makers should be on the possibility of financial re-regulation. (shrink)

From the early-1950s on, F.A. Hayek was concerned with the development of a methodology of sciences that study systems of complex phenomena. Hayek argued that the knowledge that can be acquired about such systems is, in virtue of their complexity (and the comparatively narrow boundaries of human cognitive faculties), relatively limited. The paper aims to elucidate the implications of Hayek’s methodology with respect to the specific dimensions along which the scientist’s knowledge of some complex phenomena may be limited. Hayek’s fallibilism (...) was an essential (if not always explicit) aspect of his arguments against the defenders of both socialism ([1935] 1948, [1940] 1948) and countercyclical monetary policy ([1975] 1978); yet, despite the fact that his conceptions of both complex phenomena and the methodology appropriate to their investigation imply that ignorance might beset the scientist in multiple respects, he never explicated all of these consequences. The specificity of a scientific prediction depends on the extent of the scientist’s knowledge concerning the phenomena under investigation. The paper offers an account of the considerations that determine the extent to which a theory’s implications prohibit the occurrence of particular events in the relevant domain. This theory of “predictive degree” both expresses and – as the phenomena of scientific prediction are themselves complex in Hayek’s sense – exemplifies the intuition that the specificity of a scientific prediction depends on the relevant knowledge available. (shrink)

In the given article the problems of choice as for the types and forms of debt and share financing on the developing and “frontier markets” with high interest rates have been considered, the definition of what kind of interest rates can be viewed as high and under which circumstances nominal interest rate and in which ones – the real interest rate is important for business. Also, the classification of debt and sharing financing is given and the comparative analysis of such (...) financing is made. Some close attention has been paid to the calculation of the real interest rate according to the inflation forecast. Recommendations concerning attracting of relatively cheap trade financing including international financial and credit organizations, development of operation factoring, financing from captive financial institutions of the exporters of the materials and equipment from the EU and the US have been grounded. The opportunity of relatively free of charge share financing through the mechanism of placing shares IPO/SPO is emphasized, exemplified by the results of placing shares on stock exchanges and their alternative platforms of issuing banks with businesses in Ukraine in 2005 – 2013. As a result, the conclusion concerning the necessity of thorough analysis of financial conditions on the developing and frontier markets before gaining such financing has been made. High interest rates within the average indicators even on the basis of prime rates do not necessarily mean absence of attractive conditions of financing. (shrink)

Before the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, the vast majority of social scientists were not paying much attention to the politics of central banking, despite the fact that, since their creation, central banks have been pivotal institutions between private financial institutions and public authorities (Singleton, 2010). During the past decades, central banks acquired considerable independence from public officials under the Central Bank Independence (CBI) template (McNamara, 2002). Governments justified their decisions to delegate monetary competences by relying on a narrow conception (...) of monetary policy, in which central bankers should only seek to control inflation and ignore the implications of their policies on other economic issues such as financial stability or wealth inequalities (Issing et al., 2001; Marcussen, 2009). Heterodox economists and critical political economists opposed this view by declaring that monetary policy is fundamentally political as it deals with complicated policy trade-offs, which generates winners and losers (Epstein & Gintis, 1995; Forder, 2005). However, until 2007, their concerns were very marginal and remained at the fringes of the political debate. The vast majority of policy-makers, economists, and central bankers themselves agreed on the fact that the CBI template was the optimal institutional arrangement between fiscal and monetary authorities. (shrink)

The main goal of this thesis is to provide a clear basis for the analysis of alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, LETS, Local currencies, the WIR or Carbon currencies. It attempts to determine whether alternative currencies might constitute just and workable alternatives, either in the form of small-scale experiments or in the form of more radical reforms. The first chapter proposes a new way to classify currencies. The second examines the case in favour of monetary plurality. The third analyses (...) the claims in favour of restricting the use of money locally, within a community, or to certain goods. The fourth studies the link between money and the market. Finally, a post-scriptum focuses on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. This thesis highlights that these currencies are drivers of several potential conflicts. Their widespread use might conflict with the adequate management of monetary policy, with social justice, and with liberal values. These conflicts are potential, for they would come into existence only if alternative currencies increased in scope. However, there is no reason to disregard potential conflicts when the case in their favour relies mostly on their potential benefits. (shrink)

