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This book, a third edition, has been significantly expanded and updated. It revisits the process of institutional change: its characteristics, determinants and implications for economic performance. New chapters address the significance of Post-Communist transition, the differences and importance of initial conditions in institutional building, and, social norms, values, and happiness. Other chapters have been expanded to include, for example, a focus on the Washington consensus, commentary on the 2008 financial crisis, state capacity and corruption, and new findings on redistribution and inequality.With specific focus on Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, this revised edition examines the process of development, and its interdependence with institutions.

It is becoming increasingly clear that a new economics is required for investigating modern dynamic economies and the coming social world. Important features of those economies, such as innovation, uncertainty and entrepreneurship, are usually considered capitalist features. This may have been true historically, but this book argues that the contrary will be true for the future: the full and efficient operation of those supposed capitalist features will increasingly require the overcoming of capitalist civilization. In this book, Angelo Fusari constructs a theoretical framework for the interpretation and management of modern dynamic economies which demonstrates that institutional transformations are essential if we are to move beyond the current consumer-capitalist age and the age of the domination of financial capital. A New Economics for Modern Dynamic Economies opens with a consideration of the basic aspects of modern dynamic economies and proceeds to develop a representation of the whole economic system centred on the interrelationships between entrepreneurship, innovation and radical uncertainty in a ‘dynamic competition'process. This model provides an explanation of business cycles that largely differs from current explanations as it derives from the notion of dynamic competition. The book is then extended from the sectoral to the micro level and then to the level of the firm. The second half of the book is concerned with operational problems and in particular with the integration of this analysis of cycles with the notion of historical phases of development. The final chapter explores the route of the transition from capitalism to a new economic and social order – a transition of vital importance, both for the contemporary world and for the coming world.This volume is of great interest to those who study political economy, macroeconomics and economic theory and philosophy. The book shows the possibility of a scientific explanation of important ethical principles as indispensable to the organizational efficiency of the social system: for instance, the necessity and the way to conciliate productive efficiency, social justice and individual freedom.

This book aims to explain to the readers the basic idea of the general equilibrium theory, which forms the core of the current mainstream economics called neoclassical school. To understand this theory is absolutely necessary, either to study further or to criticize the contemporary economic theories. The author not only explains traditional theories, but also makes clear the many problems which are still unsolved.As a text book or reference book for those students who are studying microeconomics for the first time, the author recommends the use of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 (except section 9), Chapter 3 (from section 1 to section 3, section 6, section 11), Chapter 4 (from section 1 to section 4), Chapter 5 (from section 1 to section 5, section 8), Chapter 6 (except sections 6 and 7), Chapter 7 (from section 1 to section 5), Chapter 8 (from section 1 to section 6) and Chapter 9 (sections 1, 4 and 7). For more advanced readers, the author recommends the remaining sections and the literature recommended in the last part of each chapter. Problems given at the end of each chapter allow readers to confirm understanding of the content of the chapter and suggest to the readers more advanced studies. Incidentally, the author tried to avoid the use of the advanced mathematics. Only elementary knowledge of differential calculus and linear algebra are required to read this book.

This Festschrift was'presented'in electronic form to Buchanan on the occasion of his eightieth birthday on October 3, 1999, after dinner in Fairfax, Virginia. As one might have expected, the response to our call for papers was vo­ luminous. In looking over the many contributions, we felt that a'published'Festschrift was also possible and fitting for the eightieth birthday of so prodi­ gious and influential a scholar as Professor Buchanan. To that end we have assembled the following volume. In selecting the papers to be included here we have basically tried to choose those papers which in some way bear on Buchanan's contributions. Perfectly good papers about issues not related to Buchanan's research agenda or not referring directly to Buchanan's work were not included. Space constraints did not allow universal coverage, so choices had to be made. It should be stated clearly that these were our choices based on the criterion that the contribution be relevant to Buchanan's work. Buchanan had nothing whatsoever to do with the selection of papers for this volume. Once choices had been made, we arranged the papers by subject matter ranging from various aspects of Buchanan's work in economics, political science, philosophy, and related areas, to some more personal recollections of Jim as a professor, friend, and colleague. Including the latter material was also our decision, and this probably represents a choice with which Jim would not have agreed. We think, however, that the reader will find these pieces interesting and informative.

