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Business and Economics
The recent global financial crisis has resulted in a new creative set of economic policies. The justifi- cation for the unconventional policy response was based on the implicit assumption that the departure from the norms of macroeconomic policies would be temporary. This detour has lasted longer than expected. Now that the process of normalization has started in the United States and is likely to be followed (albeit in some delay) in Europe, it would be important for policy makers to emphasize that the unconventional set of economic policies were just a detour from the longstanding convention rather than representing a new paradigm. The experience of the crisis and the post-crises years should be recorded in history as refl ecting a period during which new and important policy chapters were drafted. These chapters should be added to the corpus of knowledge of macroeconomic theory and policy. The new chapters contain important lessons that should definitely not be forgotten once the crisis is over. They should be added to, but not replace, the old textbooks.
The contemporary economic system developed by China in the last two decades, supremely successful in achieving economic growth, defies traditional classification. It has been variously defined as socialist (by Chinese leaders), capitalist (Kornai), state socialist (Coase and Wang), political capitalism (Milanovic), a unique system with features of both socialism and capitalism not conforming to either system (Kolodko). This essay seeks to support, substantiate and develop Kolodko’s notion of the uniquess of China, while expressing greater pessimism than Kolodko about the economic, social and political sustainability of that system, its merits as a beneficial engine of globalisation and growth, and its exportability to other countries in the developed West.
Since Deng Xiaoping and reformers Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang launched radical market reforms in China, the country became a capitalist economic system with a communist political regime, a regime never observed before in history. We discuss the nature of that regime, how stable it is likely to be over time and what the challenges are for democracies of international coexistence with this new regime in the twenty first century.
The Eurozone is at a crossroads. Its neoliberal and ordoliberal construction proved to be unworkable and, after the crisis, made the macroeconomic adjustment slow and costly – causing financial and real divergence among the member countries. Kolodko’s writings offer interesting insights. This article considers Kolodko’s study of Poland and Greece and adds two other paradigmatic cases, those of Germany and Italy. Kolodko’s case studies and criticism of neoliberalism lead him to propose a New Pragmatism in policy making. This proposal offers important insights, but neglects two fundamental problems: moral hazard and institutional differences. These have to be included in the New Pragmatism to give this the strength and ability to contribute to solve the Eurozone problems.
Economists think they know a great deal about economic growth, both about why countries differ so much in their growth experience, and what needs to be done to get a country on track for faster growth, raising living standards. However, while there are many important theories about growth, and numerous country case studies of outstanding and sustained performance, there are also still too many countries that grow slowly if at all, where economic performance has somehow become ‘stuck’ at a low level. In the development context, a major policy concern is often to create enough jobs in a given period to employ all or most of those entering the labour force, preferably productively. Thus growth is not just about expanding aggregate output (GDP) but also about large-scale job creation. In the transition economy context, there was not only the complex matter of switching to a market-type economy in quite a short time, but generating growth and employment to catch up with more prosperous neighbours to the West. This has proved harder than many expected.
Kolodko himself has written much about many aspects of economic growth, and has also contributed in important ways to concrete policy formation in Poland (especially when he served as Minister of Finance). In this paper I shall explore the ideas and challenges indicated above, drawing on Kolodko’s work as appropriate, but also developing some new ideas that seem to be needed to understand better both growth successes and growth failures around the world.
China has persevered its market-oriented economic transition since 1978. In this paper, we use the provincial-level NERI Index of Marketization from 1997 to 2014 and a panel data model to investigate the quantitative contribution of market-oriented reforms to China’s total factor productivity (TFP) and economic growth. Our results indicate that marketization reforms contributed 1.3 percentage points to China’s annual economic growth rate and accounted for 35 percent of the increase in TFP. This means that the institutional reforms significantly improved resource allocation. However, economic transition in China has not yet been completed and sustainability of future growth will depend on further market-oriented reforms.
That fiscal policy may have limits has been known and has been discussed since 1936, when Keynes published The General Theory in the middle of the Great depression. The criticism of countercyclical fiscal policy should have changed over the years, because of economic, social and structural changes that have taken place in the economies of the countries. This paper focuses on changes in the socio-economic ecology of countries and argues that those changes are likely to have reduced the effectiveness of traditional countercyclical fiscal policy.
