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A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

This chapter examines the influence of external public borrowing resources on economic progress in Tunisia. The study focuses on two stages: First, the influence is studied in a direct sense and then in an indirect sense, i.e., through a transmission channel of this influence. By applying the autoregressive distributed technique with staggered lags (ARDL), over a period ranging from 1986 to 2019, the results showed that the influence of external borrowing resources on growth seems to be unfavorable in the short term but positive in the long term, hence the importance of the empirical technique chosen. Second, three interaction variables were tested, namely total government expenditure, government investment expenditure, and the real effective exchange rate. The results obtained call for better attention to the channels identified to maximize the positive influence of external public debt on the country's economic progress.

This study aims to evaluate the competitiveness of nations and seeks to answer the following research question: how does the competitiveness of nations include improvements in the quality of life, thus influencing and contributing to social progress in both social and economic indices?

This paper collected secondary data from the World Economic Forum and the socioeconomic dimensions of the Social Progress Imperative Index and considered the dimensions of these indices, which were demonstrated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The main focus was on the documentary analysis that was carried out to explain the realities of 121 countries from 2014 to 2017 as taken from these indices, considering the 10 countries at the top and bottom.

This study showed the use of new measures for the performance of nations that are less dependent on economics and focus more on social development, which may be a trend for the future of nations, and produce a more holistic view for the study. “Innovation” is the factor with the weakest relationship with social progress, which is justified by a weaker relationship with one of the subcategories, “basic human needs”, when analyzed in isolation. However, when the authors analyze the best and worst nations, the authors observe that economic factors are still prevalent, with the “institutions” and “infrastructure” factors being effective for improving competitiveness and the quality of life.

The findings represent a new, emerging configuration in country performance, but the study has its limitations, such as the use of only two pooled variables and the fact that it does not correlate their dimensions or variables.

This study can represents an expansion logic for measuring the performance of countries considering social factors. The main contributions of this study are its statistical evidence and documentary analysis of the relationship between economic and social variables. The main contribution of this paper is to show that over time (2014–2017) economic factors, as measured by the competitiveness index of nations, relate to aspects of social welfare, as measured by the social progress index.

It is hypothesised that the phenomenon of increasing returns and economic progress may only be consistently explained by employing the epistemological paradox, that where knowledge is part of the system, knowledge about the system necessarily and inescapably changes the system itself. Accordingly, one expects to find the principle of increasing returns embodied in the theoretical writing about increasing returns. This is shown by an exemplary reading of the works of Young and Penrose.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

“Communism has never concealed the fact that it rejects all absolute concepts of morality. It scoffs at any consideration of “good” and “evil” as indisputable categories. Communism considers morality to be relative, to be a class matter… It has infected the whole world with the belief in the relativity of good and evil.” Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West, 1975.

The main goal of this study is to analyze the influence of social capital and corporate ethics on social progress. A theoretical model is proposed, and the hypotheses were tested on a sample of 32 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries between 2011 and 2018 that includes data from the Social Progress Imperative non-profit organization as well as from the World Economic Forum database (Global Competitiveness Reports). The results indicate that, although both social capital and corporate ethics have a direct influence on social progress, social capital also influences corporate ethics so that the latter acts as a mediating variable between social capital and social progress.

The main purpose of this paper is to propose a progress framework revolving around the utilisation of three key constructs: resources, infrastructure and environment (index).

This paper utilises a composite indicator and an interdisciplinary approach to construct a comprehensive measure of progress.

The findings reveal that the methodological approach employed above allows components that are vital to progress to be incorporated into a coherent framework.

The proposed progress framework could be applied to countries, or act as a foundation for future progress measures. It is also hoped to promote interdisciplinary research between schools.

The paper proposes an alternative measure of progress for nations that has the capability to capture more aspects important to progress.

Can digital financial inclusion (DFI) as an emerging and innovative financial service encourage economic development?

Based on a Bayesian macroeconomic investigation framework, this research study presents the level of internet growth as a threshold variable and examines the influence of DFI on economic development based on state panel data from 2008 to 2021 in India.

The outcome of DFI on economic development through various mediation models. The results illustrate that DFI growth substantially contributes to economic development.

Encouraging small and medium-sized enterprise entrepreneurship and motivating populations’ utilization are two significant networks through which DFI progress affects economic growth.