Economics plays a significant role in decision-making in contemporary western societies, but its role is increasingly questioned. A recurring topic among the challenges raised by critics is that economics as a discipline lacks sufficient pluralism. That is, it fails to enable, encourage, and respect the use of different ontologies, methodologies, theories, and/or schools of thought to study economic reality. Has this been a productive critique? Does talk about pluralism help identify genuine problems in the discipline? Pluralism in economics could draw support from the current consensus in philosophy that pluralism in science is a good thing. I argue, however, that the claim that economic research is insufficiently pluralist is unlikely to convince economists who believe economics is already pluralist enough and that it does not offer unambiguous recommendations for change. This is because there are too many legitimate ways to interpret how pluralism maps to practice. There are numerous variables that pluralist ideals might focus on-the things that they seek multiple rather than one of-and different interpretations of how many of those variables economics has in practice. Yet, as I go on to argue, this does not mean that talk of pluralism is entirely beside the point, since the reasons pluralists offer for their ideals do help to identify genuine problems in economics. The social epistemic strategies that arguments for pluralism recommend point us to three concrete issues in the way economic research is organised: gender imbalances, a steep internal hierarchy, and a dismissive attitude to outsiders. I show that economic research could be more progressive, representative of the interests of those in society, accepted, and legitimate and less likely to fall into bias if the discipline alleviated its gender imbalances, if it were less hierarchical, and if it had a healthier relationship with outsiders. In chapter 1, I outline the debate about pluralism in economics and explain how my thesis utilises a novel approach to social epistemology to offer a way out of the impasse in which that the debate presently resides. In chapter 2, I explain the different philosophical arguments for pluralism in science and categorise them using the variables they focus on and the reasons they give for pluralism. In chapter 3, I argue that interpreting pluralism as a particular arrangement of variables for economics to attain does not lead to unambiguous recommendations for change because it leaves too much open. Yet, I go on to argue, in chapter 4, that drawing on the reasons for pluralism can provide a set of heuristics for piecemeal evaluations of the social epistemic practices in economics. In chapters 5, 6, and 7, I apply these heuristics to economics. I provide evidence that [a] women are outnumbered in economics and face an adverse environment in the discipline, that [b] economics is steeply hierarchical, and that [c] economists form an in-group that assumes superiority and frequently dismisses outside voices. I argue that these three features of economic research block avenues for productive forms of feedback (mechanisms that help to challenge, justify, and refine scientific knowledge), block the interests of certain perspectives being heard, and block public scrutiny of the decisions made by economists.

No description available.

The preservation of agricultural land, especially that which lies close to cities (in the so-called urban fringe), is a concern in many jurisdictions around the world. Agricultural land values change dramatically as farmland is located nearer to urban areas and development pressure has increased on these lands as urban populations have expanded. In British Columbia, Canada, a provincial-wide zoning system forbids the development or non-agricultural use of land without special permission. This system is explicitly designed to protect the capability of the land to produce food in the future, but it also implicitly protects the positive spillovers from agricultural land such as environmental services and open space. Three empirical papers comprise the original research in this dissertation. They seek to answer related questions about agricultural land values in the urban fringe. First, a statistical investigation is conducted into the factors that are associated with successful applications for exclusion from the agricultural zoning system. This study finds that a measure of distance (metres from the main highway) is highly significantly correlated with a parcel’s chances of being excluded. Next, a paper examines the trend of hobby farmers springing up in the urban fringe. Two different models seek to illuminate common trends in the types of parcels that hobby farmers choose, and the price that hobby farmers pay for the land, respectively. This study finds that hobby farmers seem to be very selective about the parcels they choose, likely trying to take advantage of favourable taxation rates for agricultural producers in place in the province. Lastly, a study seeks to understand how residential parcels’ values are influenced by the nearness to and view of agricultural land. Agricultural land in the study does not appear to exhibit an open space premium, though this could be influenced by uncertainty about the future use of the land. All the empirical work in this dissertation utilizes geographic information systems (GIS) technology that allows the calculation of distances to features of interest. Hedonic pricing models and binary choice models are the main statistical tools used.