The purpose of the paper is to analyse the weaknesses, both epistemological and applicative, of the contemporary orthodox economics and, based thereon, to indicate the necessary changes it needs to undergo. Two groups of weaknesses are distinguished here – the intrinsic ones and the acquired ones. The former ones result from diversity and variability of its object of study and from the teleological nature of the economy. The latter ones, related to the methodological principles of economics stem from errors or omissions committed by the founders of economics in the historical development. The author identifies and analyses three such weaknesses – superficiality of cognition, overformalisation and the delusion of universalisation.
The analysis shows that globalisation processes and other varied civilisational transformations we have been experiencing over the last 15–20 years have brought into light and highlighted the weaknesses of economics. The author comes to the conclusion that consequently the economics for the 21st century, to meet the challenges of the new times, should undergo three basic shifts: a/ from positive, descriptive science to including also the evaluative and axiological one; b/ from homogeneous, universal science to a considerably contextual one and c/from pure, formalised science to a deeply interdisciplinary one.
For this essay, to honor Professor Kolodko, I take up the case of an older pragmatist whose circumstances and achievements I knew well – that of my father, John Kenneth Galbraith. While I cannot do full justice in this space to the life and work of 97 years, what I hope to show is how the application of my father’s background and experience in a world of mundane knowledge and urgent problems led to his development of a compelling critique of classical and neoclassical economics, and to his presentation of a world-view that stood, for a time, as the leading vision of industrial capitalism in the modern age. That this vision was swept aside, and largely dismissed or ignored, by the professional academic economists is, under the circumstances, merely a continuing testimony to its merit, and to the threat it poses to a comfortable, but wholly impractical, world-view.
This paper argues that there are conditions for successful euro area (EA) accession, apart from fiscal rectitude. One is an ex ante critical mass of real convergence which should enhance lasting nominal convergence. Another condition is an overhaul of EA mechanisms and policies that should make it a properly functioning monetary union, which implies an adequate mix between risk-reduction and risk-sharing. It is argued that risk-sharing cannot be secured by private sector arrangements only. Entering the ERM2 is deemed to be no less demanding than euro area accession per se, especially for countries that use fl exible exchange rate regimes. The paper examines also the infl uence of production (value) chains on the efficacy of autonomous monetary and exchange rate policies when it comes to controlling external imbalances; macro-prudential policies, too, are highlighted in this regard. Steady productivity gains are a must for surmounting the middle income trap and achieving sustainable real convergence.
In this paper, we pursue two related research questions. First, we enquire whether state owned enterprises (SOEs) perform better than privately owned firms in a large variety of emerging markets. To test this, we develop a unique dataset using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES), resulting in a sample of over 50,000 firms from 57 understudied countries including emerging capitalist, former socialist and state capitalist ones. Our results suggest that SOEs do display productivity advantages over private firms in these understudied economies. Our second research question asks whether the performance of state owned firms in these understudied countries is context specific, namely whether performance depends on the institutional system into which a country is classified. We refer to these systems as configurations. In particular, we are interested in whether state owned firms perform better in “state capitalist” countries including China and Vietnam. We find empirical support for the argument that the “state-led” configuration provides better institutional support for the ownership advantages of SOEs than others.
The article reveals the logical and historical grounds of Grzegorz W. Kolodko’s approach to the interpretation of the phenomenon of China building socialism with Chinese characteristics and developing capitalist relations. Reality goes beyond the dilemma of “socialism or capitalism” and represents something third, having an independent meaning. It is shown that the starting point for the emergence of society and man is a jointly-divided labour whose two sides (jointness and separation) while historically evolving, are embodied on the side of separation in the market economy and capitalism, and on the side of jointness in the state and socialism. On this basis, there arises a confrontation between two opposing systems: capitalism and socialism. The subsequent historical progress turns capitalisation and socialisation into two complementary processes of the development of society, which are no longer adequate to describe in terms of the two systems. A certain third entity emerges. This proves that “Tertium Datur” by Grzegorz W. Kolodko has not only practical importance, but also deep logical and historical grounds.
