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1 – 10 of over 169000Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…
Abstract
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.
Despite profound differences, both the German Historical School and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School have in common a theoretical and cultural heritage in Central…
Abstract
Despite profound differences, both the German Historical School and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School have in common a theoretical and cultural heritage in Central European traditions of social thought and philosophy. Although both schools often are perceived as quintessentially German traditions of economic and social research, their methodological presuppositions and critical intent diverge strongly. Since the objective of the Frankfurt School was to carry the theoretical critique initiated by Marx into the twentieth century, and since its members did so on a highly abstract level of theoretical criticism, the suggestion may be surprising that in terms of their respective research agendas, there was a common denominator between the German Historical School and the Frankfurt School critical theory. To be sure, as will become apparent, the common ground was rather tenuous and indirect. We must ask, then: in what respects did their theoretical and analytical foundations and orientations overlap? How did the German Historical School, as a nineteenth-century tradition of economic thinking, influence the development of the Frankfurt School?
Adam Smith, it is generally acknowledged, founded the modern discipline of political economy with the study entitled An Inquiry into The Wealth of Nations (1776) which he built…
Abstract
Adam Smith, it is generally acknowledged, founded the modern discipline of political economy with the study entitled An Inquiry into The Wealth of Nations (1776) which he built upon the ethical system he presumed to exist in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Ricardo took Smith's observations somewhat further with his publication of On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817). When John Stuart Mill wrote his Principles of Political Economy in 1848, his considerations of economic processes were intimately connected with the political. By the time Marx published Das Kapital as a critique of political economy in 1867 the term was entrenched in both academic life and in common parlance and political circles. The study of economics was an integral part of the study of the state. Ironically, however, political economy was about to be upstaged by the development of economics as a separate and positivist discipline. William Stanley Jevons had published his “Brief Account of a General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy” in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society in the previous year. This was much more widely read at the time than Das Kapital. By 1890, Alfred Marshall had published his Principles of Economics. The book began with these words: “Political economy or economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.” The great tradition of seeing economics as an integral part of politics and vice versa was disappearing. However, though economists were anxious to convert that part of political economy known as economics and see it as a scientific discipline, the reality, that is the integrated nature of the state and the economy, remained. Simply because certain ideologues decided to separate politics from economics did not mean that the state in any sense disentangled itself from the economy or the economy from the state.
Since the core issue of Chinese economics is to elucidate the logical relationship between socialism and the market economy, it necessitates a robust foundation for microeconomic…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the core issue of Chinese economics is to elucidate the logical relationship between socialism and the market economy, it necessitates a robust foundation for microeconomic analysis to uncover the behavioral patterns and characteristics of microeconomic agents in a socialist market economy and identify the conditions and methods for the functioning of market mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach
The core issue of microeconomics with Chinese characteristics is to identify the economic logic of how market mechanisms play a decisive role in resource allocation under the basic socialist economic system based on China's reform.
Findings
The core issue in building the foundation of microeconomic analysis of Chinese economics is addressing the compatibility issue between SOEs and a market economy.
Originality/value
In the author’s view, this can be achieved under the logic of classified reform so as to build the microeconomic foundation for the effective functioning of a socialist market economy.
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The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes (1936) gave us the macroeconomic theory for an economy of a sovereign nation state. Concerned students…
Abstract
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes (1936) gave us the macroeconomic theory for an economy of a sovereign nation state. Concerned students of macroeconomics may study earlier works. Did Karl Marx's Das Kapital and the Physiocrats' A Tableau Economique offer to teach us some aspects of macroeconomics? One may venture to suggest that Arthashatra by Kautilya, written in Sanskrit some two thousand years ago, was an ancient treatise on macroeconomics.
This introduction to the essays that follow argues that the chief problem with the dominant understanding of world affairs in the disciplines of International Relations and…
Abstract
This introduction to the essays that follow argues that the chief problem with the dominant understanding of world affairs in the disciplines of International Relations and International Political Economy, including their Marxist versions, is an a historical, non-contradictory and economically cosmopolitan conception of capitalism. In their place, geopolitical economy is a new approach which returns to the conception of capitalism embodied in the culmination of classical political economy, Marxism. It was historical in two senses, distinguishing capitalism as a historically specific mode of social production involving by value production and understanding that its contradictions drive forward capitalism’s own history in a central way. This approach must further develop and specify uneven and combined development as the dominant pattern in the unfolding of capitalist international relations, one that is constitutive of its component states themselves. Secondly, it must understand the logic of the actions undertaken by capitalist states as emerging from the struggles involved in the formation of capitalist states and from the contradictions that are set in train once capitalism is established. Finally, it must see in the ways that class and national struggles and resulting state actions have modified the functioning of capitalism the possibilities of replacing the disorder, contestation and war that are the spontaneous result of capitalism for international relations the basis for a cooperative order in relations between states, an order which can also be the means for realising the permanent revolution and solidifying its gains on the international or world plane.