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 exacerbated two distinct concerns about the independence of central banks: a concern about legitimacy and a concern about economic justice. This paper explores the legitimacy of independent central banks from the perspective of these two concerns, by presenting two distinct models of central banking and their different claims to political legitimacy and distributive justice. I argue primarily that we should avoid construing central bank independence in binary terms, such that central banks either are, or (...) are not, independent. I will argue that we should instead construe central bank independence in scalar terms, so that independence admits of degree, thus allowing us to develop an account of independence in which central banks can retain it to the extent necessary for economic efficiency, while meeting reasonable concerns regarding democratic legitimacy and economic justice. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes wrote in his Leviathan that money exchanging hands, monetary policies, activities, and transactions are the blood of the “Leviathan” - the eponymous subject of the book. Hobbes writes that this Leviathan's “blood” includes the “collectors, receivers, and treasurers; of the second are the treasurers again, and the officers appointed for payment of several public or private ministers.” Hobbes, follows this with an analogy of a living man, stating that this “artificial man maintains his resemblance with the natural (...) [man]; whose veins, receiving the blood from the several parts of the body, carry it to the heart; where, being made vital, the heart by the arteries sends it out again, to enliven and enable for motion all the members of the same.” Hobbes maintains a parallel between the natural man and what he calls the “artificial man”, the state throughout his Leviathan. -/- Ultimately, the mechanisms of finance in the United States are the accumulation of historical precedents - both legal and non-legal (such as economic, but also social). These precedents have led to the current system, on a continuing and settled basis. The legal and economic systems merging for the best system of an international monetary order can represent a balance of legal realism and legal formalism. -/- “Money” is printed by the U.S. government, designated as an official note. Value is correlated with how many of those printed pieces of paper exist. This is the basic concept of inflation. This concept of value and inflation is said to be connected to a commodity - such as how much gold or silver existed in the Federal Reserve's physical locations or Fort Knox. Such systems have been in place since at least Mesopotamia, where clay tablets were used to represent credit, or comparable contracts that seem to resemble modern forms of fiat currency. (shrink)

One of the important assets that Gutenberg’s printing press gifted to modern political economies is the ability to print paper money. The common man usually thinks that paper money is the real money, while in fact it is only a promissory note promising the bearer of the note the payment of the same amount (in coins, if not in gold) by the Reserve Bank. In the past, however, governments did deny such payment in exchange of the notes and one government (...) even made the holding of gold by the citizens as illegal. (shrink)

The notion of “worth” and “value” throughout human history was only partly dependent on economic reasons. Arrangements about what is considered an equivalent value/measure of wealth are the result of complex interdependencies of economic, social and cultural factors. For thousands of years people have used precious metals as universal equivalent and main measure of wealth; full-value metal money was, in fact, only reinforced by the authority of state (ruler) evidence of presence certain amount of precious metal. The rejection of valuable (...) coins and the provision of banknotes with precious metals (that is, the rejection of the gold and the silver standard) led to the fact that the circulating money signs in the society ceased to denote a concrete value, becoming an abstraction, putting the population in dependence on state’s monetary policy and financial stability of national economy. Bitcoin and its numerous alternatives arose as a response to the challenge of informatization, globalization and individualization of economic activity. This is an attempt to escape from control of state structures that are inclined to abuse their right to issue banknotes and to voluntaristic methods of managing the economy. To some extent, the cryptocurrencies reflect the nostalgia of market participants on the gold standard, which is surprisingly transformed into a complete denial of the materiality (including the metal substance) of money. This situation stimulates the search for new models for designation the equivalent value in the information society. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the own- and cross-effects of the return and volatility spillover between the equity markets of Vietnam and the two ASEAN countries, namely, Singapore and Thailand using monthly stock returns. In attempt to explore the level and magnitude of the spillover effects of the other markets on the Vietnamese stock market, we apply the multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) framework. By utilizing the time-varying conditional volatility and conditional correlations between the stock markets which are resulted (...) from estimation of the GARCH-BEKK model, the study also further shed light on the issues of portfolio diversification. In general, the study found the weak return linkages among the markets. Specifically, the study found no return linkages between Vietnam and Thailand and the unidirectional relationship between Vietnam and Singapore. However, the volatility linkages are highly significant for the three stock markets. It is found that the shock transmission relationship between emerging markets (i.e. Vietnam, Thailand) and developed market (i.e. Singapore) is unidirectional in direction to the emerging markets and the volatility transmission relationships between those are bidirectional. Besides, the variation in Vietnamese stock volatility is found to be more strongly influenced by the past own-shock effects than the past cross-shock effects. This indicates the low level of financial integration of Vietnam into the regional markets and implies the potential rooms for the international portfolio diversification gains. The findings on the return and volatility linkages have several important implications for both investors and policy makers. Firstly, because of the low correlations between the stock markets found, the investors can earn the gains from the portfolio diversification in the three markets. Secondly, the Vietnamese policy makers should be concerned with the harmful volatility spillover originating in the Thailand market that can affect the stability of the stock market. Thirdly, the implication is related to the monetary policy. The finding that the own shock transmissions have the strongest impact on the Vietnamese market’s volatility suggest that the policy makers should pay more attention to the domestic shocks so that the adequate and timely policy can be made. (shrink)

