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This is an exploratory paper of personal reflections on economic system issues, based on half a century of wide-ranging professional experiences, summarized in the section “Professional Background.”

The following broad generalizations are elaborated: (1) For a country’s sustained good economic performance, there is no alternative to a predominantly market-driven economy, supported by appropriate institutions. (2) In societies at all levels of development, it is essential to have mutually supporting cooperation between the private sector and the state (section “An Economic System with Universal Features?”). (3) The quarter-century transformation progress of the 29 former centrally planned economies of the USSR and Eastern Europe has been most uneven, as documented in the section “Relationship between Economic and Political System Transformation.” (4) Regarding China, it is NOT the country’s authoritarian political system but the skillful transformation of its economy into a market-driven one that has been principally responsible for the country’s impressive, long-term economic performance (section “China’s Economic Growth and Development Model”). The paper concludes by suggesting that the most fundamental determinants of a country’s long-term economic success are some combination of its geography, institutions, culture, and momentous historical events.

Poverty alleviation has been a major theme of China's modernization process since the founding of New China. This paper points out that China's poverty alleviation process presents three stylized facts: “Miraculous” achievements of poverty alleviation have been made on a global scale; the poverty alleviation achievements mainly occurred in the high growth stage after reform and opening up; the poverty alleviation process is accompanied by the structural transformation of the urban–rural dual economy.

Therefore, a logically consistent analytical framework should form among the structural transformation of the dual economy, economic growth and the achievements in poverty alleviation. In logical deduction, the structural transformation of the dual economy affects rural poverty alleviation through the effects of labor reallocation, agricultural productivity improvement, demographic change and fiscal resource allocation.

The first two refer to economic growth, and the latter two are alleviation policies. The combination of economic growth and poverty alleviation policies is the main cause for poverty alleviation performance. China's empirical evidence can support the four effects by which the structural transformation of the dual economy affects poverty alleviation.

China's socialist system and its economic system transformation after reform and opening up provide an institutional basis for the effects to come into play. After 2020, China's poverty alleviation strategies will enter the “second-half” phase, namely, the phase of solving the problems of relative poverty in urban and rural areas by adopting conventional methods and establishing long-term mechanisms. This requires the facilitation of the reconnection between poverty alleviation strategies and the structural transformation of the dual economy in terms of development ideas and policy directions.

Constant or decreasing returns and increasing returns to scale are two kinds of mechanism in economic growth. The goal of supply-side structural reform is to promote the establishment of the mechanism with increasing returns to scale. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper argues that the overall economic structure of the developing economy has been divided into the sector of constant or decreasing returns to scale and the sector of increasing returns to scale due to the dual economic structure. Among them, the supply-side structural reform is mainly to reduce the sector of decreasing returns to scale and increase the sector of increasing returns to scale. Based on the hypothesis of such two-sector economic structure in the supply side of developing economies and on the industrial data, this paper empirically tests the returns to scale of China’s supply structure. The result suggests that so far the sector of constant or decreasing returns to scale dominates the supply structure of China’s economic growth, which results in the state of decreasing returns to scale in China’s overall economy.

Therefore, to realize the long-term sustained growth and transformation of the development pattern of China’s economy, the authors must carry out the supply-side structural reform, vigorously develop the modern industrial sectors characterized by modern knowledge and technology, and promote the development of an innovation-driven economy.

Besides, the authors must accelerate the transformation from traditional industrial sectors to modern industrial sectors, actively promote China’s industrial structure toward rationalization and high gradation, as well as build a modern industrial system so as to facilitate the formation of the mechanism of increasing returns to scale and accelerate the transformation of the driving force of China’s economic growth.

Two important methodologies having some common grounds, but based on differing contexts and paradigms are Physical System Theory (PST) and System Dynamics (SD). The developments in both the fields have taken place almost independently, and attempts have been made to integrate the two to complement their strengths and limitations. This paper provides an overview of PST in terms of its foundations, philosophy, fundamental postulates, recent developments on its simplification and enlargement, and applications to socio‐economic and managerial systems. A comparison of PST is made with SD on different fronts so as to understand their similarities and differences for carving out their place in modelling of managerial and socio‐economic systems and integrating the two more meaningfully and flexibly. The paper is concluded emphasizing the need for a ‘Flexible System Theory’ which can relate many such systems based approaches and techniques on the whole continuum from hard to soft systems thinking to cater the whole spectrum of problem situations effectively.