Economics at its core is about human life in human economies. The difficulty is that economies have continued to evolve and economics has lagged behind. Modern life invaded societies in the 19th century: first in Britain and America, later in Germany and France. Increasing numbers were driven not just by a work ethic or a desire to accumulate: They were dreamers, tinkerers, and adventurers on a journey, exercising their imagination, creativity, and curiosity. This indigenous innovation, coming from the grassroots up, was the foundation of modern life which brought people satisfactions that went beyond material rewards. It is time economics has caught up to restore the dynamism and vitality necessary for people to enjoy not only a Good Life but also a Good Economy.
Over the centuries, Buddhist monks applied economic models in the operations of their monasteries to make them sustainable while also observing Buddhist principles. The large variety of economic practices observed demonstrate the creativity of monastics in acquiring the resources to support their large monasteries in a way that was viewed as compatible with Buddhist ethics embodied in the Noble Eightfold Path. Researchers have analyzed the integration of faith-based and financially related monastic needs for different countries in different eras. The Buddhist economics approach as it has been developed in the last 40-50 years aims to create an alternative worldview that challenges the main underlying assumptions of Western economics. The mainstream Western economics model is originally based on the following assumptions: rational, selfish behavior; profit-maximization; competitive markets; and instrumental use of the environment. Buddhist economics is based on a different set of assumptions: dependent origination (“pratityasamutpada”), where people are interdependent with each other and with Earth; people are aware of enlightened self-interest based on interdependence and thus are altruistic; firms care about the well-being of workers, customers, shareholders, and community; and all activities include caring for the environment. With these assumptions, the Buddhist economic model has shared prosperity in a sustainable world with minimal suffering as its goal.
The prevailing view of capacity building is summed up in the adage: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” In other words, simple compassion is counterproductive; utilitarian measures of effectiveness are the best standard for evaluating a social innovation. This paper will explore the alternative possibility that practicing simple compassion as the highest virtue, as did the Buddha, can be so productive that the aphorism should be: “Give a woman a fish, and she may help you build a fish farm.” This argument is illustrated by an exploratory case study of a Thai firm, Siam Hands. The company exemplifies a Buddhist economics approach to social innovation and capacity building, as opposed to mainstream Western utilitarianism.
According to Cas Mudde, we live in a “populist Zeitgeist”. The paper argues that not just the 21st, but also the 20th century is about populism. In the first section I elaborate the theoretical background of populism, which is claimed to be a never-ending phenomenon: here, various notions of populism are analysed; I investigate the relationship between democracy and populism; and I refer to the biopolitical framework of populism (called biopopulism) as well. This theoretical framework will be used to analyse Communist populism in Hungary. I elaborate the populism of the Horthyera (1920-1944) in the context of Communist populism. Then I analyse the case of Communist populism in Hungary (1948-1989) according to the following aspects: in the context of the working class and the bourgeois elite; the biopolitical character of the regime; goulash Communism as populist legitimacy; and the viewpoint of socialist patriotism. The main aspect of Communist populism is summarized at the end of the third section, and I briefly refer to the afterlife of Communist populism as a nostalgic phenomenon. The regimes analysed in this study aimed to govern the entire life of the citizens, which is why biopopulism is a useful analytical concept. The biopopulist framework shows that the investigation of the historical backgrounds of populism is necessary to understand contemporary populist tendencies.
The aim of this review paper is to illustrate the areas of interest and the thinking of Hungarian hospital managers by providing a summary of the relevant Hungarian health care controlling literature and to give an introduction of potential research directions. The paper summarizes the “public discourse” and thinking on controlling, and simultaneously highlights the priorities of health care as well. The main range of interest are the financing problems and their solutions, as well as other kind of uncertainty arising from the continuous changes in roles and measures. In the early ninties some health care institutions started to apply controlling systems as a result of the introduction of performance-based financing and often published articles about it up to 2004. In 2015, a project created to enhance the operational efficiency of the health care system restarted controlling thinking: unified management measures required for hospitals may induce the development of the controlling data service, more accurate reporting, management attention, and experience sharing.