This study has attempted to analyse the economic base of an urban Chinese community in Victoria, British Columbia, from its earliest beginnings in 1853 until 1947. Two groupings, merchants and service occupations have been delineated and described through time using the results of both field-work and document research. The problem was to determine the nature and extent of the economic enterprises included within these groupings, their relationship to the social context of cultural contact in which they functioned and the resultant effect of this con-text in terms of economic adaptation, diversification and overall change. From the data it was apparent that both merchant and service activities went through a period of development, expand¬ing in the number of both businesses and personnel involved during a period of increasing social stress between the Chinese community and the host society. This also coincided with intense organizational and associational activity within the Chinese community. Diversification is apparent in both types of activity during this period as merchant and service personnel seek to maximize gain in their separate market areas. Adaptation is manifested as merchants manipulated assets and invested in economic enterprises relying on the host community as clientele. This is primarily manifested through large investment in in-tensive agricultural activity, through purchase of land and the establishment of greenhouses. The variables effecting this change reflect the preferable socio-economic position of the merchant. The service occupations, on the other hand, had expanded in proportion to the demand for various goods and services within the host community. They provided a situation of contact, minimal capital investment and lower incomes. When the merchants diversified their interest to incorporate the same market area, they became reliant on the host community as clientele but faced competition from the same in a situation where they had no established mechanisms for contact. By 1947 there were relatively few Chinese remaining in the traditional merchant activity and minimal numbers of service businesses. The exceptions were the development of localized retail and wholesale produce redistribution outlets and restaurants, which provided economic enterprises for numerous Chinese families. Some were those related to segments of the traditional merchant group who had moved into intensive agriculture, and others consisted of those involved in the higher income activities of the service group. Notably the Exclusion Act and changing aspects of main-land China effectively necessitated the readjustment of the clientele on which the Chinese merchant had depended. Similarily, those employed in service occupations had no in-coming personnel to replenish their numbers and relatively little chance for adaptation with a lower socio-economic position and a declining demand for their goods and services. In conclusion the social environment of the overseas Chinese community in Victoria forced varying degrees of economic adaptation and diversification, manifested by utilization of the host community's economic system as the only means of subsistence, in the very area from which the host society had sought relentlessly to remove the presence of Chinese economic activity.

The preservation of agricultural land, especially that which lies close to cities (in the so-called urban fringe), is a concern in many jurisdictions around the world. Agricultural land values change dramatically as farmland is located nearer to urban areas and development pressure has increased on these lands as urban populations have expanded. In British Columbia, Canada, a provincial-wide zoning system forbids the development or non-agricultural use of land without special permission. This system is explicitly designed to protect the capability of the land to produce food in the future, but it also implicitly protects the positive spillovers from agricultural land such as environmental services and open space. Three empirical papers comprise the original research in this dissertation. They seek to answer related questions about agricultural land values in the urban fringe. First, a statistical investigation is conducted into the factors that are associated with successful applications for exclusion from the agricultural zoning system. This study finds that a measure of distance (metres from the main highway) is highly significantly correlated with a parcel’s chances of being excluded. Next, a paper examines the trend of hobby farmers springing up in the urban fringe. Two different models seek to illuminate common trends in the types of parcels that hobby farmers choose, and the price that hobby farmers pay for the land, respectively. This study finds that hobby farmers seem to be very selective about the parcels they choose, likely trying to take advantage of favourable taxation rates for agricultural producers in place in the province. Lastly, a study seeks to understand how residential parcels’ values are influenced by the nearness to and view of agricultural land. Agricultural land in the study does not appear to exhibit an open space premium, though this could be influenced by uncertainty about the future use of the land. All the empirical work in this dissertation utilizes geographic information systems (GIS) technology that allows the calculation of distances to features of interest. Hedonic pricing models and binary choice models are the main statistical tools used.

No description available.

No description available.

