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Are humans at their core seekers of their own pleasure or cooperative members of society? Paradoxically, they are both. Pleasure-seeking can take place only within the context of what works within a defined community, and central to any community are the evolved codes and principles guiding appropriate behavior, or morality. The complex interaction of morality and self-interest is at the heart of Geoffrey M. Hodgson’s approach to evolutionary economics, which is designed to bring about a better understanding of human behavior. In From Pleasure Machines to Moral Communities, Hodgson casts a critical eye on neoclassical individualism, its foundations and flaws, and turns to recent insights f...
This book provides a comprehensive outlook on the state and role of consumer credits in the European economy and households. It underlines the role of consumerism and digitalisation, in the framework of legislation. It covers two major turns in consumer credit evolution: the 2008 crisis and Covid pandemic. The first had socio-economic sources, the second one was an external event, but provoked important changes in consumer behaviour. Lockdowns deepened the preference for digital financial products. FinTech and BigData operators acquired broader opportunities with the development of distance services. These new financial services need adapted legislation. The recently published project of Consumer Credits Directive covers new means of communication, such as smartphones, and extends rules to new ways of crediting, like crowdfunding. Consumer credit availability changed the behaviour of households. The propensity of poorer households to save faded due to the ease of getting credit. However, financial insecurity during the Coronavirus pandemic made households limit credits and build precautionary savings.
This book is the English language translation of the French publication Économie Politique des Capitalismes. Research in this book presents institutional and historical macroeconomics, through an analysis of wage-labour nexus, innovation systems, monetary and financial systems, integration into the world economy, formation of economic policy configurations, and the history of economic theories. In doing so, the book addresses how and why economic regularities change in long run, and why do macroeconomic adjustments differ across countries within the same historical period. It shows how institutional changes that have occurred since the 1970s and the research on the transformation of the Ame...
In the last three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, there has been a vast amount of study looking at transforming the planned economy to a market economy from both theoretical and empirical aspects. This book provides an overview and insight into transition economies in the recent decades and looks at key economics topics from the so-called “transition strategy debate” to environmental reform. The book also includes an analytical review and meta-analysis of the existing literature. By integrating theoretical discussions and synthesizing empirical findings in a systematic manner, this book may help to enlighten the debate on the timing, speed, and policy sequence of economic transition. The book will particularly appeal to researchers, policy makers, other practitioners, and under- and post-graduate students who are interested in transition economies in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, and China. It aims to be read as an advanced reader.
Reserach suggests that innovation and technical change are crucial for the econimic recovery of the former centrally planned countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This text analyzes the development of innovation systems and technology in this region from various perspectives.
This book explores the foundations of the current economic crisis. Offering a heterodox approach to interpretation it examines the policies implemented before and during the crisis, and the main institutions that shaped the model of advanced economies, particularly in the last two decades. The first part of the book provides a theoretical analysis of the crisis. The roots of the ‘great recession’ are divided into fundamentals with origins in financial liberalisation, financial innovation and income distribution, and complementary or contributory factors such as the international imbalances, the monetary policy,and the role of credit rating agencies. Part II suggests various paths to recovery while emphasising that it will be necessary to develop alternative strategies for sustainable economic recovery and growth. These strategies will require genuine political support and a new 'great European vision' to address major issues concerning the EU such as unemployment, structural regional differences and federalism. Drawing on various schools of thought, this book explains the complexities of the crisis through a wider evolutionary-institutional and heterodox framework.
In recent years, the digitalisation of retail financial services – retail payments, current/savings accounts, consumer/housing credit, car insurance, property insurance and health insurance – has accelerated significantly. While policy-makers are gradually creating the necessary conditions to strengthen this digital transformation, there remain numerous policy issues and unanswered questions to resolve. Against this background, CEPS-ECRI formed a Task Force to explore four specific core questions: What type of level playing field is needed to ensure a successful transitions to the digital transformation? What are the opportunities and risks related to big (alternative) data and increasin...
The internationally-renowned contributors to this book examine the causes and consequences of complexity among the broadly economic phenomena of firms, industries and socio-economic policy. They make a valuable contribution to the increasingly prominent subject of complexity, especially for those whose interests include evolutionary, behavioral, political and social approaches to understanding economics and economic phenomena.
This book addresses the policy questions surrounding the challenge of transforming eastern European economies from their planned, administrative past to vibrant market-based entities. Jozef van Brabant considers in turn, the wider set of challenges facing these economies - stabilization, privatization, liberalization, institution building, and developing and maintaining the sociopolitical consensus - before examining the evolving role of the state. Using concrete examples from the eastern European countries throughout, including the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, this work systematically examines, in a society-wide context, the initial conditions of transformation, the policy tasks ahead and the manner in which policies have been pursued.
This collection of articles examines the development of one of the most significant economic transformations ever undertaken covering a wide range of countries and economic sectors