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A macroeconomics of social contracts

This thesis sets out the case and foundations for a new way to think about, and model, Macroeconomics. This framework aims to describe the fluctuations and differing growths of economies, not in terms of the choice and exchange of Microeconomics, but rather in terms of the enforcement relationships that allow that exchange and other cooperation between people. It first establishes just why this is necessary, with a thorough methodological critique of the way Macroeconomics is done right now. It then presents computational models of two presumably competing kinds of enforcement relationship. The first of these is the third party supervision that we are most familiar with as enforcement from every day life, and which has received some of the longest running philosophical discussion. This hierarchical model reproduces economic fluctuations, through occasional collapses of large parts of the hierarchy. To assess the scientific merit of this model on the terms of conventional Macroeconomics, I develop a compatible hypothesis testing strategy. The second kind of enforcement considered is what would commonly be called peer pressure. For this I derive a preliminary result, that would allow further development of an overarching research program.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:611004
Date January 2013
CreatorsWilkinson, Thomas
PublisherCardiff University
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://orca.cf.ac.uk/60075/

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