Cette thèse, déposée en juin et défendue en octobre 2011, vise à redéfinir une branche de l’analyse juridique d’une actualité brûlante par les mouvements longs de son histoire. Le droit public économique est majoritairement défini comme étant celui qui résulte de l’"interventionnisme" économique public. Il convient plutôt de le considérer comme étant celui qui résulte de la politique économique et qui encadre celle-ci. Déjà le Gouvernement provisoire de 1830 ne partit pas de rien pour instaurer un droit assorti au marché d’alors, s’inscrivant pour partie dans la continuité des fondamentaux importés lors de l’annexion française et préservant ce qui l’arrangeait dans le droit économique hollandais. Bien vite, après avoir installé le droit requis et, notamment en donnant son ossature au marché belge par l’initiative publique ferroviaire, le législateur dut sauvegarder le système financier lors de la crise de 1838-1839. Le droit public économique proprement belge entamait ainsi une expansion qualitative et quantitative ininterrompue, pour connaître des mutations perpétuelles, au gré de crises économiques nombreuses, de guerres mondiales, de la colonisation du Congo, de l’entrée dans la régionalisation économique puis le fédéralisme, de l’approfondissement de la construction européenne… A y regarder de plus près, du marché communal médiéval au marché unique en voie d’intégration, les questions de la taille de l’espace géographique dans lequel s’inscrit le marché belge ont une influence déterminante sur le droit public économique applicable à une époque donnée. <p><p>Malgré ces mutations, le droit public économique n’en présente pas moins une structure permanente qui s’articule autour de cinq grandes relations existant entre les institutions juridiques de l’État et de la propriété :1/ l’État dessine les régimes de propriété ;2/ l’État est lui-même propriétaire ;3/ l’État police et régule les usages de le propriété ;4/ l’État soutient selon les circonstances certaines catégories de propriétaires ;5/ l’État redistribue certains fruits et influences tirés de la propriété.<p><p>Si la thèse porte essentiellement sur la période qui court de l’Indépendance à la veille de la sixième réforme de l’État, d’une part, et alors que la Belgique connaît une crise des finances privées et publiques enclenchée en 2008, d’autre part, elle offre à la fois une histoire inédite de la législation économique et un examen minutieux des grandes questions contemporaines qui agitent le droit public économique. Elle aborde ces mouvements longs en trois grandes parties (de 1830 à 1919 aux temps du suffrage restreint ;de 1919 à 1980 de l’avènement du suffrage universel à la crise de la fin des Trente Glorieuses ;de 1980 à nos jours, soit depuis l’installation concomitante du fédéralisme et du primat de la concurrence). <p><p>S’intéressant au mouvement communal comme au droit colonial, au sauvetage des secteurs jugés systémiques comme à la fondation de grands organismes d’intérêt public, à la régulation comme à la soi-disant subsidiarité fonctionnelle de l’État, la dissertation vérifie l’hypothèse selon laquelle un droit qui a pour objet la politique économique repose sur l’ensemble des cinq grands rapports identifiés que nouent l’État et la propriété. Elle permet ainsi de mieux appréhender ce qu’est la vraie "Constitution économique" de la Belgique, laquelle est loin d’être portée par sa seule Constitution écrite. / Doctorat en Sciences juridiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette thèse analyse les causes profondes du sous-développement et des inégalités de genre en Afrique Sub-Saharienne. Le premier chapitre teste empiriquement l’hypothèse de Engels (1884) selon laquelle l’origine des inégalités de genre en Afrique serait la domestication historique des bovins. Pour résoudre les problèmes de biais d’endogenéités dans le choix de la domestication des bovins, j’adopte la stratégie des variables instrumentales en exploitant les facteurs géo-climatiques qui prédisent les terres les plus adaptées pour l’élevage des bovins. Les résultats des analyses montrent que les sociétés qui ont historiquement domestiquées les bovins ont eu plus d’inégalités de genre qui persistent jusqu’aujourd’hui. Le deuxième chapitre est co-écrit avec Raphael Godefroy et Joshua Lewis. Dans ce chapitre, nous analysons les effets de court et long termes de la grande peste bovine survenue en Afrique dans les années 1890. Nous utilisons la méthode des doubles différences combinant les différences entre les terres favorables pour l’élevage des bovins et les conditions climatiques contemporaines. Notre étude montre que les sociétés les plus touchées par la peste bovine sont moins peuplés et ont moins de bovins, de plus les descendants de ces sociétés sont aujourd’hui les plus pauvres. Le dernier chapitre analyse comment le genre des frères et sœurs influence l’âge au mariage des femmes. Les analyses basées sur le sexe du deuxième enfant révèlent que les femmes qui ont une petite sœur se marient plus tôt, ont plus d’enfants et sont moins éduquées. Les effets sont plus accentués dans les groupes ethniques qui utilisent la dot comme norme culturelle du mariage. / This dissertation investigates the deep roots of differences in gender roles and development across societies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Chapter 1 examines the deep origins of differences in gender roles in Africa. I test empirically Engels (1884) hypothesis, that the origin of differences in gender roles in Africa was the historical domestication of cattle. To address potential endogeneity in historical cattle adoption, I adopt an instrumental variables approach that leverages geo-climatic factors affecting the suitability of lands for cattle-raising. I find empirical support for Engels (1884) hypothesis. Further, the results show that these differences in gender roles have persisted to present day. In chapter 2, which is co-authored with Raphael Godefroy and Joshua Lewis, we study the short- and long-run consequences of the 1890s African Rinderpest Epizoodic. We adopt a difference-in-differences strategy that combines differences across ethnic homelands in cattle-suitability with contemporaneous local drought conditions to identify ethnic groups that were more or less exposed to the outbreak. We find that the societies exposed to rinderpest experienced relative decreases in cattle-ownership in the decades after the outbreak. We uncover large relative long-run decreases in wealth among descendants of affected ethnic groups. These persistent economic losses appear to be partially driven by distressed migration. In chapter 3, I investigate how sibling gender composition affects women’s transition to first marriage in sub-Saharan Africa. To address potential endogeneity in the final sibling gender composition, I exploit the random assignment of the second child’s gender in household with at least two children. I find that female with a younger sister get married younger, with negative consequences for her education and literacy. The effects are stronger within countries that traditionally pay bride price at marriage.

