Contribution to the economic theory of J. See what "Clark D." is in other dictionaries Contribution to the economic theory of J. M. Clark

Clark John Maurice

Clark John Maurice (1884 - 1963)

John Maurice Clark, son of the more famous John Bates Clark, considered himself a follower of Veblen, Mitchell and Commons, in short, an institutionalist, but he did not claim to create a new economic theory that would take the place of orthodox price theory. On the contrary, he was convinced that orthodox price theory did not lead to big mistakes since she was born. The problem was that her concern static balance deprived it of any value in solving practical problems. Thus he saw the task of his life in developing the dynamic consequences of economic theory. In this sense, he relied on the fundamental difference between statics and dynamics, which his father defended, agreeing with him (and in this sense with Marshall) that the analysis of static equilibrium is not the end, but only the beginning of a thorough study of economic phenomena. This view is excellently summarized in his most famous paper, Toward a Concept of Workable Competition (1940), which has rightly been regarded as having more influence on the development of industrial organization as a special field of study in economics than any other. publication since Chamberlin's Theory of Monopolistic Competition. The concept of perfect competition, with its Pareto optimality properties, is, as everyone knows, inapplicable, as formulated, to any real market economy. In order to assess the performance of industries and develop effective antitrust laws to maintain competition, some definition of "actual" rather than "perfect" competition is needed. Clarke's goal in this article was to propose not a set of mechanical rules, but some rules of thumb regarding freedom of entry and alternative options available to consumers, with the aim of helping the courts assess whether an industry is in a state of effective competition or not. Clark's article sparked a boom in research in the 1940s and 1950s in what came to be known as the "structural-behavioral-functional model of industrial organization". Beli to take times closer to us, then another echo of Clark's article is the development of the theory of "competitive markets".

Only Clarke's 1917 paper "Business Acceleration and the Law of Demand" and his book "Studies in the Economics of Overhead Costs" (1926) gained fame comparable to his essay on current competition. The article brought back to life Aftallion's accelerator principle (any change in consumer demand leads to an even greater change in investment demand) and linked it to the emergence of business cycles. The book on overheads explored the role of domestic economies of scale in explaining the rise of monopolies, the distinction between domestic and foreign economies, and between manufacturing and marketing economies. It was a book appropriate to its age in that all its elements entered the work of later writers, but it is full of remarkable insights and is very useful in showing how Chamberlin and Robinson soon arrived at their theories of monopolistic and imperfect competition.

John Maurice Clark was born in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1884 and attended Amherst College where he received his B.A. in 1905. He did his postgraduate research in economics at Columbia University (where his father also taught), earning his doctorate in 1910 for a dissertation on the pricing of railways, oddly titled Standards of reasonableness in Local Freight Discriminations, 1910. He had already begun teaching at Colorado College, but moved to Amherst, from where he moved to the University of Chicago five years later. In 1926 he left Chicago to become a professor of economics at Columbia University, where he remained for over 30 years until he retired in 1957. He was president of the American Economic Association in 1922. This organization awarded him the Francis A. Walker Medal in 1952 for outstanding work in the field of economics. He died in 1963 at the age of 79.

Clark published an incredible amount of work during his lifetime on antitrust issues, business cycles, the economic costs of war, post-war demobilization issues, the macroeconomics of demand management, the theory of inflation, the functioning of the labor market, and the prospects for the development of capitalism. However, few of his books are remembered, as he tends to expound ideas in the manner of John Stuart Mill in their entirety, with all the appropriate caveats and modifications. Thus, careful reading of "Strategic Factors in Business Cycles" (1934) is required to notice how many of Keynes's ideas were anticipated by this work. Like his Alternative to Serfdom (1948), an answer to Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom (1944), is rarely seen as an extremely effective response to Hayek's anxieties about "creeping inflation".

Finally, his latest book, Competition as dynamic process” (Competition as a Dynamic Process, 1961) contains much of what was later hailed as one of the great ideas of modern Austrian economics, namely that orthodox economics is a theory of equilibrium states, while it does not contain a theory of process, while through which competition is achieved. This once again reminds us that there is nothing new in the history of economic thought, or, more precisely, everything that claims to be new must be presented in such a way as to attract attention.