To join the Eurozone (EZ), a candidate country has to fulfil five nominal Maastricht convergence criteria and ensure compliance of national legislation with the acquis communautaire. With this regard special difficulties pose the fiscal criterion relating to the maximum allowed budget deficit of 3 per cent of GDP. If it is not met, the European Commission launches the Excessive Deficit Procedure. Currently, such formula applies to France, Spain and the United Kingdom. Although the issue is not absolutely certain, one can assume that euro will weather the present difficulties and will come out stronger, though the economically unjustified Euro scepticism of some countries is not helping. It may be expected that in the 2020s the European Monetary Union will be joined by all countries that are still using their national currencies and that the EU will be extended to include new member states, enlarging the euro area further. In this article authors are discussing the issue whether Poland will join the EZ in the coming years, considering the challenges of meeting all Maastricht criteria, on the one hand, and the reluctance of the government to give up the national currency, on the other. A mixed method combining the results of qualitative and quantitative research has been used to empirically verify the research question presented.
The paper concentrates on the evaluation of the Global Innovation Index, the Summary Innovation Index and the Innovation Output Indicator. For the purpose of this article, the PROFIT (PROperty- FITting) method, an extension of the multidimensional scaling (MDS), was applied. The ultimate goal of MDS techniques is to produce a geometric map that illustrates the underlying structure of complex phenomena such as the innovation performance of the EU countries. Cluster analysis, conducted with the use of Ward’s method provided an objective view of the division of the EU countries based on their selected characteristics. The final result is a two-dimensional map illustrating the structure of innovation performance. The main conclusion drawn from the analysis is the explanation of distance between single indices in a spatial map and their role in distinguishing specific groups of the EU countries from the perspective of innovation performance.
Education is one of the key factors of economic growth. Despite the huge amount of researches investigating the relationship between education and GDP as a proxy of well-being, to the best of our knowledge, none of these studies examined a group of post-socialist countries comparing with not-post-socialist countries. This paper aims to fill this gap. We examine the correlation between growth and education with panel data evidence for 18 post-socialist (PS) countries and 16 developed market economies (DME) over the 1990–2014 period. The goal of this paper is to test two hypotheses: (i) The relationship between GDP per capita and tertiary education’s enrolment rate is stronger in the post-socialist countries than in other countries. (ii) In the post-socialist countries, the relationship between GDP per capita and tertiary education’s enrolment rate is stronger than the relationship between GDP per capita and any other level of education. Correlation analyses confirmed both hypotheses. Our findings suggest that the patterns of relationship between GDP and measures of tertiary education are different for PS and DME countries and would be interesting to observe when and how the gap between the patterns disappears.
The post-2008 crisis seems to have come to an end in most countries, but its long-term impacts are increasingly felt by most players of the world economy. Certain economic problems were aggravated, others created by the crisis that seems to have generated significant structural and behavioral changes in most national economies and their international relations. These lasting changes are listed, and new directions for research suggested in the present paper, using an approach combining the human, the financial and the growth dimensions.
The purpose of the paper is to explain the widely-observed phenomenon that the benefits of some apparently environmentally friendly solutions are much smaller than predicted. The applied research method is a systematic review of papers belonging to the ‘business and environment’ and ‘environmental science and technology’ literatures. Qualitative and interpretive research is used to support our propositions. Five key concepts accounting for the pitfalls associated with environmental sustainability-oriented (ESO) interventions have been identified and illustrated with reallife examples. Overlooked (1) interconnections among resources and environmental impacts, e.g. trade-offs, reveal that (2) system boundaries are often ill-defined, which can easily result in (3) problem shifting from one aspect of corporate environmental performance to another or from one stage in the life cycle to another. Additionally, false (4) assumptions and a strong (5) contextuality of best practices also overshadow the outcomes of ESO interventions. The relation among these general concepts is analysed and a graphic representation is provided.
The paper investigates the price determinants, risk/return characteristics and investment performances of the Polish art market. Special attention is given to cultural and historical determinants underlying the creation of the Polish art market after 1989 and the dynamics of changes in the first two decades after the system transition. Data from auction annuals during the years from 1991 to 2012 and repeat-sales regression (RSR) method are used to create the index of 28,951 art transactions. Based on the art index values, we observe that the art index for the Polish auction market exhibits similar returns to the ones on treasury bonds and much lower returns than the ones on the Polish stock and gold prices. The volatility of the art index is, what is striking, much lower than the volatility of stocks, comparable to gold prices and much higher than the volatility of treasury bonds. Moreover, high correlation between art and money market instruments suggests a limited portfolio diversification opportunity.
