Search results

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.

After a clarification of definitions important in methodological discussions, a brief history of early methodological thought in economics and political economy is presented. The development of “orthodox” methodology is traced, and the fundamental assumptions underlying neoclassical economic methodology are enumerated. Philosophical positions – both critical of and sympathetic to the orthodox assumptions – are presented. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of various heterodox positions are surveyed. Throughout the paper, methodological justifications for the emphasis on primarily deductive, complex mathematical models in contemporary economics as practiced in the USA – especially in light of the relevance and importance of primarily verbal, interpretive methodologies in the realm of applied and policy‐oriented economics – are examined.

A methodological study of religion including moral, ethical, and social values and economics takes us into the search, discovery, and establishment of a formal epistemological premise. Social economics is now studied as a methodological investigation of evolutionary and embedded systems integrating the moral, social, and economic systems. Thus an integrated theory of religion representing the realm of moral and social values and economics is formalized. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The author writes on the conjoint methodological perspective of the integrated domain of religion and economics. A formal ontology of the unified field of religion and economics is established in such an inter-causal and organically unified realm of moral, social, and economic values. A phenomenological model of the unified worldview that applies to a systemic concept of “everything” emerges. This methodology and the immanent phenomenological model relating to it convey the principle of inter-systemic organic symbiosis by a unique and universal worldview.

The systemic integration between religion and economics is formally studied within the immanent system methodology that formalizes inter-disciplinary symbiosis. The result is a new formal model of integration between religion and social economics.

Empirical work can further expand the scope of the paper.

Immense social, ethical, and cross-cultural implications emanate from the study.

The morality and ethical implications of religious values are imputed in the formal model and implications of the social economy.

The paper is of an original nature in establishing the episteme and formalism of integration between ethical and moral values of religion into the structure of the social economy. From this both a theoretical rigor as well as logical formalism can be drawn.

Explicates and analyses selected economic methodologies: praxeology, positivism and institutionalism. Praxeology is a rationalistic methodology which utilizes deductive logic to deduce conclusions concerning economic behavior from postulates, which are self‐evident truths, but praxeologists deny that empirical verification is either necessary or desirable. Positivism is a methodology which combines deductive rationalism as a method of deriving substantive hypotheses and inductive empiricism as a method of verifying these hypotheses. Institutionalism is a pragmatic methodology which is based on an empirical epistemology and which utilizes inductive logic to formulate economic policy and to solve practical problems. Concludes that institutionalism is more empirically relevant than either praxeology or positivism, and that, therefore, institutionalism is superior to the other methodologies.

This paper is concerned with the quantitative/qualitative divide as a particular feature of recent methodological debate in organization research. While substantively this divide is questionable and problematic, it has figured prominently in the so‐called “paradigm wars”. The purpose of this paper is to relate these controversies to a similar debate in economics and draw out the implications of this comparison for the methodological practice of organization research.

The paper takes the form of a conceptual critique.

The paradigms debate can be interpreted as a twentieth‐century instance of the methodenstreit in nineteenth‐century social science, and is argued to resolve along the faultlines of mainline organizational analysis and its periphery. Further methodological progress in the field requires the abandoning of paradigmatic duality in recognition of methodological plurality as a defining feature of organization research.

Management methodology and economic methodology have largely developed as separate literatures alongside each other, with little cross‐fertilisation. This paper links key issues in management methodology to longstanding debates in economic methodology, thereby making progress towards a shared debate on issues of equal significance to both fields of inquiry.

