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It is often “assumed,” even among well-informed lawyers and economists, that European competition law is an emulation of the US antitrust law because of American influence on European political and economic debates after the Second World War. However, such an assumption is disputable: in accordance with Professor Gerber, the competition law in Europe is an indigenous product based primarily on ideas developed in Germany by the so-called ordoliberal thought. In this respect, the article 102 TFEU may be considered a proof. The aims of this article are to furnish a critical examination of ordoliberal ideas of anticompetitive conducts and underline the relevance of ordoliberal thought for the development of the modern European competition law.

This paper suggests that an adequate understanding of the notion of the social market economy, which has become a prominent aspect of debates on the social model of the European Constitution, is to be assessed in the context of the historist tradition in German economic and social thought.

The paper explores the intellectual history of the notion of the social market economy and its conceptual relevance for a dynamic European social model by highlighting Alfred Müller‐Armack's contributions to ordoliberalism and their relationship with German historism, in particular with Gustav von Schmoller's approach to Socialpolitik.

The paper finds that the decisive concern of the notion of the social market economy is the reconciliation of economic dynamism and social cohesion in a basic setting of legal rules and cultural values, reaching beyond common interpretations that focus more narrowly on institutional aspects of social policy.

By highlighting the interplay of economic, social and cultural dimensions, the paper suggests an extension of the conceptual horizon of current debates on the social model of the European Union, promoting policy implications that account for the possibilities of balancing conflicting social interests in the process of integration.

The paper applies a reconstruction of the intellectual history of the notion of the social market economy to the problem of designing a social order for the European Union with its underlying discourse on the constitutional status of a European social market economy.

In this chapter it is argued that the future of Austrian economics is best sought in the field of philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE), with a strong and diverse connection with civil society. The authors demonstrate the limitations inherent in the discipline of economics for Austrian economists, which consist of its narrowness as well as its near-exclusive focus on improving government policies. The authors suggest that the burgeoning field of PPE is a more natural home, and one that provides the great continuity with the broad social philosophical origins of the Austrian School. The chapter emphasizes the comparative strength of Austrian economics in direct relation to the public as well as civil society organizations, compared to the purely academic nature of many other economic schools and fields. But the authors warn against a too narrow ideological or too concentrated financial relationship with a small set of civil society organizations. The chapter illustrates some of the dangers and opportunities through a comparative history vis-à-vis the evolution of ordoliberal political economy in Germany.

This article examines the effects of credit to private sector on the business and trade activities. The effectiveness of rapid expansion in public and private borrowing through state's intervention after COVID-19 pandemic has been assessed in this study.

The model to determine the role of credit expansion is based on four equations estimated through panel least square technique on 18 years data of 186 countries.

It is concluded that credit to private sector and external debt improve the investment in infrastructure, which is a significant determinant of gross domestic product growth. Empirical evidences corroborate that higher number of firms using banks to finance their investment and the volume of broad money determine the magnitude of credit to private sector.

This study explores some new evidences and aspects of the credit financing which have not been discussed in this way before.

Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining academic knowledge, practical skills, and personal development to enhance the entrepreneurial success of university graduates. While entrepreneurship education has experienced similar growth worldwide, its emergence in Germany is closely tied to the country’s political and economic developments. The significance of entrepreneurship education for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and contemporary economic policy has been instrumental in advancing its academic recognition. This chapter provides a historical analysis of the academization of entrepreneurship in Germany. It explores the recursive and often idiosyncratic processes involving state and financial institutions, companies, and universities that have created, respecified, and mutually reinforced a subdiscipline and field of study. Academic entrepreneurship knowledge successively not only became relevant for starting a business but also for employment within the entrepreneurial infrastructure and beyond. This chapter follows a chronological order, highlighting three key stages in the academization of entrepreneurship education. First, the academic, financial, and political roots (I) of entrepreneurship up until the 1970s. Second, it explores the transformation (II) of entrepreneurship into a viable policy alternative and the challenges faced in establishing complementary research and education in higher education institutions during the 1980s. Finally, it sketches the institutionalization (III) of entrepreneurship as a central driver of government economic policy, allowing for the late bloom of entrepreneurship education and research at universities around the turn of the millennium.

This paper narrates the efforts made in Italy after the end of the Second World War to develop an economic and social model in between corporate capitalism and planned economy, on the one hand, and shareholder versus stakeholder capitalism on the other. The result was the institutional infrastructure that supported the Istituto per la Ricostruzione industriale (IRI), a state-owned public holding in charge of managing the funds of the so-called Marshall Plan. The history of IRI illustrates the importance of a pragmatic approach to dealing with institutional constraints and opportunities when faced with the need to reconstruct destroyed economies in a context of very fragmented societies such as those of post-war Italy. The result was the resistance to an acritical adoption of the corporate American model and the definition of a more balanced form of capitalism. In an era of new recovery plans, there is a lot we can learn from IRI’s history.

This chapter analyzes the rules and institutions that have characterized the European Monetary Union (EMU) during its prolonged crisis, stressing the limits of the strategy pursued by the European authorities. It also examines the issues of current account imbalances, economic growth and the problem of debt, and their interconnections. The main purpose of this chapter is to indicate feasible economic solutions and political arrangements in order to complete the institutional system of the EMU. This requires appropriate reforms of its institutional architecture. But such reforms demand changes in the treaties in order to make the Eurosystem more consistent and endowed of democratic legitimacy, so to have appropriate tools, resources and policies that can contribute to the stability, cohesion and development of the Eurozone.