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The development of information technologies has led to the rapid evolution of learning approaches and educational solutions, with a focus on active learning. In the context of the transformative learning paradigm, active learning strategies are aligned with student-centered education, enabling learners to engage with complex concepts and practical challenges critically. This chapter presents a semi-structured literature review investigating the adoption of online active learning methods in the context of economics education and its potential to promote transformative learning. The main contribution of this chapter is the development of a framework for integrating online active learning strategies in economics education, grounded in the principles of transformative learning as described by Mezirow. The proposed framework highlights the importance of designing online learning experiences that support critical reflection, dialogue, and self-directed learning and suggests strategies for promoting student engagement and collaboration in the online environment. The impact of this approach on active learning practices in (higher) education is significant, as it provides educators with a roadmap for designing online learning experiences that foster transformative learning and promote student success in the post-pandemic era. The chapter concludes with policy recommendations and future research directions for enhancing the adoption and efficacy of online active learning strategies in economics education.

Using a pool of 226 students from introductory accounting courses offered during the COVID-19 pandemic, the author shows support for the efficacy of hybrid learning delivery methods. The author categorizes students’ preferences for remote (via video conferencing), in-person (face-to-face (F2F)), or HyFlex (an on-demand combination of either in-person or remote) learning modalities and examines the association with performance. The author finds that attendance choices affect a student’s self-reported engagement, coursework participation, and exam performance. Additionally, the author finds a significant effect on all performance measures for those who either attend in-person or hybrid lecture formats compared to remote learning via video conferencing technology. These results indicate a potential loss of learning in the absence of a F2F lecture component. However, results do not indicate any significant performance difference between those who attend in-person and those who prefer a hybrid learning (HyFlex) format. These results show that there is a benefit to F2F lectures, although, the degree to which students must attend in that modality to reach their full benefit remains unresolved as the study did not address this issue.

Effective standards are at once technical specifications for various people, processes, and products, as well as world-changing phenomena. Put simply, standards are one means by which we determine who we are and how we shall live. Alternatively, standards are more than technical specifications; effectively implemented standards are part of the social infrastructure that makes a given type of society possible. This, in turn, suggests that – if we are to collectively decide what kind of society and what kind of agri-food sector we want – the recent turn to standards (and away from government regulation) cannot be left in the hands of a few experts, but must be subjected to democratic deliberation. This is especially true if the scope of standards is to be expanded so as to include problems such as climate change and sustainability. These are “wicked problems” in that all the parameters cannot be specified, there is no single optimum to be attained and “…there is no criterion system nor rule which would tell you what is correct or false” (Rittel, 1972).

Experts respond to the same incentives as people in other areas of human action, and in the same ways. This insight is a truism: Experts are ordinary people, not otherworld creatures. The disciplined pursuit of this common sense observation helps us to reach conclusions about experts that might be surprising or counterintuitive.

The objectives of this chapter are: first, to analyze the magnitude of the COVID-19 impact on homestay business in Bali and second, to identify the most significant determinant of COVID-19 to the homestay industry. It hopes that the results would contribute to policy recommendations and business strategies to increase the resilient capacity of the homestay business during the pandemic period. Due to the pandemic situation, 74 respondents of homestay owners were interviewed through an online survey (Google form). The data gathering was through three events of focus group discussion and several in-depth interviews. Partial Least Squares regression and descriptive statistics were applied. The result shows that, first, the COVID-19 pandemic has a considerable decreasing impact on the (1) homestay occupancy rate, (2) homestay characters (room rental price), (3) homestay competency capital, (4) provided facilities, and (5) guest composition. Second, during the global pandemic, the homestay business association, the number of media promotions, the number of room booking channels, and the homestay characters significantly impact the homestay occupancy rate. Third, to increase the demand for tourism, appropriate measures and policies should be taken, such as increasing the travel bubble consent, mobilizing central government officers working in Bali, increasing the number of domestic promotions, and only using an effective and efficient room booking channel.

