Neofunctionalism

 

       

Neofunctionalism is a theory of regional integration, building on the work of Ernst B. Haas, an American political scientist and also Leon Lindberg, an American political scientist.

        The main contributions of these authors was an employment of empiricism.

        Neofunctionalism describes and explains the process of regional integration with reference to how three causal factors interact with one another:

(a) growing economic interdependence between nations,

(b) organizational capacity to resolve disputes and build international legal regimes, and

(c) supranational market rules that replace national regulatory regimes.^[2]

Early Neofunctionalist theory assumed a decline in importance of nationalism and the nation-state;

It predicted that, gradually, elected officials, interest groups, and large commercial interests within states would see it in their interests to pursue welfarist objectives best satisfied by the political and market integration at a higher, supranational level.

Haas theorized three mechanisms that he thought would drive the integration forward:

Positive spillover,

The transfer of domestic allegiances and

Technocratic automaticity.

Positive spillover effect is the notion that integration between states in one economic sector will create strong incentives for integration in further sectors, in order to fully capture the perks of integration in the sector in which it started.

Increased number of transactions and intensity of negotiations then takes place hand in hand with increasing regional integration. This leads to a creation of institutions that work without reference to "local" governments.

The mechanism of a transfer in domestic allegiances can be best understood by first noting that an important assumption within neofunctionalist thinking is of a pluralistic society within the relevant nation states.

Neofunctionalists claim that, as the process of integration gathers pace, interest groups and associations within the pluralistic societies of the individual nation states will transfer their allegiance away from national institutions towards the supranational European institutions.

Greater regulatory complexity is then needed and other institutions on regional level are usually called for. This causes integration to be transferred to higher levels of decision-making processes.

Technocratic automaticity described the way in which, as integration proceeds, the supranational institutions set up to oversee that integration process will themselves take the lead in sponsoring further integration as they become more powerful and more autonomous of the member states. In the Haas-Schmitter model, size of unit, rate of transactions, pluralism, and elite complementarity are the background conditions on which the process of integration depends.

political integration will then become an "inevitable" side effect of integration in economic sectors.

Intergovernmentalism is an alternative theory of political integration, where power in international organizations is possessed by the member-states and decisions are made by unanimity.

Neofunctionalists have attacked Intergovernmentalism on theoretical grounds, and on the basis of empirical evidence which they claim show that Intergovernmentalism is incapable of explaining the dynamics and overall trajectory of European integration. ^[7]

Neoclassical economics

        Neoclassical economics is a term variously used for approaches to economics focusing on the determination of prices, outputs, and income distributions in markets through supply and demand, often mediated through a hypothesized maximization of utility by income-constrained individuals and of profits by income-constrained firms employing available information and factors of production, in accordance with rational choice theory.

        Neoclassical economics dominates microeconomics, and together with Keynesian economics forms the neoclassical synthesis, which dominates mainstream economics today.

Overview

Neoclassical economics is characterized by several assumptions common to many schools of economic thought.

Neoclassical economics rests on some assumptions, although certain branches of neoclassical theory may have different approaches:

1.      People have rational preferences among outcomes that can be identified and associated with a value.

2.      Individuals maximize utility and

3.      Firms maximize profits.

4.      People act independently on the basis of full and relevant information.

        From the basic assumptions of neoclassical economics comes a wide range of theories about various areas of economic activity. For example,

Profit maximization lies behind the neoclassical theory of the firm,

The derivation of demand curves leads to an understanding of consumer goods, and

The supply curve allows an analysis of the factors of production.

Utility maximization is the source for the neoclassical theory of consumption, the derivation of demand curves for consumer goods, and the derivation of labor supply curves and reservation demand.

Market supply and demand are aggregated across firms and individuals.

Neoclassical economics emphasizes equilibria, where equilibria are the solutions of agent maximization problems.

Origins

        Classical economics, developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, included a value theory and distribution theory.

        The value of a product was thought to depend on the costs involved in producing that product.

        A landlord received rent, workers received wages, and a capitalist tenant farmer received profits on their investment. This classic approach included the work of Adam Smith and David Ricardo.

        However, some economists gradually began emphasizing the perceived value of a good to the consumer.

        They proposed a theory that the value of a product was to be explained with differences in utility to the consumer.

        The third step from political economy to economics was the introduction of marginalism and the proposition that economic actors made decisions based on margins.

        For example, a person decides to buy a second sandwich based on how full they are after the first one, a firm hires a new employee based on the expected increase in profits the employee will bring. This differs from the aggregate decision making of classical political economy in that it explains how vital goods such as water can be cheap, while luxuries can be expensive.

The Marginal Revolution

Neoclassical economics is frequently dated from William Stanley Jevons's Theory of Political Economy (1871), Carl Menger's Principles of Economics (1871), and Leon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics (1874–1877). These three economists have been said to have begun “the Marginal Revolution”. Historians of economics and economists have debated:

·Whether utility or marginalism was more essential to this revolution

·Whether there was a revolutionary change of thought or merely a gradual development and change of emphasis from their predecessors

·Whether grouping these economists together disguises differences more important than their similarities.^[14]

        Marshall explained price by the intersection of supply and demand curves.

