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The purpose of the chapter is to consider the methodology of studying socio-economic systems through the prism of the theory of cycles and to analyze applicability of this methodology to studying economic.

Based on the dynamic model of development of socio-economic system through the prism of the theory of cycles, the authors analyze dynamics of development of Russia’s socio-economic system through the prism of the theory of cycles in 2000–2022.

Drawbacks of the existing theory of cycles are determined. First, the models of economic cycles are too idealized and are alien to the current economic reality. These models do not correctly describe cyclic fluctuations of modern socio-economic systems – which is shown by the example of Russia. Second, application of the methodology of the theory of cycles in practice (by the example of Russia) leads to contradictory results. Each indicator of economic growth, including investments into economy, inflation, unemployment level, and balance of federal budget, has its own cyclic fluctuations, which could differ from fluctuations of GDP in constant prices. Third, the system of factors of cyclic fluctuations of socio-economic systems includes primarily economic (not social) factors. Due to this, the theory of cycles takes into account only objective reasons of crises of socio-economic systems.

It is determined that domination of subjective reasons in emergence of economic conflicts makes application of the theory of cycles not applicable to full-scale study of economic conflicts – application of this concept is expedient only as to economic crises that are one of a lot of manifestations of economic conflicts. It is probably that neglecting subjective (social) factors leads to the above contradictions of the theory of cycles and difference between its theoretical models and empirical data. Based on this conclusion, it is substantiated that methodology of studying socio-economic system through the prism of the theory of cycles is not applicable to economic conflicts; it is determined that development of the concept of economic conflicts can specify and improve the methodology of the theory of cycles.

In this chapter, we explore whether various true, endogenous social cycle theories share common patterns and characteristics.

We examine a number of prominent social theories describing cyclical patterns, and attempt to abstract an ideal type common to all of them, based on the idea of two populations disrupting each other and adjusting to the other’s disruptions.

At the core of such theories we typically find a variation of a two-population model. In these theories, cycles emerge when one of the populations seems to disrupt the other population’s plans, leading to recurring adjustments and disruptions that constitute the cycle.

Finding such commonalities in the world of theories can be useful for several reasons. For one thing, noticing that two theories share certain traits may help us understand each of them better. Furthermore, we show that agent-based modelers using modern object-oriented programming techniques can benefit from finding common patterns in theories.

Business cycle theory is normally described as having evolved out of a previous tradition of writers focusing exclusively on crises. In this account, the turning point is seen as residing in Clément Juglar's contribution on commercial crises and their periodicity. It is well known that the champion of this view is Schumpeter, who propagated it on several occasions. The same author, however, pointed to a number of other writers who, before and at the same time as Juglar, stressed one or another of the aspects for which Juglar is credited primacy, including the recognition of periodicity and the identification of endogenous elements enabling the recognition of crises as a self-generating phenomenon. There is indeed a vast literature, both primary and secondary, relating to the debates on crises and fluctuations around the middle of the nineteenth century, from which it is apparent that Juglar's book Des Crises Commerciales et de leur Retour Périodique en France, en Angleterre et aux États-Unis (originally published in 1862 and very much revised and enlarged in 1889) did not come out of the blue but was one of the products of an intellectual climate inducing the thinking of crises not as unrelated events but as part of a more complex phenomenon consisting of recurring crises related to the development of the commercial world – an interpretation corroborated by the almost regular occurrence of crises at about 10-year intervals.

Theories of the business cycle can be classified into two main groups, exogenous and endogenous, according to the way they explain economic fluctuations – either as responses of the economy to factors that are external (exogenous shocks) or as upturns and downturns of the economic system internally generated (by endogenous factors). In endogenous theories, investment is generally a key variable to explain the dynamic status of the economy. This essay examines the role of investment in endogenous theories. Two contrasting views on how changes in investment and profitability push the economy towards expansion or contraction are represented by the insights of Kalecki, Keynes, Matthews and Minsky versus those of Marx and Mitchell. Hyman Minsky claimed that investment ‘calls the tune’ to indicate that investment is the only variable not determined by other variables, so that future profits, investment and the dynamic status of the economy are determined by current investment and investment in the near past. However, this hypothesis does not appear to be supported by available empirical data for 251 quarters of the US economy. Statistical evidence rather supports the hypothesis of causality in the direction of profits determining investment and, in this way, leading the economy towards boom or bust.

