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A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of culture, legal origin and religion on four measures of the ease of starting a new business; the number of procedures required, the number days required, the ease of getting credit and the cost to start a business.

The authors use linear regression to test the hypotheses using publicly available data on legal origin and religion from La Porta et al. (1999), cultural dimension information from Hofstede (2009) and measures of the ease of starting a business from the World Bank’s (2017) Doing Business Initiative. The final sample consists of 71 countries for which information was available on all the variables of interest.

Legal origin affects the number of procedures and the length of time needed to start a business, as well as the ease of getting credit. Culture (power distance) and religion are important for explaining gender differences in the ease of starting a business. The cost of starting a business is unrelated to culture, legal origin or religion.

Economic development is an important determinant of a country’s political stability and standard of living. Although politicians play a significant role in how a friendly a country is toward business, the study demonstrates that other longer-term and less dynamic factors have a material influence on economic development.

We proposed a model in which culture plays a dominant role, along with religion and legal origin, in determining the quality of governance in a country. We examined four dimensions of culture and four measurements of governance quality across 71 countries. Our empirical results demonstrated the dominant role played by culture, over and above religion and legal origin, in explaining governance quality. As culture is persistent and unlikely to be easily changed, efforts to improve governance quality might be doomed to failure in nations with cultural values that are hostile to good governance.

This paper aims to explore the changing nature of religion (also described in terms of faith or spirituality) as experienced in the USA, particularly regarding the interrelationship between business and religion within the contexts of culture, law and management. With a solid understanding of these subjects, business leaders, judges and public policy officials will be able to more effectively deal with issues arising from a more religious workplace.

This paper begins by examining the religious nature of the USA, with attention paid to the embrace of religious tolerance from a cultural perspective and religious liberty from a legal perspective. The piece then looks at the characteristics associated with religious vibrancy. Then, the paper delves into the impact of religion on business, both yesterday and today. Legal and managerial literature, studies and perspectives are used to determine how business can respond and perhaps even embrace a more religious business environment.

After describing and critiquing cultural, legal and managerial dimensions associated with an increasingly religious business environment at worker and owner levels, this paper suggests there exists currently an adequate legal structure to serve the needs of religious workers and owners, if properly managed. More research is needed to find solutions to situations where competing interests conflict, but this paper provides a foundation upon which further study can be conducted.

This paper draws from cultural, legal and management sources to provide an understanding of the current religious environment facing business, legal and public policy leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the conditions of the wajibah (obligatory) will under compilation of Islamic law (KHI) and the application and rationale of wajibah wills in religious justice. The wajibah will is a form of judicial wealth transition that can deliver an inheritance to an heir who is not otherwise eligible for it. It is implemented in some Islamic countries, including Indonesia, based on the KHI.

This is a descriptive qualitative study that uses documentation as a data-collection method. This study applies the content-analysis method to the data collected.

The results of study indicate that, under KHI, a wajibah will only be given to adopted children. Nevertheless, in the practice of religious justice, the wajibah will is also granted to heirs of faiths other than Islam and to illegitimate children. The rationale for the wajibah will involves historical factors and public considerations.

This paper provides information on the practice of the wajibah will in Indonesia in view of the plurality of the Indonesian people. Thus, the wajibah will is an appropriate instrument to attain justness in the well-being of the community. This paper also attempts to give a critical review of the practice based on five necessities.

This study explores whether religion plays an important role in corporate poverty alleviation. Religious atmosphere affects managers' attitude towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) and then influences corporate poverty alleviation. This study first examines the impact of religious atmosphere on corporate poverty alleviation and then investigates whether formal institutions, such as law enforcement environments and ownership, influence the relationship between religious atmosphere and corporate poverty alleviation behavior.

In 2016, the Chinese government initiated a nationwide campaign aiming to eliminate poverty in China by 2020. The authors conduct empirical tests with data on Chinese listed firms from 2016 to 2020. The religious atmosphere is measured by the number of Buddhist monasteries and Taoist temples within a certain radius around Chinese listed firms' registered addresses. The authors adopt the ordinary least squares (OLS) method for regression and take the two-stage least squares (2SLS) method to address the endogeneity issue.

