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European performing arts companies, intrinsically fragile, have been severely hit by the economic crisis. Within the global search for new economic models in the sector, a growing number of initiatives have been taken in the form of establishing collective and participatory firms. Their forms vary from simple interorganization resource pooling to proper registration of a cooperative. Our research aims to understand the motivations of project initiators for collectively organizing their business. We test the influence of instrumental versus ideologically driven motives as well as the influence of the socio-economic context on the decisions of performing arts entrepreneurs (artists, producers, or directors) to establish participatory firms. We relate these results to the success or failure of collective firms and to the degree of cooperation. We use a qualitative method based on semi-directive interviews conducted in 21 performing arts collective organizations, over two years and in six European countries. Interviews were integrally transcripted and processed using qualitative data analysis software (QSR NVivo 10) in order to realize axial coding. We found that while the context, instrumental logic, and ideologically driven motives influence the decision to establish collective organizations in performing arts, it is the ideological dimensions that are predominant and constitute a necessary condition for the success of a participatory organization. We observe that the more collective organizations are ideologically motivated, the more they are likely to be successful in the long run (success being assimilated to economic sustainability). We also find that the greater the importance of the ideological motive, the more integrated the cooperation. Eventually, these results provide significant information regarding the form of collective firms in performing arts. We observe the emergence of new forms of cooperatives that comprise cooperatives of production and projects or companies, establishing participatory and democratic governance, and pooling resources and financial risk while preserving the artistic freedom of artists. We view these emerging types of cooperatives as a promising avenue both for the sector itself and for the development of the cooperative movement beyond its traditional sectors. The findings suggest that public incentives, as they are currently set up, may miss their objective of promoting shared practices in the arts or even be counterproductive; thus, it would be to their advantage to be modified in light of the above results. We also defend the interest of trans-border cooperative organizations inspired by the cooperatives of production and their governance models and organizations. Despite a number of studies highlighting cooperation in the cultural sector, research on cooperatives in this sector remains embryonic. This paper contributes to this literature. We argue that applied research in this sector can be of contributive value to the literature on cooperatives and participatory firms.

This paper examines the transformation of Syrian political economy from 1970 until 2005. I argue that Syria has undergone two important phases of political and economic transformation, from building a centralized state and economy in the early 1970s to embarking on the path of market economy in the early 1990s. With the logic of competitiveness guiding the direction of economic development, the socio-economic changes of the mid-1980s and after have corresponded with an important process of class and state formation. After a brief discussion of the current transition in Syria, the following sections of the paper attempt to provide a critical study of the different strategies for economic development. Section two examines the process of state and economic centralization of the 1970s and 1980s and highlights the contradictions of this period. Section three assesses the impact of economic liberalization through a study of competitiveness in the economic policies of the 1990s and 2000. The final section examines the economic and political impasse that Syria has been faced with. In conclusion, I argue that the current path of market economy as the strategy for capital accumulation has not resolved the socio-economic problems that Syria has faced in the last two decades. This strategy will continue to face contestation by marginalized groups such as factions of the Baath Party, landless peasants, workers and small producers as Syria becomes even more integrated into the regional and global economy.

The world’s so-called developed countries of the West have long economic and political history compared to those of the East. The developed countries are far away from today’s developing countries in terms of aggregate income, aggregate capital formation, total number of human capital, etc. Though some countries from the East have outpaced some of the Western countries in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), aggregate bank credit and capital formation, in the twenty-first century, such as China and India, they are far behind in terms of per capita income, per capita financial facilities and per capita capital stock. On the other hand, the countries from the East, except a few one, are also well lagging behind their Western counterparts in the level of human development. With the theme of the book on the growth and developmental aspects of credit allocations, the present chapter makes an introduction to the subject area by means of credit histories in the selected 10 countries and their phase-wise levels of GDP, credit and Human Development Index (HDI). The figures for GDP, credit and HDI reflect the rising trends in GDP and credit for all in the entire phase but there are some downfalls in the GDP and credit during the phase of the global financial crisis. Besides, it observes rising trends of HDI in all the countries but the rates of rise are more in the case of the developing countries. There are thus the possibilities of getting correlations among the different pairs of the variables across the countries.

This chapter explores the influence of the banking and insurance sectors on the economic growth of Czechia, a nation with unique financial dynamics ideal for this study. Our aim is to ascertain the contribution of these financial institutions to economic growth, addressing the divergence in empirical findings that have marked this research area for decades. We scrutinise the impact of various factors, including sectoral development and the efficiency and stability of these institutions, all within the Czech context. Utilising the Granger causality test, we assess the role of several indicators related to the development of the banking and insurance sectors. Our findings reveal that in Czechia, the evolution and operational efficiency of these financial institutions significantly drive economic growth. This study provides an in-depth understanding of the role these sectors play in the Czech economic landscape, affirming their crucial contribution to the nation's economic prosperity.

Stable high growth in the service sector has made India free from the stigma of slow and steady ‘Hindu rate of growth’ of about 3.5% per annum during the first three decades of independence. Service-led growth has placed India among the top performing giant economies in the world. India is now a 3 trillion USD (United States Dollar) economy in terms of Nominal GDP (IMF, 2020). Under this milieu, the chapter aims to examine whether the growth in the service sector in India is inclusive or not. The observations of the study have shown that the service sector has been growing at fast pace compared to the other two sectors, which makes the system into jobless status. The sectoral contribution of service sector to the GDP is increasing after the new economic reform of 1990, but the employment contribution is going down. So the country is now in the grip of ‘jobless’ growth, and the grip is strengthening because of some structural issues such as changes in consumers’ demand with rising per capita income. Further deepening of finance capital in the savings sphere of service sector has made the wide disconnect between the real economic activity and growth of finance capital. Revival of high linkage sectors with higher potential for employment growth, such as agriculture and manufacturing, can be game changer towards the goal of inclusiveness.

The State of Ceara, located in Northeastern Brazil, is one of the poorest states, with a population of about eight million inhabitants. Its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is less than half that of Brazil as a whole: it reached R$2,666 in 1998 (equal to about US$1,400), compared with R$5,560 in Brazil as a whole (equal to about US$2,900). However, the economic policy in the last decade has led to a rapid growth in the economy of Ceara in comparison with national economy. In real terms, the GDP of Brazil has grown by 34% from 1985 to 1998, while the GDP of Ceara has grown during this same period by 58%. Preliminary data for 1999 indicate an additional growth close to 3% and a growth of 5.8% in the first 6 months of 2000 (as compared with the first 6 months of 1999). This is a much higher growth than that of the whole of Brazil, which reached 3.8% in the same period. This has led to a considerable increase of this state's share in the national GDP, from 1.5% in 1990 to 2.1% in 1998, with a continuing trend till 2000. In terms of GDP per capita, the gap between Ceara and Brazil as a whole is still very large, although it decreased considerably during this period: the GDP per capita in Ceara was only 35% of Brazilian GDP per capita in 1990, and it grew to 48% in 1998.