This article discusses the management of cycli- cal dynamics of the credit sphere. Considering the fact that conventional methods of monetary policy proved to be vulnerable to the process of accumula- tion and realization of risk in the credit sector, we aim to study heterodox methods of credit market regula- tion – administrative (direct) methods of control over fluctuations on the credit market. In particular, based on the analysis of credit limits used in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, (...) we come to conclusion about comparative effectiveness of this method in curbing excessive amplitude of the credit cycle. However, the price of using this method may be connected with re- duction in the rate of economic growth and a shift in the accumulation of risk to other areas of the credit market. (shrink)

An alternative consensus algorithm to both proof-of-work and proof-of-stake, proof-of-loss addresses all their deficiencies, including the lack of an organic block size limit, the risks of mining centralization, and the "nothing at stake" problem.

Monetary incentives to increase COVID-19 vaccinations are widely used. Even if they work, whether such payments are ethical is contested. This paper reviews ethical arguments for and against using monetary incentives that appeal to utility, liberty, civic responsibility, equity, exploitation, and autonomy. It concludes that in low-income nations and nations with meagre safety nets and income inequality, policy-makers should proceed with caution.

Economic policy decisions require comparisons of the gains and losses from policy choices to different people. If those gains can be valued in monetary terms, than all that is needed is a comparison of the value of income to different persons, which can be weights in cost-benefit analysis. An objective comparison of the value of income to different people has been long sought but never found. I propose that when money to be allocated is controlled by a (...) group of people with equal control over that money, then a hypothetical auction for transfers of income between people can produce a collective judgment about the value of income that provides suitable weights, and is morally defensible in cases where the decision is made by the group collectively, e.g. when making government policy choices. I provide a method for calculating such weights from observed choices about distributing income, and discuss several desirable properties that they have. (shrink)

Much public policy analysis requires us to place a monetary value on the bad- ness of a premature human death. Currently dominant approaches to determining this ‘value of a life’ focus exclusively on the ‘self-regarding’ value of life — that is, the value of a person’s life to the person whose death is in question — and altogether ignore effects on other people. This procedure would be justified if, as seems intuitively plausible, other-regarding effects were negligible in comparison (...) with self-regarding ones. I argue that in the light of the issue of overpopulation, that intuitively plausible condition is at best highly questionable. Unless the world is in fact underpopulated, the social disvalue of a premature death is likely to be significantly lower than the current estimates. (shrink)

