Wages, Work, and the Catholic Social Teaching

The Catholic Social Teaching is a rich and relevant source for studying contemporary problems in society. In this paper, I investigate the question about equal pay in light of the social teaching. During the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in equal pay and related concepts like universal basic income. By equal pay we mean that everyone in society receives the same remuneration regardless of the type of work, level of effort, or unemployed or not. From an economic point of view, there are large negative incentive effects with such an arrangement. The reason is that the principle of ‘equal pay for all’ breaks the relationship between the workers’ effort and the payment associated with the effort. Furthermore, neo-classical economics would argue that there is no incentive to work if there is no financial payoff compared to not working. Also from a Catholic social teaching viewpoint, there is no support for an ‘equal pay for all’ arrangement. However, the social teaching sheds important light on the meaning of work and the right to a living wage.

ECONOMICS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE THEORY OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS BY THOMAS KUHN

The aim of this article is to analyze selected aspects of the theory of sustainable development as a potentially new paradigm in economic theory. The paper presents the concept of the economics of sustainable development in the context of the theory of scientific revolutions developed by Thomas Khun. The study focuses on such issues as externalities and the functioning of the economy in the macrosystem, including society and the environment. Their inclusion in the economics of sustainable development has allowed the assessment of such fundamental aspects as the voluntary nature of transactions or the social effects of running a business from a different perspective. Based on conducted analyses and the review of the literature, it has been noted that the main assumptions of the economics of sustainable development constitute some sort of anomaly, and perhaps even a revolution in relation to classical economics (understood, in this study, as a general theoretical concept that proclaims the reliability of the market mechanism, as well as the convergence of individual interests of producers and consumers with collective interests). In the context of Khun’s concept, it has been pointed out that a possible future paradigm of economics will not constitute so much disapproval of the present one but will make it more comprehensive and will approach economic problems from a different perspective.

Tugan-Baranovsky’s Business Cycle Theory and French Economists: Inspiration and Legacy

The purpose of the paper is to emphasize the contribution of Mykhaylo Ivanovych Tugan-Baranovsky to Business Cycle theory and its legacy among French economists.Tugan-Baranovsky (1864–1919), a prominent Ukrainian economist was a cycle theorist who was inspired by some French or francophone economists whose language he mastered. His theory of industrial crises proved influential upon some major economists during the first quarter of the twentieth century until the Great Depression, from Spiethoff to Hayek and Keynes.We present both the history and analytical content of industrial crises in the French version of Tugan-Baranovsky’s masterpiece. We provide an overview of Tugan-Baranovsky’s intellectual legacy as for his French-speaking followers, namely, Lescure, Aftalion, Robertson and Bouniatian. The ebb and tide of Tugan-Baranovsky’s i fluence can be understood throughout two episodes: the shift from real to monetary cycles in the interwar period and the revival of real business cycles alongside New Classical Economics in the 1980s, which proves relevant again in the context of the current Great Lockdown Recession. JEL classіfіcatіon: B14, E32, N13

Negotiation is about entitlements, not interests

The psychological study of negotiation, influenced by economics, has long emphasized the interests of the bargaining parties as the main driver of the negotiation process. This remains the case, even though psychological research has shown that individuals do not behave in the manner predicted by classical economics. A main drawback of the concept of interests is that it is an individual-level construct and, therefore, does not tap directly into the interindividual nature of the negotiation process. In contrast, entitlements can serve as the key notion in the study of negotiation, both conceptually and epistemologically. I argue that at the heart of negotiation is a rule-making process through which parties define each other’s entitlements and duties. If we view negotiation in this way, we can study it as the primary vehicle for the explicit determination of social norms, obligations, and “ought” standards that permeate social life. This view has ramifications for the study of negotiation itself, for the social-psychological study of coregulation, and even for the function of society as a whole.