Literature

- (Clarke) Arthur Charles (b. 1917, Minehead, Somerset), English science fiction writer, popularizer of science. During the 2nd World War he was an army officer, responsible for testing the first satellite radar installation. After the war with honors ... ... Literary Encyclopedia

Clark, John (colonist) founder of Rhode Island's colony North America Clark, John Maurice (1884 1963) American economist, President of the American Economic Association Clark, John Bates (1847 1938) American Austrian economist ... ... Wikipedia

- (Clarke) Samuel (b. 11 okt. 1675, Norwich - d. May 17, 1729, Leicester) - English, moral philosopher, from 1707 - pastor in London; friend of Newton, whose philosophical doctrine he defended in his correspondence with Leibniz; opposed... Philosophical Encyclopedia

- (Clark) John Bates (1847-1938), American economist. Founder of the theory of marginal productivity. He formulated the so-called Clark's law, according to which the value (cost) of a product is determined by the sum of its marginal utilities ... ... Modern Encyclopedia

- (Clark), American optician grinders and amateur astronomers: father Alvan (1804 1887) and sons George (1827 1891), Alvan Graham (1832 1897). We made lenses for the world's largest refractors at Pulkovo, Likskaya, Yerksskaya and others ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

See Clark's barge. Samoilov K.I. Marine vocabulary. M. L .: State Naval Publishing House of the NKVMF of the USSR, 1941 ... Marine Dictionary

Exist., number of synonyms: 1 rating (44) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary

The abundance constant of an element in the earth's crust, in the lithosphere, atmosphere, living matter, or other large geochemical. a system expressed in weight or number of atoms, percentages, weight or numerical units in relation to the total amount of atoms or any ... ... Geological Encyclopedia

Clark- a nickname * A woman is a nickname of the same type, like in one, so in a plurality they do not change ...

clark- the name of a human family ... Spelling Dictionary of Ukrainian Movies

Clark A.R.- CLARK (Clarke) Alexander Ross (18281914), Eng. geodesist, in. h. c. St. Petersburg. AN (1867). Under the arm K. determined (1866) the dimensions of the earth's ellipsoid, adopted in the USA, Canada and Mexico ... Biographical Dictionary

Books

Ego-Self Relationships in Clinical Practice, M. Clark. Pathway to Individuality. Margaret Clark's book is devoted to the clinical aspects of practice and touches on one of the most complex and interesting sections of theory analytical psychology- Ego relationship...
The Art of the Islamic Garden by Clark E Niola, Clark E. This book introduces you to design, symbolism and flora traditional Islamic garden, and also contains practical advice for those who would like to form such a garden. Creator…
Geoffrey Archer. False impression. Richard Paul Evans. Sunflower. Mary Higgins Clark. Two girls in blue. John Grogan. Marley and Me, Jeffrey Archer, Richard Paul Evans, Mary Higgins Clark, John Grogan. AT real book includes four novels by foreign authors...

1.4. Contributions to the economic theory of J. M. Clark

Main works: “Business acceleration and the law of demand; technical factor in economic cycles” [“Business Acceleration and the Law of Demand; A Technical Factor in Economic Cycles"] (1917); "The Economics of Overhead Costs" (1923)

Like T. Veblen and W.C. Mitchell, J.M. Clark interpreted human behavior as based on habits, and not on instant calculations of benefits and costs, pleasures and pains. But he went further than other old institutionalists in the analysis of this sphere, for the first time in the history of economic analysis, he clearly pointed out the large role of information costs and decision-making costs. The fact is that in order to make an optimal decision, one has to bear the costs associated with the collection and processing of information. However, the benefits of this information are completely unknown in advance. In addition, direct decision-making also requires significant (psychological) costs (while the benefits of the efforts aimed at making a decision are also not known a priori). These costs create insurmountable obstacles to optimizing behavior and serve as the basis for people to form habits. Of course, such habits are not the result of some kind of maximizing choice or optimization. Thus, J. M. Clark anticipated both G. Simon's theory of bounded rationality and J. Stigler's theory of information retrieval (despite the fact that the latter is less realistic compared to J. M. Clark's approach).

Another scientific merit of J. M. Clark is the development in the field of microeconomics - the theory of costs and competition. He was the first to introduce the concept of overhead costs into economics. These are costs that cannot be attributed to any particular division of the enterprise, i.e. are not directly related to the production process. J. M. Clark believed that they are a consequence of large investments in fixed capital. Overhead costs are covered by prices, which, in his opinion, meant that there was no connection between pricing and the principle of equalizing marginal costs and revenues. J. M. Clark also criticized the concept of perfect competition and laid the foundations of the theory of "effective competition", which is such a specific implementation of the elements of a market structure that is acceptable from the point of view of social welfare. The theory of "effective competition" is important because it provides realistic - in contrast to the concept of perfect competition - benchmarks for conducting public policy to stimulate competition. At the same time, J. M. Clark tried to give the theory of competition a dynamic character; for him, the degree of “effectiveness of competition” was determined by how quickly and to what extent the processes of creating, destroying and recreating profits of various sizes in different industries take place. Unfortunately, he did not explain the reasons for such differences.

Finally, J. M. Clarke left a mark in the field of macroeconomics. Like W.C. Mitchell, he was a business cycle researcher. He interpreted them as a multifactorial process, highlighting the many causes of cycles - from wars and natural disasters to investment dynamics. And here J. M. Clark was one of the first to discover the idea of an accelerator as a phenomenon that enhances cyclical fluctuations economic activity(for the role of this idea in the macroeconomic theory of the Keynesian-neoclassical synthesis, see section 6.5.5). Again, following W. K. Mitchell, J. M. Clark put forward the idea of the need for state regulation of cycles. He was the first in the history of economic analysis to put forward the idea of built-in (automatic) stabilizers. In his opinion, the tax system should be such a built-in stabilizer.