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Literature on economic cooperation among sovereign nation state economies has been extensive. In the post-WWII decades, the two Bretton Woods institutions, the International…
Abstract
Literature on economic cooperation among sovereign nation state economies has been extensive. In the post-WWII decades, the two Bretton Woods institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) each with 184 Member States, have been instituted to sustain the global financial system for the noncommunist free-market economies. Under the umbrella of the United Nations, which currently has a membership of 192, the institutions, such as United Nations Conference on Trade, Aid and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Institute for Research and Training (UNITAR), World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Organization (WFO), have their respective economic assignments. The World Trade Organization (WTO), currently with 148 memberships, has been much involved in the negotiation of global trade agreements; an international regime of free and competitive trade has been a subject of substantive negotiations. The WTO came out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
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…
Abstract
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.
Yulia V. Ragulina, Leonid F. Malinovski, Yuliya A. Agunovich, Larisa A. Kapustyan and Oksana M. Zaryankina
The purpose of this chapter is to develop criteria of effectiveness of state management of the process of implementing the information economy’s optimization model, determine the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to develop criteria of effectiveness of state management of the process of implementing the information economy’s optimization model, determine the corresponding indicators, and offer the method of evaluation of the effectiveness of state management of the process of implementing the information economy’s optimization model.
Methodology
This research applies the methods of induction, deduction, structural and functional analysis, and graphical presentation of information.
Results
Based on the peculiarities of the information economy’s optimization model, three main criteria of the effectiveness of state management while implementing this model are distinguished: flexibility of the normative and legal provision of information economy; balance of the level and rate of development of the noosphere components; and success of the protection, usage, and preservation of information’s uniqueness. To distinguish these criteria it is offered to evaluate the effectiveness of state management of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model by progressive comparison of the sum of results with the sum of limitations and costs for each direction of state management of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model, related to the provision of observation of the above criteria. The author determines the indicators that conform to the offered criteria of effectiveness of state management of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model systematized in connection to these criteria, and offers the formula for calculating the final indicator of the effectiveness of state management of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model.
Recommendations
The offered criteria of effectiveness of state management of the process of implementing the information economy’s optimization model, the corresponding indicators, and the compiled methodology of evaluating the effectiveness of this process are recommended for usage as methodological provision of monitoring and control of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model.
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Tariq H. Malik and Chunhui Huo
This paper aims to assess the comparative position of the national innovation system of Chinese state entrepreneurship versus liberal market entrepreneurship. Based on the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the comparative position of the national innovation system of Chinese state entrepreneurship versus liberal market entrepreneurship. Based on the comparative institutional framework, it asks whether Chinese state entrepreneurship has a comparative disadvantage because of its incoherent institutions in liberal or coordinated economies. Hence, does the Chinese institutional system of innovation lag behind that of US or liberal countries of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) economies in the transformation of national science into economic products measured as high-technology exports?
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses panel data analysis based on 29 OECD economies and the Chinese economy over 23 years. Regarding national science productivity (explorative capabilities), it includes published and patented science streams; regarding technological transformation (exploitative capabilities), it measures the percentage of high-technology exports in gross domestic product (GDP). The interactions between the types of entrepreneurship and national science institutions serve as predictors in the design.
Findings
The results show that Chinese state entrepreneurship has a comparative advantage over liberal economies in published science. However, Chinese state entrepreneurship has a comparative disadvantage compared to liberal entrepreneurship in patent science. Regarding the dyadic level of comparability between the national economies, there are mixed results in the transformation of national science.
Research limitations/implications
This study supports the three following theoretical points: national institutions differ regardless of the pressure of convergence through globalization; national science contingencies influence different paths of the transformation of national science to technology; and mixed economies, such as state entrepreneurship, can achieve high performance without fully conforming to liberal markets.
Practical implications
This study emphasizes institutional mechanisms for future research to support the innovation of incoherent institutions and suggests the benefit of cross-pollination of senior managers between state and private organizations for a defined duration.
Originality/value
Theoretically, this research combines an interdisciplinary and interinstitutional level of analysis, and in so doing, it deals with the transformation of national science in scientific publications and patents in the vertical value chain. Empirically, this study links the national published and patented science with the national economic artifacts in high-technology sectors. This novel approach to assess the national and discipline-level interaction sets a context for the future research in other settings. It also informs policy decisions regarding the growth of science, innovation and development.
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