Harvey Leibenstein was the first to introduce the revolutionary concept of X-efficiency and its counterpart X-inefficiency. X-inefficiency exists when firms and economies do not work as hard or as well as they could. X-inefficiency is caused by an organisational structure which does not promote...

Conventional economic modelling of social welfare predicts that welfare payments will have unequivocal negative effects upon the economy in terms of labor supply, production costs, and employment. However, the conventional model is built upon assumptions that are too restrictive given the...

According to standard neoclassical theory a higher real wage will result in less employment and a lower rate of employment growth than a lower real wage and thus exogenous interventions in the labor market which increase real wage, such as minimum wage legislation and unionization, are said to...

Details a behavioral theory of economic welfare that overlaps and extends the global theoretical framework contained in Pareto Optimality, with significant public policy implications. The essence of this framework is contained in Adam Smith’s the Wealth of Nations where it is argued that the...

Standard economic theory, which assumes that economic agents behave x-efficiently, precludes human agency as an important variable in determining the level of material welfare. But when the quantity and quality of effort involved in the production process is a choice variable, human agency and...