In a historical sense, humanity has accomplished its mission: it has populated Earth and has used its riches and resources to its own benefit. However, from an environmental perspective, Earth has a limited amount of resources, placing restrictions on these high expectations. Accordingly, humanity clearly needs to identify new ways of living, and make efforts to develop new goals. In light of this situation, it is worth exploring what the connection is between the more or less well-known concept of environmental sustainability and that of social futuring. Is there any overlap between the two concepts, and how can one evolve from the other? Can we identify any local-level (dis)similarities regarding these two in practice? The significant potential inherent in human beings – the unfolding of which is evident on a historical scale – can make interpretation of this issue easier. In this context, it is worth identifying the cornerstones of social futuring so as not to impair human ambition by blaming it for using up the Earth’s limited resources and causing natural disasters. The goal is to give humanity new direction and impetus, while retaining the intensity of earlier ambitions.
This paper studies the sensitivity of share prices of Spanish companies included in the IBEX-35 to changes in different explanatory variables, such as market returns, interest rates and factors proposed by Fama and French (1993, 2015) between 2000 and 2016. In addition, for robustness, this paper analyses whether the sensitivity of stock returns is different between two periods: precrisis and recent financial crisis. The results confirm that, in general, all the considered factors are relevant. Furthermore, “market return” and “size” factors show greater explanatory power, together with the “value” factor in the crisis period. Regarding the analysis at sector level, “Oil and Energy”, “Basic Materials, Industry and Construction” and “Financial and Real Estate Services” sectors appear to be highly sensitive to changes in the risk factors included in the asset pricing factor model.
The Greek financial crisis that erupted in 2010 was possibly cured after 8 years in 2018. It has been extraordinary in its social cost and its cost to European taxpayers. The causes of this failure are multiple. The main burden lies with consecutive Greek governments that did not carry out the necessary fiscal adjustment and reforms. In their lack of urgency they were strongly supported by American economists, especially Paul Krugman, who opposed austerity and instead called for fiscal stimulus, ignoring the need for financial stability. Much of this discussion was devoted to the benefits or harm of the Eurozone, which eventually hardly mattered. The crisis resolution was complicated by the European Union wanting to play a big role but not knowing how and weakening the traditional role of the International Monetary Fund. The key lessons are back to basics: A government needs to act hard and fast to resolve a severe financial crisis. The IMF is the best leader for financial stabilization. Early and fast fiscal adjustment brings about early financial stabilization, more structural reforms and early and higher growth.
This study attempts to investigate how Hungarians think about life. By applying a nationwide representative survey of Hungarian adults, we wished to answer the following two research questions: a) what are the major metaphorical conceptualizations of life among Hungarians?; and b) what factors, such as socio-economic status and basic value orientations, might influence the prevalence for the metaphors used to talk about life? Our results suggest that there are considerable generational differences: while the negative mindset (in the form of more negative metaphors) is still common within the older generation, there is a shift towards a more positive and more “American” conceptualization of life among younger people in Hungary.
The article evaluates the influence of a wide range of socio-demographic, job and company-related characteristics on the likelihood of low earnings by applying logistic regression on a broad range of Labour Force Survey data. We evidenced that the average impact of the company-related characteristics is three times stronger than the impact of personal characteristics. We also found that working full-time considerably decreases this risk of low wages, but company-related and personal characteristics (except for the kind of company’s economic activity) have not provided a rent (benefit) from working full-time. The underlying conclusion is that reforms decreasing the size of the low-wage sector in the former transition countries should be focused on targeted employment programmes enhancing transitions to more profitable economic activities instead of possibly maintaining the unprofitable industries at all costs. Additionally, the reforms should be concentrated on introducing employment regulations to harmonise the rules of employment among all contract types, which would put the part-timers and the underemployed on a more equal footing with fulltime workers especially in terms of pension schemes and access to training.
The financial market is undeniably the prime exemplar of capitalism where practitioners compete under intense pressure to excel in decision making every nanosecond. This unrelenting pursuit of outperformance is limited by human physical and mental capacities to make decisions based on the available technology and information. This paper reviews the state of contemplative practices as a form of “mind technology” in the financial market. In order to deliver outperformance, financial Alpha, in the market, this mind technology seems to suggest that it is important to engage in contemplative practices so that our brainwaves could transcend from the faster neural Gamma and Alpha waves to the slower and advanced state of neural Delta waves. This research looks into the benefits of these contemplative practices, particularly in decision making and management. It then evaluates the potential integration and conflict between contemplative practices and material pursuits. It argues that while contemplative practices are conducive to better decision making and management, they have not reached their full potential. It explores the potential unique contribution of Buddhist Economics and offers some avenues for the modern mindfulness movement to rethink how we could develop our mental capacities to cope with the challenges in the market economy.