Control measures, such as “lockdowns”, have been widely used to suppress the COVID-19 pandemic. Under some conditions, they prevent illness and save lives. But they also exact an economic toll. How should we balance the impact of such policies on individual lives and livelihoods (and other dimensions of concern) to determine which is best? A widely used method of policy evaluation, benefit–cost analysis (BCA), answers these questions by converting all the effects of a policy into monetary equivalents (...) and then summing them up. A different method, social welfare analysis, proceeds by determining the effects of a policy on individual wellbeing and then applying an aggregation formula to them to evaluate the overall effects of a policy. In this chapter, we survey these methods and argue that social welfare analysis has important advantages. One crucial advantage is that it enables ethical considerations relating to the impact of policies on individual wellbeing and its distribution to be incorporated into policy assessments in a transparent way. We illustrate this with a simple numerical model for evaluating pandemic policies that vary in terms of the stringency of the controls that they impose on individual behaviour, showing how the evaluation depends on the ethical significance accorded to their impact on the wellbeing of different age and income groups. (shrink)

Marie Oldfield, Pro Bono Economics & Refugee Council. Over half the total applications for asylum the UK receives each year are initially rejected, yet nearly a third of these initial rejections are subsequently overturned on appeal. This process that fails to get decisions right first time imposes significant costs, not just on the applicants themselves, but also more widely on UK taxpayers. Asylum seekers are not entitled to welfare benefits nor employment except in some limited cases, and are often placed (...) in unsuitable conditions with lack of appropriate support to prepare their case for asylum. These unfortunate circumstances mean that they are unable to gather and present all the required evidence first time, even when the case for asylum is legitimate. As a result, the application is rejected and thus begins a cycle of appeals that might eventually lead to a successful outcome for the asylum seeker but will, in the process, burden the taxpayer with unnecessary administrative cost and cause the asylum seeker needless distress and prevent them from accessing suitable economic opportunities. • Our study estimates that there are approximately 4,000 initial rejections that are successfully appealed each year and, with each appeal incurring direct administrative costs of around £1,000, the price tag of incorrect initial decisions adds up to a hefty £4 million per year in unnecessary administrative costs alone. • There are other costs, too, that negatively impact asylum seekers and taxpayers, albeit in a more indirect manner. The longer the appeals process is dragged out, the more delay there is to successful asylum seekers entering the labour market which means lost economic activity and forgone tax revenue for the Exchequer. Long periods of unemployment also result in skills attrition and lower the probability of the asylum seeker successfully entering the labour market in the future. • A lengthy appeals process heightens stress and worsens mental health in asylum seekers, a group arguably already more vulnerable on this front. Unnecessary human suffering aside, there is also a monetary cost borne by the taxpayer should NHS mental health services become involved. Thus, there is a pressing and viable case for providing asylum seekers a stable environment in which to complete their applications for asylum. This would increase the likelihood of reaching correct decisions in the first instance, avoid unnecessary administrative costs of an arduous appeals process, enable successful asylum seekers to access the labour market and contribute to the Exchequer, and avoid placing extra demands on already strained NHS mental health services. (shrink)

Psychological well-being is a major global concern receiving more scholarly attention following the 2008 Great Recession, and it becomes even more relevant in the context of COVID-19 outbreak. In this study, we investigated the impact of economic uncertainty resulting from natural disasters, epidemics, and financial crisis on individuals' mental health. As unemployment rate exponentially increases, individuals are faced with health and economic concerns. Not all society members are affected to the same extent, and marginalized groups, such as those suffering from (...) chronic mental illnesses or low-income families cannot afford the downsizing, mass lay-offs and lack of access to public health services. Psychiatric profession is familiarized with the phenomenon of intolerance of uncertainty (IU), and we examine how this concept is associated with job uncertainty and social identity disturbance. Several studies have formally investigated the effects of IU, but to our knowledge, this is the first research integrating the psychological well-being, job uncertainty and identity disturbance caused by economic breakdown. Literature points to many reported cases of PTSD, anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies following major social disasters. Yet, we have undertaken to analyze the subjective experiences underlying the self-harming behaviors in an attempt to fill the methodological gap by drawing insights from prominent psychological, sociological and economic theories. We find economic uncertainty to have a positive relation to job uncertainty and identity disturbance, and a negative relationship with psychological well-being. Psychological well-being depends on coherency between both abstract subjective and concrete objective identity, and when these perceptions are inconsistent, cognitive dissonance arises resulting in identity disturbance. We argue that stability is not associated with monetary advantage only, but also with a wide range of other benefits that are crucial for individuals' growth, satisfaction and sense of identity. Therefore, we propose the implementation of social support and public welfare policies to mitigate health risks during the turbulent socio-economic changes. (shrink)

