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Wicksell's contributions to welfare economics are viewed as largely aligned with Pareto efficiency and James Buchanan's work in public choice. This conflicts with the Scandinavian representation of Wicksell as the forefather of the modern Swedish socialist economy. The purpose of this paper is to examine Wicksell's approach to economics, particularly his understanding of “justice” as a way to understanding the evolution of two such divergent traditions.

Original academic and popular press writings, as well as archival materials, are used to examine Wicksell's economic philosophy and his position on key aspects of welfare economics, including the relative importance of allocation versus distribution in policy decision making. His influence on the American public choice tradition and Swedish welfare economics is examined.

Both the public choice and Swedish welfare traditions based on Wicksell's justice represent overly simplistic interpretations and fail to explain how Wicksell could have such a significant impact on the development of two such divergent approaches to public economics.

Wicksell's strong association with Pareto efficiency and the public choice school is unfortunate because de‐emphasizes the importance Wicksell placed on distributional considerations and overly simplifies his use of the term “justice.” Similarly, the Swedish economists failed to appreciate efficiency arguments and chose instead to emphasize Wicksell's distributional concerns. This paper sheds light on where the misapprehension arose and how it can be better understood.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the plausibility of four different mid-term paths of development of the European Union (EU): first, a political union or a European state; second, a differentiated and flexible integration of the polity; third, a covert and deepening integration of the polity outside of the political arenas; fourth, the disintegration and/or dissolution of the EU through the exit of individual members or a joint decision to terminate the union.

The paper uses strategic interaction analysis to identify the plausibility of each of these four possible outcomes. By systematically varying the relevant actors’, i.e. European Council’s and member states’, the European Parliament’s, the Commission’s, preferences over outcomes while holding constant institutional rules of decision making on the one hand, and systematically varying institutional rules on the other while holdings actors’ preferences constant, the paper comes to the conclusion that differentiated and flexible integration and covert integration are the most plausible mid-term paths of development.

The paper finds that neither a European state or deep political union nor a disintegration or even dissolution of the EU is the most plausible path of development. Rather, it concludes that flexible and differentiated integration as well as covert integration outside the political arenas are the most likely developments. However, it also draws attention to the political costs of flexible and differentiated integration which does not allow for an overall view of political and policy issues negotiated at one political table, limiting the scope of compromise formation and even leading to a fragmented polity. Covert integration consisting of mechanisms of hidden integration “invisible” to the wider public may lead to a democratic backlash, once citizens realize that integration has considerably deepened without their being aware of it.

Most publications regarding the future development of the EU are normatively driven, either conjuring an imminent disintegration, or invoking the necessity of a deepening integration leading to a political union. This paper, by contrast, seeks to assess the likely further development based on empirically identified factors and a logical argument.

The impact of the European Union on Social Security is quite complex and enigmatic. At the starting point, there is a genuine paradox: whereas the construction of a large and unique market supposes, among many others prerequisites, the harmonization of social security systems, this harmonization is left to the good will of the member States since Social security is not truly within the competence of the Union. In these conditions, it is quite obvious that a thought and organised harmonisation is absolutely unreachable. So we have yet very different systems from a State to an other and even the typology is very discouraging with at least four families of systems. As for the article 137 of the EC Treaty, which allows the European bodies to harmonize the different Social security legislations, without being completely vacuous, is extremely limited in its real reach by the rule of unanimity.

The main purpose of this paper is first to discern the overwhelming influence of Kantian thought in the development of mainstream political economic doctrines. In this we will show that the Kantian philosophical influence has introduced an abiding element of duality in all matters of the western liberal theory of social contract and political economy. The nature of Kantian moral philosophy will be shown to have left the study of political economy by and large ethically neutral by treating the role of morals, ethics and values exogenously to the economic system. We will then introduce some substantive elements of an alternative approach to the treatment of ethics and values in the socio‐economic system. We will show that in the alternative approach to the study of social contract theory and political economy the ethical considerations appear as endogenous elements and strongly negate the Kantian principle of duality and individualistic rationalism.

To examine how the allocation of property rights in multiple‐ownership buildings in Hong Kong creates an environment in which the optimization of asset value may be difficult to achieve and in this situation how owners chose to overcome the associated problems of collective action decision making to resolve issues of building management.

An institutional approach, drawn from the literature on common property and collective action, is used to examine the management of multiple‐ownership property. The paper uses a hedonic pricing model to empirically test whether, in such circumstances, management is reflected in property price and which mode of governance owners prefer as a mechanism for resolving problems of collective action.