Most economists differ not on the causes of the Great Recession, but on their relative importance. They agree, however, that the core problem is human, not market failure. Their widely held assessment helps explain why the Dodd-Frank banking “reform” says so much and does so little. This study re-tries the usual suspects and finds none guilty. Instead, it points to multiple equilibria in banking and the overall economy. Whether it is Cooke and Company in 1873 or Lehman Brothers in 2008, leverage and opacity are the wicked brew that stokes bank runs. And bank runs prompt employer runs – laying off your employees (other firms’ customers) for fear that others are laying off their employees (your customers). The answer is fundamental, not cosmetic banking reform that fixes banking and the economy for good. The answer is replacing leveraged, trust-me banking with fully transparent, 100 percent equity-financed mutual fund banking. This reform, called Limited Purpose Banking, handles all aspects of finance, including lending, risk allocation and the payment system. It would permanently end the leveraging of taxpayers by banks and bring a permanent end to financial crises.
In 2008, Hungary was heavily hit by the global financial crisis, and had to turn to the IMF among the first. The paper analyses the road leading to the post-Lehman liquidity crisis from the point of view of Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB), the central bank of Hungary. Based on the minutes and the press releases* of the Monetary Council (MC), a comprehensive account is given why the puzzle was put together too late.
Are the ecosophy of the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss and its resulting Deep Ecology relevant today? The central maxims: ‘Live a rich life with simple means’ and ‘Self-realizing for all beings’, are interpreted and corroborated. Næss’s ecosophy builds upon gestalt thinking and spontaneous experiences. In particular, the paper deconstructs point seven in the Deep Ecological Platform, which states that “The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great”. The paper draws on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen as the inspirational source of the degrowth movement, and on the Norwegian philosopher Arne Johan Vetlesen to understand the separation of man and nature that occurred during the Enlightenment, and it presents case studies of alternative economic models from Bhutan and Thailand. The conclusion is that Deep Ecological reasoning is not an ecotopia, but should be seen as an important source of inspiration and challenge to the prevalent consumer culture in affluent countries.
For many years Keynesian fiscal policy became very popular and was used by governments to fight slowdowns and recessions. In the 1980s and in the next three decades, this policy lost much appeal among economists in academia, though less among governments. The financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the following Great Recession brought a sudden revival of interest in and use of fiscal policies. This paper outlines the main criticisms that were directed at the Keynesian fiscal policy from the beginning. Some of these criticisms are less-known than others.
“Social futuring” is a neologism that locates a new meaning. The paper aims to frame and interpret this new meaning of/reference to social futuring in comparison to preexisting, conceptually related terms: resilience (optimism), future proofing, and future orientation. These are singled out as key concepts of individual prosperity, the future orientation of society and culture, and strategic planning (especially technological planning). Also, they provide fine examples of the semantic category elements that also appear in the interpretation of social futuring: a) change, and b) attitudes to change, c) vision as a condition, d) entity/agency (individual, social or cultural level, or of an instrumental type), and e) (motivated/strategic) action. Through systematic comparison, the characterizing differences and similarities can be drawn out and exhibited to prove the unique nature and relevance of social futuring in academic and professional discourses.
This paper shows the logic of the normative aspects underlying social futuring, defined as a social entity’s creative intention to comprehend the world, its ability to get things done, and to control its destiny. We assume that the ultimate goal of social entities is to enable a good life in a unity of order that is worth preserving and reproducing. We start with the concept of “personhood” for both human beings and social personae. We review ancient and modern formulations regarding the summum bonum and other concepts with regard to the balance between the needs of social entities and their individual members. Focusing on the oikeiósis enterprise, we distill four necessary and sufficient features of human life (Attachment, Care [Material Advancement and Freedom], Security, and Contentment). We suggest that these features provide an appropriate normative basis for measuring the status and evaluating the changes in the state of affairs of a social entity. Finally, we provide an overview of the pillars and social layers that may create the basis for the development of the Social Futuring Index (SFI).