The Australian Federal Government has announced a two-year trial scheme to compensate living organ donors. The compensation will be the equivalent of six weeks paid leave at the rate of the national minimum wage. In this article I analyse the ethics of compensating living organ donors taking the Australian scheme as a reference point. Considering the long waiting lists for organ transplantations and the related costs on the healthcare system of treating patients waiting for an organ, the 1.3 million AUD (...) the Australian Government has committed might represent a very worthwhile investment. I argue that a scheme like the Australian one is sufficiently well designed to avoid all the ethical problems traditionally associated with attaching a monetary value to the human body or to parts of it, namely commodification, inducement, exploitation, and equality issues. Therefore, I suggest that the Australian scheme, if cost-effective, should represent a model for other countries to follow. Nonetheless, although I endorse this scheme, I will also argue that this kind of scheme raises issues of justice in regard to the distribution of organs. Thus, I propose that other policies would be needed to supplement the scheme in order to guarantee not only a higher number of organs available, but also a fair distribution. (shrink)

The large number of hungry people in a global economy based on industrialization, privatization, and free trade raises the question of the ethical dimensions of the worsening food crisis in the world in general and in developing countries in particular. Who bears the moral responsibility for the tragic situation in Africa and Asia where people are starving due to poverty? Who is morally responsible for their poverty - the hungry people themselves? the international community? any particular agency or institution? In (...) the context of Article 3 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security" (UNDHR, 1948), the ethical question of poverty and hunger becomes a major human concern that should be discussed publicly and resolved by whatever means available. But how can the poor and hungry realize their right to life and security if their very survival is at stake? This paper maintains that responsibility for global poverty at present lies in recent neo-liberal trends in the global economy and with those individuals and organizations who, though small in number, have acquired a disproportionate share of the world's assets and financial resources. That being the case, it is suggested that our monetary and financial policies are in need of drastic changes with regard to global responsibility towards the hungry and impoverished. (shrink)

In this article, we deal with the evaluation of the losses suffered by persons living in urban areas as a result of energy services. In the first part, we analyse how by adopting different informational foci we obtain contrasting interpersonal evaluations regarding the same loss. In the second part, we distinguish between a diachronic and a hypothetical/moralised threshold for harm in order to assess whether individuals are benefiting from or being harmed by a given energy service. Our argument is that (...) the most accurate evaluation of an individual damage caused by an energy service can be obtained by using capabilities as informational focus, instead of realised wellbeing or means to wellbeing, and by interpreting the loss in relation to a hypothetical/moralised threshold that corresponds to a list of central capabilities. In the last part, we address monetary and non-monetary compensations for a loss that is evaluated in terms of capabilities. Accordingly, we expound how compensation policies can either restore the capabilities lost due to energy services or monetarily compensate the individual for the fact that a given capability (or set of capabilities) has been irremediably lost. (shrink)

There is a widespread consensus that a commodification of body parts is to be prevented. Numerous policy papers by international organizations extend this view to the blood supply and recommend a system of uncompensated volunteers in this area—often, however, without making the arguments for this view explicit. This situation seems to indicate that a relevant source of justified worry or unease about the blood supply system has to do with the issue of commodification. As a result, the current health (...) minister of Ontario is proposing a ban on compensation even for blood plasma—despite the fact that Canada can only generate 30 % of the plasma needed for fractionation into important plasma protein products and has to purchase the rest abroad. In the following, I am going to suggest a number of alternative perspectives on the debate in order to facilitate a less dogmatic and more differentiated debate about the matter. Especially in light of the often over-simplified notions of altruism and commodification, I conclude that the debate has not conclusively established that it would be morally objectionable to provide blood plasma donors with monetary compensation or with other forms of explicit social recognition as an incentive. This is especially true of donations for fractionation into medicinal products by profit-oriented pharmaceutical companies. (shrink)