Les accords de libre-échange sont généralement étudiés indépendamment les uns des autres; ou, quand ils le sont conjointement, le détail des dispositions n'est pas présenté. L'objet ici est de fournir un tracé des différents accords de libre-échange entre le Canada et les États-Unis, aussi loin qu'il est possible de remonter. Nous couvrons: le traité de réciprocité de 1854; l'accord rejeté de 1911; les deux accords issus de la vision de Hull de 1935 et 1938; l'accord avorté de 1947; le Pacte de l'automobile de 1965; et les trois accords les plus récents, soit l'ALÉ, l'ALÉNA et l'ACÉUM. Le survol proposé est prépondéramment juridique. Il s'agit d'abord et avant tout de la comparaison des dispositions des différents accords. En outre, nous nous concentrons sur le commerce de biens, car c'est le seul fil conducteur qui permette des parallèles remontant jusqu'au XIX e siècle. Ensuite, cette analyse est baignée dans un contexte historique, dans la mesure où celui-ci aide à bien mieux cerner les enjeux soulevés par les dispositions spécifiques. Enfin, nous ajoutons à ce corps de l'étude des observations de nature économique. De ce fait, nous proposons une approche multidisciplinaire: le détail de la méthodologie suivie est exposé en détail. À présent, de manière plus précise, la problématique soulevée est la suivante: à l'étude de toutes les ententes commerciales entre le Canada et les États-Unis, quelle est la forme, l'approche, qui est la plus susceptible de faciliter efficacement le commerce entre les deux pays dans l'avenir? La conclusion est fort simple: les accords de libre-échange à spectre large—c'est-à-dire comprenant plusieurs secteurs producteurs de biens—ont en général été plus faillibles que les accords sectoriels, qui se concentrent sur des questions plus modestes, mais plus précises. En effet, les trois derniers accords de libre-échange entre le Canada et les États-Unis sont, derrière des apparences d'ententes englobantes, en dernière analyse, des amalgames d'accords sectoriels agencés dans une charpente à aspirations globales. C'est là la conclusion principale des présents efforts. Nous tirons en outre plusieurs points de synthèse, qui aident à illustrer les points fixes caractérisant les relations commerciales entre le Canada et les États-Unis au fil des décennies. / When free trade agreements are studied, they are usually considered independently of each other or, when they are examined jointly, the details of the provisions are not presented. The aim here is to provide an overview of the various free trade agreements between Canada and the United States, going as far back as is feasible. We do cover: the reciprocity treaty of 1854; the rejected agreement of 1911; the two agreements based on Hull's views of 1935 and 1938; the aborted agreement of 1947; the auto pact of 1965; and the three most recent agreements, FTA, NAFTA and the USMCA. The proposed survey is predominantly juridical in nature. It is first and foremost a comparison of the provisions of the various agreements. In particular, we focus on trade in goods, as this is the only thread that allows for parallels going back to the 19th century. Next, this analysis is framed in historical contexts, as these help us better understand the issues raised by the various provisions. Finally, economic comments are added to this core of the research. We thus propose a multidisciplinary perspective: the finer points of the followed methodology are set out in detail. Now, more specifically, the main question raised is spelled out as follows: after considering all of the trade agreements between Canada and the United States, what is the format, the approach, that is most likely to be the most effective in facilitating trade between the two countries in the future? The conclusion is quite simple: broad-spectrum free trade agreements—that is, agreements that cover several goods-producing sectors—have generally been more fallible than sectoral agreements, which focus on smaller, but more specific issues. Indeed, the last three free trade deals between Canada and the United States are, behind the appearances of all-encompassing agreements, essentially amalgamations of sectoral agreements arranged in a framework of global aspirations. This is the main conclusion of our research. We also make several other synthetical points, which illustrate some of the unwavering issues that have characterized the Canada-U.S. trade relationship over the years.