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1

The ‘Institutions-Individual’ Conceptual Nexus as a Basis of Alternative Economic Methodologies

100%

Stefanović Z., Petrović D.

Economic Themes

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2016

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vol. 54

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issue 1

1-20

EN

This paper discusses issues of methodological basis of contemporary economic theory, from the perspective of rival research orientations and their conceptual sensitization to the role and impacts of institutional structures. In this regard, the paper presents methodological individualism, research support of economic orthodoxy, based on a consistent interpretation of all social phenomena as outcomes of individual choice. It is shown that even in its most rigid versions this approach has to take to a certain degree into account the social interactions that go beyond the individualist framework. The opposing research orientation, methodological holism, gives explanatory primacy to (different) social collective entities and structures, characteristics of which are autonomous in nature and essential for the explanation of the individual as an entity of a lower order, whose individual properties are not significant. Both approaches are subjected to reductionist tendencies - whether explanations of the socioeconomic reality are individual or culturally over-determined. Integrating institutions in consideration of socioeconomic reality has repercussions on the mentioned methodological dichotomy, given that in conceptual terms it has the potential to bridge the extremely individualistic or collectivist methodological positions. Awareness of the impact of institutions on the socioeconomic reality has produced distinctive methodological orientations. Institutional individualism considers institutions as exogenous mechanism whose explanation is at the service of shedding light on the behaviour of the individuals as the main actors of social dynamics, and in that sense this approach can be considered as a milder variant of methodological individualism. The institutionalist extension of methodological holism, methodological institutionalism, understands individual acting as a product of an integrated institutional framework, whose dynamics takes place independently of the individuals, according to its own regularities. Some kind of balance between the aforementioned orientations is offered by methodological systemism, which affirms the dual nature of the actors of social dynamics - as both product of units of a lower order, but also as entities with autonomous, emergent properties. The contextualisation of relations between institutions and individuals in accordance with a system perspective may be a suitable way, with more tuned reality, theoretical valuation and overcoming differences between opponent methodological traditions.

2

Gospodarcza niepewność według Johna R. Commonsa

87%

Woźniak-Jęchorek B.

Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny

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2014

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vol. 76

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issue 3

175-192

EN

The article presents the concept of economic insecurity developed by John R. Commons, which is one of the determinants of activity in the market. Its intellectual background was based on the original (traditional or historical) institutional economics. This school of economics aspires to create an alternative to mainstream economics defined in terms of the neoclassical tradition. Economic insecurity or its opposite, economic security, can be explained by stressing the strategic role played by the present expectations of the stability of collective action guaranteeing everybody a share of the social output. Economic insecurity is also, to a large extent, a problem of confidence in the future. In the capitalist system, especially in times of economic crises, the action of the economic agents is dominated by economic insecurity. The economic analysis should therefore not ignore the broad aspects of motives of the economic action. According to institutional economics these motives go far beyond the rationality postulate, where the economic action is understood as a utilitarian behaviour of utility maximisation (or profit maximisation) under a budget constraint (or cost constraint). The study of economic insecurity involves various concepts, such as those of social relation, transaction, negotiational psychology, rights and duties, opportunities and the concept of futurity. The paper presents the evolution of insecurity and risk concept, the theories of public choice and especially groups of interest and, finally, describes the concept of economic insecurity as an institutionalised process by John R. Commons.

PL

Celem artykułu jest przybliżenie koncepcji gospodarczej niepewności Johna R. Commonsa, będącej jedną z determinant działania podmiotów ekonomicznych na rynku. Tłem teoretycznym prezentowanego opracowania są poglądy starej ekonomii instytucjonalnej aspirującej do stworzenia alternatywy wobec ekonomii głównego nurtu definiowanej w kategoriach tradycji neoklasycznej. Gospodarcza niepewność czy przeciwnie ‒ gospodarcza pewność mogą być określane jako te elementy, które pełnią w życiu gospodarczym strategiczną rolę, odpowiadają bowiem za teraźniejsze oczekiwania co do przyszłości. Dla każdego podmiotu gospodarczego ważna jest bowiem stabilność zbiorowych działań zarówno społeczeństwa jako całości, jak i państwa jako organu tworzącego oraz kontrolującego przestrzeganie zasad. Działania te mają bowiem zagwarantować każdej jednostce gospodarczej udział w produkcji dóbr i usług. Według Commonsa w systemie kapitalistycznym, zwłaszcza w czasach kryzysów gospodarczych, dominuje jednak poczucie braku bezpieczeństwa na rynku, czyli właśnie gospodarcza niepewność. Badania ekonomiczne nie powinny zatem pomijać tego aspektu funkcjonowania rynku. Wyjaśnienie koncepcji gospodarczej niepewności według J.R. Commonsa wiąże się przy tym z kwestią społecznych relacji, pojęciem transakcji, rozwojem psychologii negocjacji, czy też potrzebą określenia praw i obowiązków podmiotów gospodarczych oraz związków dzisiejszego działania z efektami uzyskiwanymi w przyszłości. Dlatego też w artykule przedstawiono założenia koncepcji grup interesu wpisującej się w teorie wyboru publicznego, rozróżniono pojęcie niepewności i ryzyka, opisano problem gospodarczej niepewności jako pewien zinstytucjonalizowany proces, a na koniec porównano koncepcję Johna R. Commonsa z teorią grup interesu Mancura Olsona.