Heterogeneous entrepreneurship and the Sunday Times Rich List

It may appear surprising that economists devote such little attention to the heterogeneity nature of entrepreneurship, however there are several possible explanations. The concept represents a well-known tension between typical economic theory and the concept of entrepreneurship itself. When Baumol (1968) and Kirz-ner (1973) wrote their seminal works they were attempting to respond to a perceived neglect of the entrepreneur within neo classical economics. The explosion of entrepreneurship re search since then has not been comfortably reconciled with for mal mo - dels, and indeed empirical studies have a tendency to lapse into psychological profiling. It might be argued that such profiling (be it in terms of gender, race, age, experience, education, IQ, marital status, employment history, etc) does make entrepreneurs hetero - geneous, however this differs from the way in which we use the term. «Heterogeneity» does not merely mean «differentiated» but ties into a deeper methodological debate about the nature of scientific analysis. In short, heterogeneity is an aspect of the broa - der concept of subjectivism. At a basic level subjectivism implies that individuals can interpret events in different ways, and as a consequence of this we expect a diversity of action that is glossed over when people are modelled as homogenous agents. Having said this, it’s important to recognise the diversity of approaches and methodologies within the economics profession. For example, although the neoclassical system is liable to eschew premises that aren’t tractable, Austrian-school economists do tend to emphasise subjectivism and heterogeneity. But whilst this is strikingly evident in capital theory (see Lachmann 1956) it is cu-rious to note that a similar attitude towards entrepreneurs them - selves is underplayed. In short, since Austrians emphasise the functional qualities of entrepreneurship they treat entrepreneurs as homogenous blobs. This paper intends to strike a middle ground between homogeneity and psychological particularism by de-constructing the entrepreneur (Evans and Baxendale 2008).

A Markov-Switching Model of Inflation in Bolivia

The Bolivian inflation process is analyzed utilizing a time-varying univariate and multivariate Markov-switching model (TMS). With monthly data and, beginning in the late 1930s, inflation is accurately described by a univariate TMS. The intercept for the high-inflation regime is significantly higher than for the low-inflation regime and the actual inflation rate mirrors the smoothing probabilities of the Markov process. Additionally, the predicted duration of each regime closely fits the periods when the country experienced low and inordinate high inflation rates. From a long-run perspective and utilizing a multivariate TMS, the results generally fall in line with what the quantity theory of money predicts. In the high-inflation regime, money growth increases inflation (almost) one-for-one, as classical economics contends. From a short-run perspective and in the high-inflation regime, inflation is almost exclusively explained by a negative output gap. In the low-inflation regime, lagged inflation is the most important determinant of inflation, in line with price stickiness expectations. Partitioning the sources of inflation demonstrate that, from a long-run perspective and in the high inflation regime, differences in inflation are mostly explained by GDP growth; in the low-inflation regime, money growth and velocity growth are the principal factors explaining the variance of inflation. From a short-run perspective, the output gap explains almost all regression variance in the high-inflation regime, and past inflation does the same during times of low inflation, though in both cases the R2 is low which precludes making definite statements about the sources of variability in inflation.

DAVID RICARDO ON INVESTMENT

The article examines the views of one of the founders of classical economics, David Ricardo, on the issues of investment, capital and profit. The need for this study is caused by the lack of a single definition of investment in the regulatory acts of investment legislation, as well as in the scientific community. Thus, there is a problem of regulatory regulation of one of the most important concepts of the economy. Given that the concepts of investment, capital, and capital investment are primarily economic categories, it seems quite reasonable to consider the emergence and development of these concepts in the retrospect of economic theories, in order to understand the essence of the phenomenon and finally solve the issue of its legal regulation. The scientific novelty of the study is that despite a large number of works on the work of David Ricardo «The Beginnings of Political Economy and Taxation», no special work was carried out on the contribution of the great economist to the theory of investment. Conclusions. The main achievements of Ricardo in the field of capital and investment include the author's definitions of capital, free capital, the creation of a theory of comparative advantages of trade, the division of capital into fixed and circulating capital depending on strength, as well as the description of the reasons that stimulate and hinder foreign investment.