The task of this brief presentation is to “establish a dialogue” with Streeck’s text, attempting to fill the hiatus between the answer and the original question that Habermas’ interpretation intended to pose to those wishing to simply dispose of economic and monetary union, ending up by dismantling the political and cultural integration project that inspired the founding fathers. Streeck complains about the “levity” with which many reviewers accepted “as a slogan” the “killer-argument” [Totschlagargument] of the “nostalgic option” provided by (...) the interpretation of his most recent publication and the excuse for his removal from the assembly of “guardians of the Holy Grail”. Now, while acknowledging that in the thesis of the author of Gekaufte Zeit [4] there is no trace of nationalist seeds, which – as Altiero Spinelli observed – “had caused the catastrophe of the two World Wars” [5], Habermas’ critique seizes the unrealistic thoughtlessness of an idea that ends up evoking the system of “European cooperation” between the now impotent national states. We can do without the “specialisation in Europeanism” that according to Streeck, would be required as a preliminary to discuss European policy in the German public arena, but not criticism that is constructive and not defeatist. (shrink)

This open access book considers the development of the sharing and collaborative economy with a European focus, mapping across economic sectors, and country-specific case studies. It looks at the roles the sharing economy plays in sharing and redistribution of goods and services across the population in order to maximise their functionality, monetary exchange, and other aspects important to societies. It also looks at the place of the sharing economy among various policies and how the contexts of public policies, legislation, (...) digital platforms, and other infrastructure interrelate with the development and function of the sharing economy. The book will help in understanding the future economy models as well as to contribute in solving questions of better access to resources and sustainable innovation in the context of degrowth and growing inequalities within and between societies. It will also provide a useful source for solutions to the big challenges of our times such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and recently the coronavirus disease pandemic. This book will be of interest to academics and students in economics and business, organisational studies, sociology, media and communication and computer science. (shrink)

This book is a collection and reworking of research done by Pascal Salin since around 1990. Salin is an economist in the tradition of the Austrian school of economics. He emphasizes the centrality of individual choice in an uncertain world in which individual actions interact to produce spontaneous orders. But he is no mere conduit of established ideas. He also offers his own highly original insights honed after a lifetime as an economist, one who has earned the respect in which (...) he is now held by his peers worldwide. The book makes delightful reading. Salin covers a lot of ground in this book, mostly within the topics indicated by the title, though in the final two chapters he goes beyond these and into the foundations of economic science. The book is divided into five parts: (1) firms, markets and competition, (2) globalization and international economic problems, (3) monetary integration, (4) money, finance and economic policies, and (5) foundations of economic theory. (shrink)

The book consists of 16 chapters divided into three main parts, emphasizing the market system and financial-monetary control mechanisms. The book provides readers with significant economic advances. Thanks to a relatively extensive system of materials collected, chosen and computed over a long period of time from various domestic and international sources since Vietnam's independence. The book has highlighted the unresolved concerns and proposals based on examinations of the changing process of mechanisms and policies in general and for the financial (...) industry, banks and markets in particular. The study also focuses on Vietnam's real estate market, gold, stock market and US dollar market. (shrink)

Development economist Hernando de Soto Polar has effectively advocated for property rights in the Third World, as his ideas have influenced the policies of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and United Nations Development Programme. He envisions land titling as a means of lifting the poor out of poverty. I argue that his classical liberal interpretations of property and the good life are dangerously naive. One can see the dangers of de Soto’s imperialist and one-dimensional vision after considering the (...) cultural destruction that results from his brand of development in pastoral Kenya. Also, this article demands a reframing of standardized development approaches. It argues that the conventional view is prone to creating unstable, culturally hegemonic relationships between the government and entrepreneurs, and the people of the land. Asymmetrical lawfare is another nondemocratic feature of de Soto’s development. This article emphasizes that Kenyan pastoralists are not inherently vulnerable people but that they have been rendered vulnerable by society. Lastly, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is the basis for an alternative to de Soto’s development design. UNDRIP was a hard-fought legal protection for the world’s indigenous peoples that makes human dignity central to development. The Global North and Global South produce differing visions of development. This article points to Kenya as an example of how the Global North’s vision has fundamentally failed because it disenfranchises pastoralists—the very people policymakers and policy supporters claim it is intended to benefit. (shrink)

