Papers by Stephen DeCanio
Limits of Economic and Social Knowledge, 2014
By uncritically embracing materialism in the mistaken belief that this commitment is an intrinsic... more By uncritically embracing materialism in the mistaken belief that this commitment is an intrinsic element of the scientific method, economics and the other social sciences have taken a wrong turn. The world of inanimate matter is the purview of the natural sciences, but carrying a materialist orientation over to the study of the human and social realms sets off a cascading series of oversimplifications, misconceptions, and outright fallacies that cumulatively can be fatal to genuine understanding.
Social Science Research Network, Jan 24, 1998
One important element of the current policy debate on what measures should be taken to reduce gre... more One important element of the current policy debate on what measures should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is the controversy over the costs of reducing those emissions. "Top-down " macroeconomic and general equilibrium models give much higher estimates of the costs than "bottom-up" models based on microeconomic and engineering data. This paper investigates the causes of the divergence between the two modeling approaches. The conventional top-down models incorporate strong implicit assumptions about maximization, technical progress, and organizational efficiency that predetermine their results. However, these assumptions are questionable on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Economic assessment ofpolicy alternatives would benefit,from analyses that take account of the actual characteristics of business firms and other organizations that emit greenhouse gases in the course of their activities.
Journal of Southern History, Nov 1, 1975
The American Historical Review, Feb 1, 1977
Economic Models of Climate Change, 2003
Climate change takes place over decades, centuries, and millennia. The consequences of actions ta... more Climate change takes place over decades, centuries, and millennia. The consequences of actions taken now also work themselves out on time scales covering multiple generations. The persistence of CO2 in the atmosphere depends on the long-term response of the biosphere to increased temperatures and concentrations, and the atmospheric lifetimes of many of the non-CO2 greenhouse gases are over 100 years. The achievement of thermal equilibrium between the surface layers of the ocean and atmosphere takes decades, and achievement of equilibrium between the different layers of the ocean requires even more time (IPCC 2001a).1 These physical facts mean that the treatment of events and policies that unfold over very long stretches of time must be a central feature of the economic analysis of climate change. Not only do policies have long-lasting consequences, but the basic conceptualization of the economic system itself has to reflect the lengths of time involved.
The previous chapters have shown that by downplaying or ignoring the issues of distribution, mult... more The previous chapters have shown that by downplaying or ignoring the issues of distribution, multiple equilibria, and dynamics, the economic analysis of climate policy has missed (or mischaracterized) essential aspects of the problem. Most analysis has concentrated on matters of efficiency that are more suitable for small-scale environmental problems (such as where to locate a landfill or what to do about pollution of a river by an industrial plant) than for a global issue like climate change. By implicitly taking the existing definitions and distribution of property rights for granted, policy advice has been skewed towards the status quo. Some of the possibilities that are opened up by the creation of climate rights or alternative evolutionary paths for the economy have been ruled out arbitrarily, when they may actually offer the most hopeful potential routes to climate stabilization.
“Tastes” and “technology” are the fundamentals upon which neoclassical general equilibrium models... more “Tastes” and “technology” are the fundamentals upon which neoclassical general equilibrium models are built. While the representation of tastes is expressed through utility and demand functions, the underlying productive technology of the economy is represented by production functions that relate various quantities of various inputs to the output produced by firms. This approach requires a behavioral theory that describes the activity of firms as they carry out the processes of production. The behavioral theory is profit maximization, which parallels the utility maximization of consumers on the demand side of the economy. While some of the conceptual and mathematical difficulties that plague the representation of preferences are common to the treatment of production in the models, there are several important differences.
Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1, 1984
Page 1. DELIVERED PRICING AND MULTIPLE BASING POINT EQUILIBRIA: A REEVALUATION* STEPHEN J. DECANI... more Page 1. DELIVERED PRICING AND MULTIPLE BASING POINT EQUILIBRIA: A REEVALUATION* STEPHEN J. DECANIO This paper examines delivered pricing with systematic freight absorption in the light of the modern theory of spatial competition. ...
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Dec 6, 2013
Climate change takes place over decades, centuries, and millennia. The consequences of actions ta... more Climate change takes place over decades, centuries, and millennia. The consequences of actions taken now also work themselves out on time scales covering multiple generations. The persistence of CO2 in the atmosphere depends on the long-term response of the biosphere to increased temperatures and concentrations, and the atmospheric lifetimes of many of the non-CO2 greenhouse gases are over 100 years. The achievement of thermal equilibrium between the surface layers of the ocean and atmosphere takes decades, and achievement of equilibrium between the different layers of the ocean requires even more time (IPCC 2001a).1 These physical facts mean that the treatment of events and policies that unfold over very long stretches of time must be a central feature of the economic analysis of climate change. Not only do policies have long-lasting consequences, but the basic conceptualization of the economic system itself has to reflect the lengths of time involved.
