My philosophical case study concerns textbook presentations of the theory of demand. Does this theory contain anything more than just a collection of tautologies? In order to determine its empirical content, it must be viewed holistically. But then, the theory implies false factual claims. We...

This paper is aimed at describing and analyzing the governance structure of a network of small and medium sized businesses in thesupermarket sector as well as the social control mechanisms adopted to coordinate the activities carried out by common anddiverging actors, on the basis of a model...

In various forms, economists are still taking sustained action to find specific answers to questions related to the issue of economic fluctuations. In this context of continuing concerns, both the "old" classics and the "new" classics have made substantial progress in their own theories of the...

Inflation expectations have been of great interest to economists because they predict how agents in an economy set prices and react to changes in various macroeconomic variables. The existence of Keynesian liquidity traps in Japan and the United States have helped emphasize the importance of...

The dissertation contains four stand-alone studies, chapters 2 through 5. In chapter 1, I highlight commonalities among the studies. In chapter 2, I consider the principle of structural balance - "The friend of a friend is a friend, the enemy of a friend is an enemy, the friend of an enemy is an...

Al igual que la mayoría de los datos macroeconómicos, las cifras de déficit público están sujetas a revisiones. Sin embargo, en el caso de Europa, estas podrían ser especialmente preocupantes dado el papel que desempeñan los datos fiscales en el funcionamiento de las reglas de...