The results show a positive relationship between religious atmosphere and corporate poverty alleviation donations. Law enforcement attenuates the positive association between the religious atmosphere and corporate poverty alleviation donations. Religion and corporate poverty alleviation donations have a more positive association for non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) than for state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The authors' findings have important implications. First, this study inspires incorporating the ethical value of traditional culture, such as religion, into CSR. Second, the findings imply that informal institutions have a greater impact on corporate decision-making when formal institutions are weak, suggesting that informal institutions should be emphasized when promoting CSR in countries where formal institutions are relatively weak. The study investigates only religious influence on corporate poverty alleviation based on Buddhism and Taoism, but the authors do not examine the impacts of other religions. Future research may examine the relationships between other religions and corporate poverty alleviation in China.

This study illustrates the positive role played by religion in promoting CSR by relating religious atmosphere to corporate poverty alleviation. It fills the research gap between religion and CSR and also contributes to the literature on determinants of corporate poverty alleviation.

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.

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.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the feasibility of investing the religious heritage in anti-corruption efforts in public organizations in Palestine. The study sought to measure the current status of public organizations, if they are investing the religious heritage in the efforts of encountering corruption. Further, the study sought to measure the attitudes and future expectations if there is an integration of the religious heritage in the current anti-corruption efforts.

This study combines two folds: First, theoretical and qualitative, through research in previous studies, texts and religious attitude of corruption, historical models and international experiences that have tried to invest in it and incorporate it in anti-corruption efforts, which are generalizable generic models; and the second: a field empirical part, through the researcher use of a questionnaire tool and analyzing it statistically, in addition to ensuring the possibility of using religion in anti-corruption efforts within the Palestinian public institutions which will eventually enable us to answer the study questions.

The study found that the reality of investment in the religious heritage in anti-corruption efforts in the Palestinian public sector is present in a moderate degree (56.8%), both in rules and regulations, in strategic plans or policies, or in the internal systems and the organizational culture of the public institutions. With regard to the attitudes of the employees toward corruption and the way of their formulation to these attitudes either if they are influenced by the religious heritage or the law or by the eight reasons mentioned previously in this study, it is obvious that the employees attitudes toward corruption are formulated first from a religious perspectives and second from a legal perspective. Regarding their attitudes and their agreement level toward the investment of the religious heritage in anti-corruption in the Palestinian public sector was high (75.9%), as well as their future expectations in case the religious heritage is invested in anti-corruption efforts was in a high degree (74.1%). Therefore, the authors conclude that there is a feasibility of religious heritage investment in anti-corruption efforts in the Palestinian public sector in case it is accredited and integrated in anti-corruption strategies as a supportive factor but not as a substitute of other efforts. The study recommended that decision makers should adopt new anti-corruption policies and strategies compatible with these striking results through the rules, regulations and administrative decisions, or in the internal institutional system and the cultural organization, in the publications and declarations of the public institution, in special code of conduct based on the religious heritage, in the training of the employees and designing new proposals to integrate the religious heritage in anti-corruption efforts in parallel with the permanent evaluation of these efforts after its application.

This study, The feasibility of investing in religious heritage in anti-corruption efforts, is different from the previously reviewed studies, as the previous studies were either philosophical or theoretical in nature, looking at the relationship between religion and corruption or empirical, but in a different environment and society than the society of this study. The general purpose of this research is to identify the impact of religious perceptions on corruption in the behavior of public officials in the Palestinian public sector as it is on the ground, and whether their attitudes were affected by corruption with their religious beliefs? Do they welcome the investment of religion in the fight against corruption and what are their expectations if this is done in institutional, strategic or policy context.

This study aims to perform a systematic review of the dialectics and telematics strategy for regulating religion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also analyzes some important issues related to religions, state, and society.

A critical literature review was performed to complete this study, using media, institutional, national, and international reports, as well as recent and previous studies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Religion was one of the social entities that had a crucial effect on the COVID-19 pandemic. The new system in the form of social distancing affects its performance. Furthermore, the response of religion in Indonesia is unique when its status is considered as the largest Islamic country in the world. Therefore, this study attempts to analyze and demonstrate the dynamics of relationships between actors, religion, and state in the process and strategy of religious regulation.

This study was carried out using a single methodological approach.

This study provides input to both religion and the state (government) in building a synergy of constructive responses to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It provides input to society in understanding the critical intersection between religion, state, and society.

This may be the first academic study that analyzes the problems of the process of regulating religion in the context of COVID-19.