Die Möglichkeiten einer systematischeren Existenzsicherung und Begrenzung der Umverteilung werden in diesem Buch untersucht. Die Ziele einer solchen Politik hängen stark von der normativen Basis ab. Im Unterschied zu manchen anderen ethischen und ökonomischen Arbeiten, wird daher der jeweilige Anspruch ethischer Konzeptionen (Utiliarismus, Rawls, Nozick, Buchanan, Diskursethik) an die Sozialpolitik offen mit den institutionellen Anreizen und Ergebnissen ökonomisch rationalen Handelns auf Märkten, im Dritten Sektor und im Sozialstaat konfrontiert. Dabei wird auch die Situation Nicht-Leistungsfähiger berücksichtigt. Es wird verdeutlicht, inwieweit das von der Neuen Politischen Ökonomie prognostizierte'Versagen sozialstaatlicher Existenzsicherung und Umverteilung'die deutsche Sozialpolitik prägt.

This volume confronts an important historical hypothesis with empirical evidence from selected periods of history. The hypothesis in question states that competition among political and legal organisations in developing rules has been a crucial condition for liberty, innovation and growth in the history of mankind. It is due to Immanuel Kant, Edward Gibbon and Max Weber and has been revived and further developed by Nobel-Laureate Douglass C. North who contributes the first chapter. The volume brings together political economists, historians and legal scholars to discuss the role of political competition in the rise and decline of nations - both in theory and in a large number of case studies.

The central idea of this book is the concept of a currency order. Monetary theory is developed as a theory of currency orders. The book expands the neoclassical theory of currency orders. This new way of looking at the problems permits a general view of the subject matter of monetary theory and policy which so far does not exist. The concept of transaction costs is used throughout. The book deals not only with the theories of the demand for and the supply of money, the banking firm, and the purchasing power of money. It also presents a theoretically based discussion of the great topics of monetary policy of our time: fixed vs. flexible exchange rates, gold vs. paper, rules vs. authority for the central banks, governmental currency monopoly vs. competition of private currencies, regulation vs. deregulation of commercial banks. The book is suitable as a text for students with a knowledge of money and banking and intermediate microeconomics. It offers a consistent and well-written presentation of the subject matter, as well as an extensive list of further readings.

Public choice is the study of behavior at the intersection of economics and political science. Since the pioneering work of Duncan Black in the 1940s, public choice has developed a rich literature, drawing from such related perspectives as history, philosophy, law, and sociology, to analyze political decision making (by citizen-voters, elected officials, bureaucratic administrators, lobbyists, and other'rational'actors) in social and economic context, with an emphasis on identifying differences between individual goals and collective outcomes. Constitutional political economy provides important insights into the relationship between effective constitutions and the behavior of ordinary political markets. In Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy, Charles Rowley and Friedrich Schneider have assembled an international array of leading authors to present a comprehensive and accessible overview of the field and its applications. Covering a wide array of topics, including regulation and antitrust, taxation, trade liberalization, political corruption, interest group behavior, dictatorship, and environmental issues, and featuring biographies of the founding fathers of the field, this volume will be essential reading for scholars and students, policymakers, economists, sociologists, and non-specialist readers interested in the dynamics of political economy.

The economic model of behaviour is fundamental not only in economic theory, but also in modern approaches of other social sciences, above all in political science and law. This book provides a comprehensive treatise of the general model, its philosophical and methodological foundations and its applications in different fields. In addition to the basic model, extensions to its assumptions are examined to account for complex applications like low-cost situations with moral behaviour. Finally, the book takes a broader perspective by evaluating the impact of the model on economic policy and on the development of the field of social science as a whole, such as the competition between individualistic and collectivist approaches.

Students and researchers specialising in the fields of economics and business will find that this third, updated edition of The Economics of Business Enterprise continues to provide stimulating insights suggestive of further research.

Economy and Society is a major landmark in the recent emergence of economic sociology. Robert J. Holton provides a major new synthesis of social scientific thinking on the inter-relationship between economy and society arguing for the importance of politics and culture to the functioning of the economy and drawing on the strengths but avoiding the weaknesses of economic liberalism and political economy.