The purpose of this chapter is to determine the main stages in the formation of information economy.

The authors use the method of noosphere research, a bifurcation approach to studying dynamic systems, which is related to systemic approach, the method of structural and functional analysis, the method of dialectical materialism, and the methodology of the institutional economic theory, abstraction, and formalization.

As a result of complex application of totality of the aforementioned methods and approaches to study the formation of information economy, the authors determine the essence and the main stages of information economy: formation of technosphere (technological foundation), formation of sociosphere (social core), and formation of economic sphere (economic pinnacle). At each of these stages, economic system faces serious socioeconomic changes that first face opposition from society and business, but then – with accumulation of practical experience – are accepted, opening the possibility for transition to the next stage of this process.

The authors conclude that while the influence of the global financial crisis in the early twenty-first century is common for all modern economic systems, it stimulated them to begin the formation of information economy. Furthermore, socioeconomic changes that followed this phenomenon are diverse and are largely predetermined by the context such as readiness of economic systems for continuation of their evolution, their reaction to crisis, susceptibility to changes, and other national peculiarities. That’s why the speed of passing the various stages in different economic systems varies.

Discusses the literature on the inter‐country differences in the pattern and magnitude of the transformation crisis in post‐socialist coutries. Describes and analyses the stylized facts regarding the transformational crises in these countries. Summarizes the main explanations for the crisis focusing on the institutional dysfunction‐induced output fall. Presents a model of the system‐switch output decline.

Presents the key issues in the field of human resource management against the background of the socio‐economic system transformation in Poland. These issues concern the impact of external conditions on this management process. The crucial ones among such conditions are: the economic situation, labour market, legal regulations and the activity of trade unions. Shows the changes occurring in human resource management through the examples of workers’ post‐communist attitudes, the general procedure of employee recruitment and the selection of managerial staff. Illustrates the process by outlining the changes that occurred in Poland after 1990. Finally, points at the emergence of entrepreneurial attitudes of employees, determined by the qualities of market economy system.

The socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics is a systematic economic discipline, which theoretically summarises the socialist economic system and the path of economic development with Chinese characteristics. It is a systematic economic theory of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context. The theoretical system construction for the discipline of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics is currently a major task.

From the perspective of disciplinary cognition, the theoretical system of the discipline of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics includes the disciplinary attributes and connotations, theoretical basis, the origin of thoughts, major principles, logical starting point, main logic and problem-based study of major theoretical and practical issues.

Developing the discipline and building the theoretical system of the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics, several major principles should be adhered to, including building the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics on the basis of historical materialism; building the theoretical paradigm of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics around the analysis of production relations; adhering to the people-centred principle; taking common prosperity as the main logic of the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics; studying the major theoretical and practical issues of building the socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era based on problems; and reflecting the innovative development of the discipline in the textbook, The Socialist Political Economy with Chinese Characteristics.

Disciplinary cognition involves the connotations, attributes, mission and development path of the discipline, which is related to how to construct the discipline system and is a significant part of the disciplinary construction.

Due to climate change and an increasing concentration of the world’s population in vulnerable areas, how to manage catastrophe risk efficiently and cover disaster losses fairly is still a universal dilemma.

This paper applies a law and economic approach.

China’s mechanism for managing catastrophic disaster risk is in many ways unique. It emphasizes government responsibilities and works well in many respects, especially in disaster emergency relief. Nonetheless, China’s mechanism which has the vestige of a centrally planned economy needs reform.

I propose a catastrophe insurance market-enhancing framework which marries the merits of both the market and government to manage catastrophe risks. There are three pillars of the framework: (i) sustaining a strong and capable government; (ii) government enhancement of the market, neither supplanting nor retarding it; (iii) legalizing the relationship between government and market to prevent government from undermining well-functioning market operations. A catastrophe insurance market-enhancing framework may provide insights for developing catastrophe insurance in China and other transitional nations.

First, this paper analyzes China’s mechanism for managing catastrophic disaster risks and China’s approach which emphasizes government responsibilities will shed light on solving how to manage catastrophe risk efficiently and cover disaster losses fairly. Second, this paper starts a broader discussion about government stimulation of developing catastrophe insurance and this framework can stimulate attention to solve the universal dilemma.