In this paper we attempt to define the concept of social futuring and classify it using multiple dimensions. Starting out with a minimal definition of the notion, we elaborate on the ideal-typical definition of social futuring based on the concepts of necessary and sufficient conditions. Thereafter, classifications of the different forms and types of social futuring are developed according to various features. A complex network of concepts is constructed to make the ambiguous notion more precise and to operationalize it with a view to the construction of a Social Futuring Index. We close our study in the hope that we have managed to illuminate and clarify the multi-layered concept of social futuring by creating an analytical framework which is in synergy with the normative foundations of the research.
The goal of this paper is to show how the methodology and approach of futures studies could be useful in the research of social futuring. First of all, I define futures studies and social futuring and analyse the evolution of futures studies to show how methods have changed and how they could prove useful in the field of social futuring. Furthermore, I examine individual and organizational future orientation and the related “foresight maturity model” that is linked to the idea of social futuring. I compare future orientation indices (e.g. SOFI, JKB) and point out the pros and cons of each. In addition, I also show what kinds of measurement and indices of future orientation could be used in the analysis of individual, organizational and national social futuring. The findings provide support for the argument that foresight methodology provides an appropriate toolkit for social futuring research.
Looking back to the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, Hungary was among the first countries to be forced to make use of financial assistance from the EU and the IMF. The government, the MNB (the central bank of Hungary) as well as the domestic and foreign analysts cited the high public debt and the volume of unsecured foreign-currency loans as the main reasons for the crises. Though these were real weaknesses, this diagnosis was false as much as the following treatment. First and foremost, it was the inadequate level of foreign exchange reserves that made Hungary to request outside financial assistance.
The excessive fiscal tightening urged by the MNB only led to deepening of the crises. In general, the macropolicy – both fiscal and monetary policy – before, during and after the crises turned out to be painfully pro-cyclical. Due to the lack of sufficient reserves, the MNB became virtually powerless to intervene and could only watch from the side-lines as events unfolded. The orthodox mind-set after replenishing the forex reserves prevented it from implementing a broad scale of unconventional measures to ease the crises. The fiscal authority lost its capacity long before to reduce the severity of the crises. Thus, the excessive and incorrect structure of fiscal correction coupled with an unjustified orthodox monetary policy, the contraction of the Hungarian economy went much beyond the inevitable amount.
We asked Hungarian students to make soccer forecasts for a round of the Chilean Primera División, which was selected to minimise recognition heuristics, as this league is not followed by Hungarian soccer fans. Students made their forecasts based on cues about the teams. They received sets of cues of different quality based on previously composed expert evaluations of the given information. Although there were interesting findings regarding expertise and gender differences, the central question concerned how students evaluated the cues they received. Results show a pattern that we interpret as the contrast effect in information sets, which is present independent of gender or expertise.
In the early and mid-2000s, the prospect of EU accession and the global boom facilitated rapid economic recovery and boosted economic and institutional reforms in the Western Balkan region. The global financial crisis of 2007–2009 and the European crisis of 2010–2013 slowed the pace of economic growth and amplified high unemployment in the region. In addition, various unresolved legacies from past conflicts slowed the pace of reform and progress towards EU accession.
The European Commission’s February 2018 communication sets an indicative deadline (2025) for the two most advanced candidates – Serbia’s and Montenegro’s admission to the EU. This could incentivise all Western Balkan countries, including those candidates that have not yet started membership negotiations (Macedonia and Albania) and those waiting for candidate status (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo), to remove domestic political obstacles to EU accession, solve conflicts with neighbours, speed up reforms and accelerate economic growth.
In the recent years, an increasing number of papers deepened cross-disciplinary studies, examining how different cultural values influence financial variables. The main objective of our paper is to test if the dominant world religions (Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, and Judaic), and, moreover, some Christian denominations (Catholicism, Protestantism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity) are related to some patterns in capital structure. Our paper considers distinctly the category of countries in which Agnostics, Atheists and non-religious people are predominant.