1.5. The theory of transactions by J. Commons

Main work: "Institutional Economics" ["Institutional Economics"] (1934)

Another well-known representative of the old institutionalism, J. Commons, in his views stood apart from other adherents of this direction of economic analysis. In his research, he placed great emphasis on legal factors. His main scientific merit is the theory of transactions.

This theory is based on the idea of scarcity of resources known from neoclassical theory. Due to this rarity, business entities have a conflict over their use. This conflict is resolved through transactions, which are the basic institutions of society. Without such institutions, the conflict of interests would degenerate into general violence of people against each other, which would lead to enormous economic and social damage.

Transaction - which, according to J. Commons, is the main category of economic science - should not be confused with the ("simple") exchange of resources, goods or services. According to the definition of J. Commons, "transaction is not an exchange of goods, but the alienation and appropriation of property rights and freedoms created by society." The distinction between exchange and transaction points to the difference between the physical movement of goods and the movement of ownership of those goods.

Transactions, in turn, are divided into market, managerial and rationing.

A market transaction is the only type of transaction that assumes the same legal status of its participants (counterparties). This means that in order to carry out a market transaction, the mutual voluntary consent of the counterparties to perform it is necessary. In other words, a market transaction is an exchange of property rights for goods that takes place on the basis of a voluntary agreement of both parties to this transaction. As examples of market transactions, one can cite any transactions in free markets - the purchase of consumer goods, the provision of credit, employment, etc.

Management transaction, on the contrary, implies the legal advantage of one of the counterparties, which owns the right to make a decision. This type of transaction is built on the basis of control-subordination relations. Examples of such relationships are those between a slave owner and a slave, a boss and a subordinate, a master and a student, and so on. Management transactions play a leading role in firms state structures and other organizations based on hierarchical relationships.

A rationalizing transaction is similar to a managerial transaction, since it also implies an asymmetric legal status of counterparties. The specificity of a rationing transaction is that the party endowed with exclusive decision-making powers is a certain collective body that performs the function of specifying property rights. This body is the state. Typical examples of a rationing transaction are taxes or court decisions that redistribute wealth from one party to another.

It is easy to see that depending on the ratio of market transactions, on the one hand, and managerial and rationing transactions, on the other hand, determines the ratio of market and hierarchical types of economic relations between people.

At different stages of the development of society, in different economic systems relative role different types transactions vary. For example, in a slave-owning private-property society, managerial transactions play the main role, while at the stage of the birth of capitalism, during the period of “commercial capitalism”, market transactions play the main role.

In addition to "commercial capitalism", J. Commons also singled out "industrial" and (modern) "financial capitalism". The main features of "financial capitalism" are manifested not only in the strengthening of the role of banks and other financial institutions, but also in the emergence of developed collective social groups - trade unions, corporations and political parties. It is these groups that are the main parties involved in the conclusion of transactions at the stage of "financial capitalism".

The actual course of transactions depends on the "working rules", which are various judicial rules. These norms partly evolve spontaneously, as a result of specific judicial decisions taken after the participants in transactions went to court, and partly they are formed artificially, through the relevant state decrees. The state, according to J. Commons, plays an important role both as a body reconciling the interests of the parties to transactions, and as a force forcing the fulfillment of obligations assumed by the participants in transactions. Thus, the state contributes to a more harmonious resolution of conflicts between collective groups of economic entities.

...” made it possible to describe some of the new social aspects economic life of the era of imperialism, which was excluded from the position of the methodology of marginalism. In the field of methodology, institutionalism, according to many researchers, has much in common with the German historical school. For example, V. Leontiev writes that the outstanding representatives of American economic thought, referring to T. Veblen and W.K. ...

The determining role belongs to group psychology, and not to individuals (classical political economy). This expresses unity with the historical school of Germany. Institutionalism is one of the leading directions of modern economic science, which was formed in the first decades of the 20th century as an alternative to the neoclassical school. The focus of institutionalists is the mutual influence of the totality ...

Features of the emergence and evolution of institutionalism - a trend in economic thought that focuses on the analysis of institutions. Distinctive features of American institutionalism. Theories of John Maurice Clark - an outstanding scientist and economist.

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Contribution to the economic theory of J. See what "Clark D." is in other dictionaries Contribution to the economic theory of J. M. Clark

Books

Features of the emergence and evolution of institutionalism - a trend in economic thought that focuses on the analysis of institutions. Distinctive features of American institutionalism. Theories of John Maurice Clark - an outstanding scientist and economist.

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

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