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...

Little is known about plant size in Canada for the 1870-1910 period and more information could enrich our understanding of a number of issues relating to the Canadian economic, business and labour history. More specifically increases in plant size could serve to indicate if entrepreneurs were...

There is an empirically based premise that neoclassical assumptions about the optimality and efficiency of economic agents in the sphere of production are wrong. According to neoclassical assumptions quantity and quality effort inputs are maximized at all points in time, that is the firms are...

Critical contribution were made by Harvey Leibenstein to the theory of the firm through his development of efficiency wage and X-efficiency theories. Leibenstein focused and nuanced attention to incentives, individual and micro-micro motivations, and competitive pressures in determining...

Behavioral economics is a branch of economics which distinguishes itself from contemporary (neoclassical) economics by its presumption that the realism of behavioral and institutional assumptions are substantively important to the modelling of the economic agent. The contributions of Hebert...

Technological change is modeled as endogenous in the sense that it is affected by economic, behavioral, and institutional variables. Technological change is especially affected by changes in relative input prices and their level, of which the price of labor is particularly important. Input...

Contrary to some of the leading critiques of neoclassical theory, I argue that this theoretical framework can incorporate the moral dimension into the modeling of economic agents when the consequences of their choices are not answerable to market forces. Neoclassical theory, broadly defined,...

I would like to thank David Colander, John Cullis, Aaron Levine, for their thoughtful and thought provoking comments on my paper, “The ethical economy and competitive markets: reconciling, altruistic, moralistic and ethical behaviour with the rational economic agent and competitive markets”....

A brief introduction to the misuse and abuse of tests of statistical significance is presented. This is followed by an analysis of why such an inappropriate socially sub-optimal and inefficient practice can persist over time in the face of a multiplicity of competing peer-reviewed journals. It...

A revised model of the preference function is presented incorporating utility maximizing acts of material self-sacrifice. This model incorporates neoclassical and behavioral arguments, allowing for the stylized fact that economic agents are motivated by both material and non-material incentives....