        The introduction of different market "periods" was an important innovation of Marshall's:

·Market period. The goods produced for sale on the market are taken as given data, e.g. in a fish market. Prices quickly adjust to clear markets.

·Short period. Industrial capacity is taken as given. The level of output, the level of employment, the inputs of raw materials, and prices fluctuate to equate marginal cost and marginal revenue, where profits are maximized. Economic rents exist in short period equilibrium for fixed factors, and the rate of profit is not equated across sectors.

·Long period. The stock of capital goods, such as factories and machines, is not taken as given. Profit-maximizing equilibria determine both industrial capacity and the level at which it is operated.

·Very long period. Technology, population trends, habits and customs are not taken as given, but allowed to vary in very long period models.

Marshall took supply and demand as stable functions and extended supply and demand explanations of prices to all runs.

        He argued supply was easier to vary in longer runs, and thus became a more important determinant of price in the very long run.

Criticism

        Neoclassical economics is sometimes criticized for having a normative bias. In this view, it does not focus on explaining actual economies, but instead on describing a "utopia" in which Pareto optimality applies.

        The response to this is that neoclassical economics is descriptive and not normative. It addresses such problems with concepts of private versus social utility.

        Neoclassical economics is also often seen as relying too heavily on complex mathematical models, such as those used in general equilibrium theory, without enough regard to whether these actually describe the real economy.

FACTS SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - 1

FACTS  ‑‑‑‑  SCIENCE  &  TECHNOLOGY - 1

1.      Scientists have created sperms from human skin to help infertile men.

2.      Scientists have found arthropods preserved in amber 100 million years old.

3.      Polonium 210 is 250 billion times more toxic.

4.      Coconut water is excellent sports drink.

5.      Obesity is a risk factor for the decline of cognitive property.

6.      Nano particles in soil effect soybean crops.

7.      Bugs ate 2, 00,000 tons of oil spill.

8.      Ants are four to five times more odour receptors than other insects.

9.      Cardiometabollic factors are reduced by exercise.

10.  Firemaster is a robot that enters fire to put it off. It informs that its work is over to control room 100 metres away.

11.  Fluorescent lamps depend on ultra violet photons discharged by electrically excited mercury.

12.  If pure oxygen is inhaled for half-a-minute retentive power can be increased.

13.  When light falls on a glass, 8% of it is reflected back.

14.  Quazam is a substance which is between graphite and diamond.

15.  Quazam looks like a diamond.

16.  Finger prints can also tell our health condition.

17.  Squalid is a substance that is found in finger prints.

18.  Squalid is produced when cholesterol in the body is diminished.

19.  Magnetic cloud, liberated from the sun touched the earth after 4 days.

20.  Magnetic cloud disturbed earth’s communication system.

21.  In Bihar, Pathal Gadwa forests a centre for making stone implements was found.

22.  Every galaxy has a black hole in its centre.

23.  Quasars are bigger than sun.

24.  The biggest pyramid was built in 26 BC.

25.  Eating a garlic clove a day can save us from bowel cancer.

26.  Lotus leaf inspires fog-fee finish to glass.

27.  Colloidal quantum dot {COD} is material that can reduce cost of solar cells drastically.

28.  China developed a robot that can walk on water.

29.  Bacteria can disinfect the soil.

30.  Human interference causes 6 X 10⁹ tons of CO₂ into atmosphere.

31.  Because global warming the capacity of  the  oceans to absorb CO₂ is decreasing.

32.  Pig’s liver cells are placed in human liver cells, the problem of cholesterol in human beings can be eliminated.

33.  Volcanic ash preserved ancient animal fossils.

34.  Glaciers in the Himalayas are shrinking rapidly.

35.  There are 240 prohibited drugs. Athletes’  urine is tested for any trace of them.

36.  In 16 days of Olympics at  least 5,000 urine and 1000 blood samples will be analysed.

37.  People who live in higher places become old soon.

38.  BPA a plastic additive can disrupt women’s reproductive systems, causing miscarriages and birth defects.

39.  Eye proteins have germ killing power.

40.  Fat in obese persons boosts prostate cancer.

41.  After noon rains are more likely over drier soils.

42.  Wood and bark were part of human ancestor’s diet.

43.  Solar cells are layered of amorphous silicon is of 70 nano metres.

44.  Google created artificial brain consisting of 16,000 computer processors, with one billion connections and 10 million YouTube videos.

45.  Google’s artificial brain creation is of “blue sky ideas” lab.

46.  “green rust” might have played a vital role in creating early atmosphere.

47.  Pioneer X was sent into space in 1974 to probe for extra terrestrial life.

48.  Artificial Moon gives light over Siberia.

49.  God enters where science cannot answer.

50.  The angle of sun ray is called time.