Kalecki's theory of the business cycle is rightly renowned for various reasons: in particular, besides itself providing an original contribution, it set the framework for Kalecki's ideas on effective demand, for his anticipation of a number of Keynesian elements, and for the development of Kalecki's related themes such as income determination and distribution. Although the secondary literature (both technical and descriptive) on this subject is immense, a specific aspect seems to deserve further reflection.

This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the Great Depression exerted an enormous influence on economic thought, but the exact nature of its impact should be examined more carefully. In this chapter, I examine the transformation from a perspective which emphasizes the interaction between economic ideas and economic events, and the interaction between theory and policy rather than the development of economic theory. More specifically, I examine the evolution of what became known as macroeconomics after the Depression in terms of an ongoing debate among the “stabilizers” and their critics. I further suggest using four perspectives, or schools of thought, as measures to locate the evolution and transformation; the gold standard mentality, liquidationism, the Treasury view, and the real-bills doctrine. By highlighting these four economic ideas, I argue that what happened during the Great Depression was the retreat of the gold standard mentality, the complete demise of liquidationism and the Treasury view, and the strange survival of the real-bills doctrine. Each of those transformations happened not in response to internal debates in the discipline, but in response to government policies and real-world events.

The purpose of the work is to study the process of development of “conflict-free” socio-economic system from the positions of the theory of conflicts and the theory of systems.

The object of the research is development of systems according to the optimistic scenario from the positions of the theory of systems and development of “conflict-free” socio-economic system from the positions of the theory of conflicts. The methods include comparative analysis, dynamic modeling of systems, and formalization. The authors compare treatment of phenomena and processes that emerge during development of system from the positions of the theory of systems and the theory of conflicts and compare the model of development of “conflict-free” socio-economic system from the positions of the theory of conflicts and the theory of systems.

As a result of the research, due to founding on the theory of systems, the theory of economic conflicts receives meta-scientific conceptual and methodological substantiation, which ensures its advantages as compared to the existing theory of economic cycles and the existing theory of economic crises: complex consideration of economic and social effects of conflict, correct description of phases of conflict, and more precise classification of causes of conflicts.

Due to these advantages, the theory of economic conflicts may help to describe, model, and forecast the processes of development of modern socio-economic systems, as well as to classify them via differentiating “conflict” and “non-conflict” systems.

This chapter enquires into the contribution of two British writers, Herbert Somerton Foxwell and Henry Riverdale Grenfell, who elaborated upon the hints provided by Jevons towards a description of long waves in the oscillations of prices. Writing two decades after Jevons, they witnessed the era of high prices turning into the great depression of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the causes of which they saw in the end of bimetallism. Not only did they take up Jevons’s specific explanation of the long fluctuations, but they also based their discussion upon graphical representation of data and incorporated in their treatment a specific trait (the superposition principle) of the ‘waves’ metaphor emphasized by the Manchester statisticians in the 1850s and 1860s. Their contribution is also interesting for their understanding of crises versus depressions at the time of the emergence of the interpretation of oscillations as a cycle, which they have only partially grasped – as distinct from the approach of later long wave theorists.

F. A. Hayek’s macroeconomic theory and policy ideas have gained renewed attention since the cheap-money boom until 2007, and subsequent bust, followed the basic Hayekian narrative. Only to a very limited extent, however, do we find Hayek’s ideas on the agenda of mainstream macroeconomic researchers since Robert Lucas’s research program gave way to “Neoclassical” and “New Keynesian” DSGE models. We find examples of deeper interest on the periphery of the mainstream. Hayek’s influence on today’s macroeconomic policy discussions remains similarly limited, although he has become an icon to some opponents of loose monetary policy.

This introduction summarizes each of the papers in Studies in Austrian Macroeconomics. It begins with a brief overview of the core ideas and development of modern Austrian macroeconomics, focusing on its theory of the business cycle. The papers are then discussed by parts, starting with the papers on Austrian monetary and business cycle theory, followed by those addressing the relationship between the US and Canadian economic performance, and concluding with the three papers on the political economy of regulation and crisis.