Just as the realization that human systems and sufficiently rich deterministic systems cannot be ... more Just as the realization that human systems and sufficiently rich deterministic systems cannot be scientifically/empirically distinguished has consequences for what we can aspire to understand about individual behavior, this insight has implications for how we approach the study of human society. Like formal axiomatic systems, human behavior and human societies will exhibit both regularities and regions that are epis-temologically inaccessible. At the same time, simple computational systems can and do exhibit the kinds of regularities that one ordinarily associates with conscious design or law-like behavior. Computational routines are capable of illustrating the tension between predictable order and unpredictability that must permeate social science.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2014
Modern physical science has moved a considerable distance from the deterministic materialism of t... more Modern physical science has moved a considerable distance from the deterministic materialism of the nineteenth century. Even then, the inclusion of fields (gravitational, magnetic, and electric) complemented the massy, solid atoms in making up the world-picture of physics. But in the twentieth century, science replaced the earlier ontology entirely. Quantum mechanics, the crowning achievement of modern physics, has re-opened ages-old questions about the nature of reality, causation, and the connection between consciousness and the external world. The fundamental ground of modern physics is at the epistemological level — what we can know about physical systems is basic, rather than an onto-logical account of the world as it ‘really is.’
Behaviorism and utilitarianism lie at the heart of economic theory and welfare economics as they ... more Behaviorism and utilitarianism lie at the heart of economic theory and welfare economics as they are practiced today. The reasons for this are both historical and methodological. To be described mathematically, individual behavior has to be expressed through a functional form that converts the consumption or uses of ‘goods’ to a numerical measure of satisfaction — well-being or ‘utility.’ Cognitive processes are reduced to calculations of how to maximize the utility function given the constraints of an individual’s wealth, income, and endowments of goods, talents, and capital. This is behaviorism on steroids; the ‘stimuli’ provided by prices are transformed into the ‘responses’ of the individual in choosing the bundle of goods that maximize utility.
By uncritically embracing materialism in the mistaken belief that this commitment is an intrinsic... more By uncritically embracing materialism in the mistaken belief that this commitment is an intrinsic element of the scientific method, economics and the other social sciences have taken a wrong turn. The world of inanimate matter is the purview of the natural sciences, but carrying a materialist orientation over to the study of the human and social realms sets off a cascading series of oversimplifications, misconceptions, and outright fallacies that cumulatively can be fatal to genuine understanding.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an interview with Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever.Des... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an interview with Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever.Design/methodology/approachThis paper provides an interview with Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever.FindingsThe paper discusses Unilever's sustainability initiatives, both in terms of reducing environmental impact, and in safe‐gaurding the business against future uncertainty.Originality/valueThe interview offers advice for leaders operating in a challenging business environment, and those looking to create more sustainable business models.
Contemporary Economic Policy, Oct 1, 1997
One important element of the current policy debate on what measures should be taken to reduce gre... more One important element of the current policy debate on what measures should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is the controversy over the costs of reducing those emissions. "Top-down " macroeconomic and general equilibrium models give much higher estimates of the costs than "bottom-up" models based on microeconomic and engineering data. This paper investigates the causes of the divergence between the two modeling approaches. The conventional top-down models incorporate strong implicit assumptions about maximization, technical progress, and organizational efficiency that predetermine their results. However, these assumptions are questionable on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Economic assessment ofpolicy alternatives would benefit,from analyses that take account of the actual characteristics of business firms and other organizations that emit greenhouse gases in the course of their activities.
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Aug 1, 1998
Standard economic theories of the firm (and other organizations) stress profit maximization as th... more Standard economic theories of the firm (and other organizations) stress profit maximization as the foundation for derivation of predictable behavior. Yet statistical and case-study evidence continues to accumulate that real firms do not act as required by the neoclassical framework. Instead of being represented by ever more elaborate maximization models, the firm can be modeled simply as a network of information-processing agents. The actions of the firm are then a function only of the network structure and the information-processing capabilities of the agents. This approach can be used to explain a number of features of organizational behavior, including the process of technological diffusion. It also suggests that derivation of the optimal organizational structure may be computationally complex, with a number of implications for economic theory and policy development.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2003
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to crimina... more Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
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Papers by Stephen DeCanio