Modern Monetary Theory and Distributive Justice shows how the macroeconomic framework called modern money theory (MMT) is relevant to the field of political philosophy called distributive justice. Many of the macroeconomic assumptions of distributive justice are unstated and unexamined. The framework of MMT illuminates these assumptions and provides an alternative vision of distributive justice analysis and prescriptions. In particular, MMT holds that modern money is a nominal state issued token (fiat), there is a distinction between nominal assets and real (...) assets, that state money as a nominal token can cause changes in real terms, and that the macroeconomy has historically not operated at capacity. The upshot of these assumptions held by MMT is that state spending can bring about changes in persons’ well-being without traditional redistributive measures via taxation. This is in contradistinction to standard assumptions in the distributive justice literature, which holds that the macroeconomy is at capacity and, thus, redistribution is the necessary mechanism for enacting improvements in well-being. This is a fundamental shift in how distributive justice can be conceived. (shrink)

This short article represents the first attempt to define a new core cultural value that will enable engaging the business sector in humankind’s mission to heal nature. First, I start with defining the problem of the current business culture and the extant thinking on how to solve environmental problems, which I called “the eco-deficit culture.” Then, I present a solution to this problem by formulating the “semiconducting principle” of monetary and environmental values exchange, which I believe can generate “an (...) eco-surplus business culture.” This work adds one new element, the eleventh cultural value, to the ten core values of progressive cultures postulated by Harrison (2000). (shrink)

Whenever debt is itself money, this money becomes a self-inflating debt principal by already being its own interest. Hence modern inflation, deflation, and eventual monetary crises. Yet why does money become debt? The concept of representational monetary identity answers to precisely this question.

This short article represents the first attempt to define a new core cultural value that will enable the new strategy for engaging the business sector in humankind's mission to heal nature. The presentation is just a primitive concept, which will be calibrated further in the coming months.

We address the most fundamental yet routinely ignored issue in economics today: that of distributive impact of the monetary system on the real economy. By re-examining the logical implications of token re-presentation of value and Irving Fisher’s theory of exchange, we argue that producers of value incur incidental expropriation of wealth associated with the deflationary effect that new value supply has on the purchasing power of money. In order to remedy the alleged inequity we propose a value-added negative tax (...) (VANT) based on net individual contribution to the economic output, which is structured as a negative tax function geared to profits derived from eligible productive activities in consideration of their estimated deflationary impact. We show that an adequately optimised VANT can be non-inflationary and have zero net cost to the public. Furthermore, economic output stands to improve due to direct incentivisation of value creation, making the proposed scheme not only politically feasible but economically desirable. The proposal advances the principle of ‘fair money’, where all forms of economic value are attributed to their rightful owners prior to any positive taxation. (shrink)

The physical properties of money can better be formulated via the methodical tool of quantum monetary science or monetary quantum theory; this research abstract compiles the key findings.

The Ukrainian PFTS stock index volatility reaction as a whole and its constituent economic sectors (“Basic Materials”, “Financials”, “Industrials”, “Oil & Gas”, “Telecommunications”, “Utilities”) to seven non-monetary US information signals (“Consumer price index”, “Personal spending”, “Unemployment rate”, “Gross domestic product”, “Industrial production”, “Consumer confidence”, “Housing starts”) was carried out for the period 2000–2017 on the basis of closing stock quotations in the trading day format. To assess the “surprise” component direct influence nature of the USA selected non-monetary information (...) signals on the PFTS stock index, an AR-GARCH econometric modelling device was used. The results achieved clearly indicate the presence of some PFTS stock index economic sectors heterogeneous reaction to the United States individual non-monetary information signals announcement. For example, such economic sectors as “Basic Materials”, “Financials”, and “Oil & Gas” volatility response to the US non-monetary information signal “Consumer price index” “surprise” components the opposite of the overall PFTS stock index reaction. It can also be concluded that the United States non-monetary information signals influence on the Ukrainian stock market volatility depends not only on the financial cycle phase and data frequency, but also on the PFTS stock index economic sector. (shrink)

The nature of sustainable monetary agency is explained in short formulae.