The results are promising. Companies located in the states with predominance of Islamic religion have a lower leverage, while the ones from predominantly Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu and Judaic countries, as well as those in mainly Agnostic, Atheist and non-religious ones, are indebted more than those from mainly Protestant countries. The debt maturity seems to be correlated to the dominant religions or denominations, with companies in the predominantly Eastern Orthodox, Buddhist and Agnostic, Atheist and non-religious countries relying more on short term debt, and those in the majority Catholic, Judaic and Hindu countries on long term debt.
Payment systems make a significant contribution to the flow of transactions and financial stability. In this paper, we start by applying the principles of the gravity model to explain the TARGET flows of banking transactions between Portugal and other eurozone countries. The main explanatory variables tested are a composite indicator of economic and financial activities, distance, membership of the Eurozone (EZ), and country risk measured by treasury bond yields. The results indicate that Portugal has a high level of integration in the European banking market as distance is not statistically significant, and that the membership of the EZ facilitates the financing of the economy. The economic size of the partner country becomes non-significant after controlling for country fixed effects. The increase in the Portuguese country risk during the European sovereign debt crisis led to a marked decline in external financing, indicating that this is an important channel of transmission of crises.
In the spring of 2010 Greece officially turned to the EU for help in order to prevent itself from a sovereign default. However, the Treaty on European Union explicitly prohibits any member state to ask for a so-called bailout (i.e., financial assistance) from the other member states or the EU itself. Thus, overnight the Greek financial crisis became a linguistic one as well: how to communicate the notion of financial assistance without implying one? In light of this conundrum, the paper investigates how leading European and American newspapers have communicated the financial assistance by looking at the rather diverse expressions used for the notion of “bailout” that appeared in select articles published on the pivotal dates of the crisis management process. We hypothesized that as the Greek crisis developed, multiple and alternating frames were used in communicating the news on crisis management through the lexical choices the journalists used. The data justified the hypotheses: while the first phase was dominated by the RELIEF frame, this was eventually superseded by the BAILOUT frame by 2 May, the day the deal was finally struck. At the same time, the BUSINESS TRANSACTION frame never appeared as the most significant conceptualisation, implying that journalists were reluctant to view the deal between the two (eventually, three) parties as the result of a rational horizontal relationship between “buyer” and “seller” or between “debtor” and “creditor”.
This essay joins with others in exposing and critiquing problems with neoliberalism in the orchestration of society. Using rhetorical theory both ancient and contemporary that relates rhetoric to the gift and giving, this essay shows the inhospitable rhetorical dynamics of neoliberalism and explores the rhetorical possibilities of transformation through allo-liberalism, a turn to the other with liberality, generosity, and love.
The most prominent social button is the “like”, which was introduced by the social networking site Facebook in February 2009. In social media, liking is a so-called predefined communicative act, which has created a recommendation and like culture. The interactions of users with contents and with one another (in other words, the practices of everyday life, such as the consumption of goods and information) have become part of databases. Accordingly, the paper seeks to answer the following questions: How can likes be converted to revenue? Is it worth buying page and post likes? Is there any distinction between good and bad likes (cf. public customer service on social media sites)? If so, what makes a(n economically) good like? In sum, what is the economic (and communicative) value of likes?
This study presents the detailed methodology of generating house price indices for the Hungarian market. The index family is an expansion of the Hungarian housing market statistics in several regards. The nationwide index is derived from a database starting from 1990, and thus the national index is regarded as the longest in comparison to the house price indices available so far. The long time series allow us to observe and compare the real levels of house prices across economic cycles. Another important innovation of this index family is its ability to capture house developments by regions and settlement types, which sheds light on the strong regional heterogeneity underlying the Hungarian housing market.
Eating habits have become increasingly irrational in the last century; a variety of eating disorders have appeared. Obesity seems to be impossible to cure. Nowadays, the impact of media-marketing is the most powerful social influence on eating habits. Media has five main messages on eating and the body: 1. “Be thin!” 2. “Consume and eat!” 3. “Be afraid of food!” 4. “Food will disappear!” 5. “You are not feminine / masculine enough!” Most of these messages and directions are inconsistent with each other: e.g. “Buy and eat more, but remain thin!” The double-bind communication of media-marketing is pathogenic and schizoid. Food-related media messages are multi-layered and contradictory on many levels, so it would be more appropriate to talk about a multiple bind. The paper offers new communication strategies in order to manage the chaotic information on eating and to decrease the inconsistencies on the topic.