The institutional arrangements for co‐ownership and use of multiple‐ownership property assets in Hong Kong have resulted in an “anticommons” environment, in which individual owners are in a position to veto action in relation to the property. In the absence of mandatory management the study indicates property prices are increased in those cases where owners have chosen to resolve the difficulties of collective decision making by forming incorporate owners' groups and employing professional management services.

The outcome of the empirical work is the result of an initial study carried out in one district in Hong Kong and may not be generalised. In the future, the approach will be extended to other areas.

In the absence of a regulatory environment which ensures the management of multiple‐ownership property assets, owners may be better advised to formalise arrangements through the formation of incorporate owners' groups and appointment of professional property management agents.

The paper assesses the implications of an anticommons environment for the management of multiple‐ownership property in Hong Kong. Examines arrangements for collective decision making and demonstrates influence of management on property price.

The prescription for 1992 for the European Community calls for the completion of the Internal Market and the absence of many of the fiscal and physical barriers to the movement of goods, capital, and labour within the community. However, realistically it is likely that residual fiscal and other barriers will remain into the next century. Both the effected change and delay in changes will induce predictable patterns in the movement of labour and capital, the distribution of goods and services, and industrial location and development.

We are negotiating all the time: with customers, suppliers, trade unions, our family ‐ indeed, all with whom we come into contact. In business, in particular, negotiation needs management. There are said to be eight stages in negotiation: prepare, argue, signal, propose, present the package, bargain, close and agree. At the proposal stage one must be clear about what one must achieve, what one intends to achieve, and what one would like to achieve. The approach to constructive and competitive negotiation, the role of consultation, how to cope with deadlock and conflict, cross‐cultural negotiation, and the art of compromise are reviewed. The development and use of teams in negotiation is also an important factor, needing careful assessment. Negotiation will nearly always involve conflict, but steps must be taken to ensure that the participants remain on friendly terms.

The present study provides a comparison of the Confederate Constitution of 1861 and the Japanese Constitution of 1946, with emphasis on the role of constitutional constraints on pork‐barrel legislation and increasing rates of federal spending. Because the Japanese Constitution, by all accounts, was produced by Americans (American General Douglas MacArthur and the SCAP), it provided a second possibility for Americans, who had the benefit of hindsight regarding the shortcomings of the US Constitution, to potentially make an improvement. Unlike the view maintained by the Confederate States of America in the drafting of a constitution, MacArthur’s product actually relaxed constraints on central government spending. The result, the apparent product of the new dealism and progressivism ideologies which were prevalent in 1940s America, has produced an open door to increased levels of special interest spending in Japan.

The acceleration of globalized commerce and economic activities has meant that conventional and Shariah (Islamic law) compliant organizations transact and negotiate among themselves. Therefore, this study aims to explore the concept of corporate negotiation and the communicative principles that guide the negotiation process among Shariah-compliant organizations.

The study uses a qualitative method through an inductive interpretative approach by conducting 20 in-depth interviews among four groups of experts. These consist of three muftis, ten academicians in Islamic assets, finance and asset jurisprudence; three practitioners in charge of inter-organizational negotiation and decision-making; and four shariah board members of selected Islamic banks.

The findings reported that business negotiation is used by Islamic organizations for reconciliation, consultation, resolving disagreements and as a means of achieving spiritual satisfaction. Furthermore, the key communicative principles of the negotiation process consist of the credibility of informational exchange, flexible interactions and the openness and truthful disclosure of information.

The empirical data discussed in this study supports the claim that macro-environmental factors and social and cultural values should be considered when examining business negotiating behaviors. However, this study focuses only on the banking/service organization negotiation. Therefore, future research should focus on the Islamic negotiation process in the context of diplomatic and international relations.

The findings reported in this study offer insight for negotiators operating among Islamic organizations to understand the principles and process of negotiation in the purview of Shariah standards and principles.

In terms of theoretical implications, this study reveals a clear conceptual difference between the conventional concept and the Islamic perspective of corporate negotiation. Also, this study highlights the impact of organizational culture, specifically Islamic management strategies, on the business negotiation process and business communication principles.

To assess not how Samuelson's individual models contributed to human knowledge but the very true foundation on which they rest, namely, sound theory, facts, and philosophy.

This article has placed Samuelson as a philosopher seeking the truth, and as a theoretical contributor to the many sub‐disciplines of economics.

Shows that his truths bear the evidence of reality, and that his theoretical contributions are not different in kind from the logical theorists. Demonstrates how easily one could formulate a Samuelsonian impossibility theorem that places his thought on the level of the mathematical research started by Hilbert and concluded by Kurt Godel.

The literature that has assessed his contributions in this regard is fragmented, and myopically sparse, leaving gaps to be filled in by a paper such as this.