This chapter provides a presentation about Chapter 1 of The Balance of the National Economy, 1923–24, edited by Pavel Illich Popov. The Balance was issued in June 1926 by the Central Statistical Administration (CSU or TsSU) of the USSR, which Popov had headed from July 1918 to January 1926. In the first part of our chapter, we show how Popov’s work on the balance of the national economy was rooted in the specific scientific and political culture of zemstvo statisticians inherited from the Tsar. Statistical inquiry was considered an objective scientific process based on international standards. Furthermore, like zemstvo statisticians, CSU statisticians developed great autonomous political power. The balance of the national economy was built according to these principles, which met harsh criticism from revolutionaries and Bolsheviks. In the second part, we analyze the contents of Popov’s Chapter 1, especially the theoretical foundations of the balance and its connection with Soviet planning. In the third part, we discuss the balance’s significance in the years 1926–1929, years which ended the NEP and launched the first Five-Year Plan, so as to understand how CSU’s balance didn’t become a standard Soviet statistical instrument and was discarded as a “bourgeois” device.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on the impact that the creation of value theory has on professional, organizational, and economic performance. However, a special emphasis is on explicating the theoretical foundation of the concept.

This paper is based on a hermeneutic study of the relationship between value creation and managing economic resources. The paper traces the value creation concept to its roots from the foundation of Western Civilization through the value theory of Adam Smith and up to recent technological age advancements in value theory.

Since its emergence the value concept has been explicated in an abundance of literature. However, there has been very little in regards to explanations detailing the theoretical underpinnings of the concept. According to John Stuart Mill, attempts to apply value theory will fail (due to misinformation or inaccurate information) without inclusiveness of the full scope of what is relevant for social science and social economic research.

Although studies on organizational behavior encompass the economic aspects of research economic research tends to be narrower in scope making it difficult to verify some value claims in economic terms. This is especially true in terms of making claims in regards to the connection between economic value theory, social value theory, the Philosophy of Economics, and the Philosophy of Science.

The study introduces a theoretical framework for integrating the value added and value creation concepts as a strategy for increasing shareholder benefits, stakeholder capital, and social capital.

The paper explains how the value creation concept contributes to an increase in wealth, prosperity, flourishing by drawing from a technological age approach to value creation.

The paper fills the void in the literature regarding the theoretical framework of the concept thus undergirds claims about its practical benefits by clarifying its theoretical framework.

When Beyond Positivism was published 35 years ago, it presented a compelling case for methodological change in the economics profession. That case remains equally compelling in the present day as, tragically, economics remains largely without the methodological pluralism at the heart of Beyond Positivism’s message. Among the costs of an environment of methodological myopia are widespread misinterpretations and the diversion of scholars from efforts at economic understanding to methodological wrangling, which we illustrate using the experience of Austrian economics in the 20th century. Beyond Positivism, we suggest, continues to provide the intellectual case for a pluralist discipline of economics, but one that requires complementary institutional reforms to come to fruition.

This paper presents a theory of the determinants of the methodology of economics. Following the useful distinction made by Papendreou (1958), theory is defined as comprising both a model and a probability statement as to the empirical validity of the model. Accordingly, first a model of the determinants of methodology of economics is presented and, then as an illustration, the model is applied to explain the major issues which have been debated in the recent literature on methodology. The paper concludes with a brief and simplified analysis of the evolution of methodology and some testable hypotheses are presented about the future course of the methodology of economics.

During the last decade or so, philosophers of science have shown increasing interest in scientific models and modeling. The primary impetus seems to have come from the philosophy of biology, but increasingly the philosophy of economics has been drawn into the discussion. This paper will focus on the particular subset of this literature that emphasizes the difference between a scientific model being explanatory and one that provides explanations of specific events. The main differences are in the structure of the models and the characteristics of the explanatory target. Traditionally, scientific explanations have been framed in terms of explaining particular events, but many scientific models have targets that are hypothetical patterns: “patterns of macroscopic behavior across systems that are heterogeneous at smaller scales” (Batterman & Rice, 2014, p. 349). The models with this characteristic are often highly idealized, and have complex and heterogeneous targets; such models are “central to a kind of modeling that is widely used in biology and economics” (Rohwer & Rice, 2013, p. 335). This paper has three main goals: (i) to discuss the literature on such models in the philosophy of biology, (ii) to show that certain economic phenomena possess the same degree of heterogeneity and complexity often encountered in biology (and thus, that hypothetical pattern explanations may be appropriate in certain areas of economics), and (iii) to demonstrate that Hayek’s arguments about “pattern predictions” and “explanations of the principle” are essentially arguments for the importance of this type of modeling in economics.