3

Government Spending and Inclusive-Growth Relationship in Nigeria: An Empirical Investigation

84%

Kolawole B. O.

Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business

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2016

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vol. 19

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issue 2

33-56

EN

This study has investigated the relationship between government spending and inclusive growth in Nigeria over the period 1995 to 2014. Specifically, it examined how, and to what extent, government spending on education, government spending on health, economic freedom, public resource use, and real GDP growth rate have impacted on inclusive growth in the country. It used the Dickey-Fuller GLS unit root test to ascertain the order of integration of the series. Consequently, through the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing technique, the study found that in the long-run government spending on health, economic freedom, public resource use and real GDP growth rate had significantly positive influence on inclusive growth. In the short-run, however, only real GDP impacted significantly on inclusive growth while other variables were not significant in causing inclusive growth. Thus, in conclusion, government spending in the form of redistributive spending on health propelled inclusive growth in Nigeria.

4

Creating New Knowledge Assisted by Computational Devices

67%

Andrášik L.

Creative and Knowledge Society

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2014

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vol. 4

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issue 1

EN

In contemporary global knowledge based society there are scorching needs for new knowledge and unprecedented vision of future development. Author is focuses attention to new possibilities of fostering creative abilities and gaining new socio-economic knowledge by the assistance of ICT, Internet and mainly by using products and services of computational intelligence. His method used is prevailingly new knowledge creation by experimentation in virtual laboratories. In using conventional methods, he combines inductive and deductive methods as set up for developing mental models from up to down and bottom to up. Because in socio-economic branches it is very difficult and even almost wholly impossible to do experiments in objective reality the experimentation by the assistance of computational intelligence is promising advance in gaining new socioeconomic knowledge in contemporary complex world. Using such new approaches, methods and tools is the main scientific aim of the author. He uses convictive demonstration of successful using these unprecedented possibilities in gaining deeper knowledge about complex evolutionary phenomena. The distinction of such knowledge is against conventional one is consisting in very deep understanding of complex socio-economic dynamics. Using meant knowledge acquisition approaches is promising in quality and in abiding knowledge and skill of single individuals but the extraordinary progress of creative knowledge based society fostered by using them in advanced webs is useful for whole society.

5

The Changing Face of Economics? Ethical Issues in Contemporary Economic Schools as a Consequence of Changes in the Concept of Human Nature

67%

Horodecka A., Warsaw School of Economics, ahorod@sgh.waw.pl

Annales. Etyka w Życiu Gospodarczym

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2015

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vol. 18

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issue 4

EN

The last financial crisis combined with some recent social trends (like growing inequality or environmental problems) inspired many contemporary economists to the re-evaluation of actual economic knowledge in the search for solutions to these problems. Modern economic schools (especially heterodox ones) stress the meaning of ethical issues in economics more often. The thesis of the paper is that this revival of the ethical face of present economics depends very strongly on the changing assumptions of human nature within economics and other disciplines which work alongside economics, such as social psychology or business ethics, for instance. In order to prove the thesis, the paper provides an evaluation of current economic schools, especially within the heterodoxy, in search of their ethical aspects, and presents them as a result of the changing assumptions about human beings within those schools. This ethical dimension of human beings manifests itself in different ways, which can be perceived as a result of it being based on different ethical schools and different psychological and philosophical assumptions about human nature. Therefore, the paper also considers the current developments of the view on human beings in contemporary schools of economic ethics.

6

Paradygmaty i trajektorie technologiczne – studium przypadku broni pancernej

59%

Szost M., marcin.szost@animex.pl

Gospodarka w Praktyce i Teorii

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2015

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vol. 4(41)

EN

This article presents and verifies an idea of technological paradigm and technological trajectory. According to this theory technological progress is not a random process, but its regular and stable course is set by a technological trajectory. This regularity results from the application of similar methods to solve technological problems. The set of these methods is established by existing technological paradigm. The study of the process of changes in tanks technical characteristics confirms the existence of such regularity. Turning points and consecutive phases of progress related to changes in technological paradigm are identified. History of these changes also fits to a classical product life cycle.

PL

W artykule omówiona i zweryfikowana zostaje teoria paradygmatu oraz trajektorii technologicznej, według której rozwój technologii nie jest zjawiskiem losowym, ale charakteryzuje się regularnymi stabilnym przebiegiem wyznaczającym trajektorię technologiczną. Owa regularność wynika ze stosowania podobnych metod rozwiązywania zagadnień technicznych, wyznaczonych przez obowiązujący paradygmat. Przeprowadzona na przykładzie czołgów analiza procesu zmian charakterystyk technicznych potwierdza istnienie takiej regularności. Wskazane zostały punkty zwrotne, rozgraniczające kolejne fazy rozwoju tej technologii, związane ze zmianami paradygmatu technologicznego i odpowiadające klasycznym fazom cyklu życia produktu.

Refine search results

1 Annales. Etyka w Życiu Gospodarczym

1 Creative and Knowledge Society

1 Economic Themes

1 Gospodarka w Praktyce i Teorii

1 Ruch Prawniczy, Ekonomiczny i Socjologiczny

1 Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business

1 Andrášik L.

1 Horodecka A.

1 Kolawole B. O.

1 Petrović D.

1 Stefanović Z.

1 Szost M.

1 Warsaw School of Economics

1 Woźniak-Jęchorek B.

1 ahorod@sgh.waw.pl

1 marcin.szost@animex.pl

2 2016