In this article, we identify three key design dimensions along which cryptocurrencies differ -- privacy, censorship-resistance, and consensus procedure. Each raises important normative issues. Our discussion uncovers new ways to approach the question of whether Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies should be used as money, and new avenues for developing a positive answer to that question. A guiding theme is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely technical results of disciplines like computer science and (...) economics. Note: this article is the second entry within a two-part sequence on the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Cryptocurrency. (shrink)

The application of quantum wave theory to the physics of monetary and socio-economic systems is a methodical novelty; these collected papers do document the research process into the workings of the monetary quantum on economic production.

The value sensitive design (VSD) approach to designing transformative technologies for human values is taken as the object of study in this chapter. VSD has traditionally been conceptualized as another type of technology or instrumentally as a tool. The various parts of VSD’s principled approach would then aim to discern the various policy requirements that any given technological artifact under consideration would implicate. Yet, little to no consideration has been given to how laws, regulations, policies and social norms engage (...) within VSD practices. Similarly, how the interactive nature of the VSD approach can, in turn, influence those directives. This is exacerbated when we consider machine ethics policy that have global consequences outside their development spheres. What constructs and models will position AI designers to engage in policy concerns? How can the design of AI policy be integrated with technical design? How might VSD be used to develop AI policy? How might law, regulations, social norms, and other kinds of policy regarding AI systems be engaged within value sensitive design? This chapter takes the VSD as its starting point and aims to determine how laws, regulations and policies come to influence how value trade-offs can be managed within VSD practices. It shows that the iterative and interactional nature of VSD both permits and encourages existing policies to be integrated both early on and throughout the design process. The chapter concludes with some potential future research programs. (shrink)

Governments are increasingly using randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate policy interventions. RCTs are often understood to provide the highest quality evidence regarding the causal efficacy of an intervention. While randomization plays an essential epistemic role in the context of policy RCTs however, it also plays an important distributive role. By randomly assigning participants to either the intervention or control arm of an RCT, people are subject to different policies and so, often, to different types and levels of (...) benefits. In this paper, I identify one necessary condition as well as a set of sufficient conditions for the permissible use of random assignment by government agencies. I argue first that random assignment is permissible only if it is consistent with governments’ duty to realize morally important outcomes. I argue second that random assignment is permissible in cases where investigators are in a state of genuine equipoise regarding all arms of the experiment and the policy to which people have a claim of justice. Finally, I defend a set of conditions under which random assignment is permissible in cases where one or more arms of a policy RCT are reasonably expected to be either superior or inferior to this policy. (shrink)

Vietnam, with a geographical proximity and a high volume of trade with China, was the first country to record an outbreak of the new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2. While the country was expected to have a high risk of transmission, as of April 4, 2020—in comparison to attempts to contain the disease around the world—responses from Vietnam are being seen as prompt and effective in protecting the interests of its citizens, (...) with 239 confirmed cases and no fatalities. This study analyzes the situation in terms of Vietnam’s policy response, social media and science journalism. A self-made web crawl engine was used to scan and collect official media news related to COVID-19 between the beginning of January and April 4, yielding a comprehensive dataset of 14,952 news items. The findings shed light on how Vietnam—despite being under-resourced—has demonstrated political readiness to combat the emerging pandemic since the earliest days. Timely communication on any developments of the outbreak from the government and the media, combined with up-to-date research on the new virus by the Vietnamese science community, have altogether provided reliable sources of information. By emphasizing the need for immediate and genuine cooperation between government, civil society and private individuals, the case study offers valuable lessons for other nations concerning not only the concurrent fight against the COVID-19 pandemic but also the overall responses to a public health crisis. (shrink)