Fiscal and monetary policies are essential to the development of a capital market. In this chapter, authors present how fiscal and monetary policy in Poland evolved and adjusted to economic challenges in 1998–2022. It is worth noticing that the Polish economy and financial market have been built from scratch after 45 years of socialism. Hence, it is scientifically interesting to study the relationship between fiscal and monetary policy, and capital market in a developing country, and in a relatively young economy.

Both – the macroeconomic policy mix and development of the capital market – are the subject of analysis how fiscal and monetary policy impacted the capital market. As so the main aim of the chapter is the assessment of the nexus and dependencies between fiscal and monetary policy and the capital market.

In the chapter, multiple linear regression was used for each dependent variable to discover which monetary and fiscal policy parameters significantly predicted selected variables describing the development of the capital market in Poland. Fiscal and monetary policy variables served as descriptors explaining capital market parameters in seven separate models.

Multiple regression models explain 77.3%–95.4% of the volatility of the capital market characteristics. The level of the central bank's reference rate is a variable that influences the capital market the most. In six out of seven models, the interest rate was a significant parameter. The development of the capital market was accompanied by a higher tax-to-GDP ratio. At the same time, a strong negative impact of the tax-to-GDP increase was noticed in domestic institutional investors' stock trading.

Online testing offers many advantages for classroom management and learning: ease of grading, immediate feedback, robust question types, integration of technology such as graphing utilities or specialized applets, and multimedia integration (e.g., questions based on detailed images or video files). It also offers many opportunities for misbehavior, such as misrepresentation (e.g., taking a test for someone else), sharing information between testing sessions, or inappropriate access of online resources during the test. We consider potential tools available in course management systems that can help, and also mention other available resources. With online testing, it is easier for students to save copies of testing materials, which find their way to social web sites. Fortunately, many course management systems allow the possibility of randomization, either by choosing one of several alternate questions on a given topic, or preparing calculated questions in which a parameter is allowed to vary over a specified range of values.

John McGee's 1958 paper, “Predatory Price Cutting: The Standard Oil (NJ) Case,” has had an astonishing influence on both antitrust policy in the United States and economic lore. McGee argued that predatory pricing is irrational and his analysis of the Standard Oil Company Matter, decided in 1911, led him to conclude that the Record in this case does not show that Standard Oil engaged in predatory pricing. This single publication appears to serve as a foundation of the U.S. Supreme Court's position on the issue of predatory pricing, as well as the assertion by many economists that predatory pricing is irrational and rarely occurs.

Numerous arguments have been advanced during the past 25 years that predatory pricing can be a rational strategy. As to McGee's empirical findings, there has been no re-examination of the Record of the Standard Oil case to determine the validity of his finding that the trial “Record” does not support the claim that Standard Oil engaged in predatory pricing.

We examined this Record and have found that the trial Record contains considerable evidence of predatory pricing by Standard Oil. Therefore, the Record does not support McGee's conclusion that Standard Oil did not engage in predatory pricing.

Thus, the decisions of the Supreme Court in recent years, as well as the opinions of many economists, concerning predatory pricing are not consistent with either current theory or the empirical record.

The present essay re-examines the scope of Sraffa’s critique of Marshall’s supply curves that the former developed in his 1925 and 1926 articles showing that neoclassical supply curves derived from non-proportional returns are not robust both in the short and in the long run. After examining what a short-run and a long-run equilibrium means both for the original Sraffa’s articles and for Marshall’s pioneer contribution, the chapter discusses the common procedure in conventional economics to introduce the limitations to the growth of the firm. The argument of the chapter will be based on the 1920s articles as well as on the ‘Lectures on Advanced Theory of Value’ delivered in 1928–1931 by Sraffa at Cambridge University, now publicly available online by the Wren library, Trinity College, Cambridge. For short-run analysis, it must be assumed that the number of firms is fixed. This assumption entails serious problems with regards to the notions of competition and competitive behaviour. For long-run analysis, the sources of increasing costs are problems of management and control. However, this idea is untenable both on logical and empirical grounds. We argue that contemporary mainstream microeconomic treatment of costs and supply in the context of perfect competition still presents several problems. These problems, rather than being superficial, lie at the root of the supply and demand approach of value and distribution.