Socio-economic inequality: essence, cyclicality of the dynamics

The article considers socio-economic inequality as a social phenomenon inherent in all historical forms of society, which is characterized by the exploitation of wide circles of population by the elite. It is generated by the basic economic law of each historical form of antagonistic society and is expressed in the periodic aggravation of class contradictions. The most important component of social inequality in capitalist society is economic inequality. There is a relationship between the economic growth and inequality of income that S. Kuznets was one of the first to prove. P. Sorokin, justifying the hypothesis of the cyclicality of fluctuations in the average level of welfare and income within a certain society, appealed to the existence of "small business cycles", and explained by the existence of Kondratiev waves the tendency towards the increase in the average level of income and welfare, manifested in the second half of XIX century in some countries. The author analyzes the close relationship between the dynamics of inequality and social processes, whose driving force is violence – "four horsemen of the equalization": the war with mass mobilization, the transformational revolution, the decay of the state and the lethal pandemic, – as established by W. Scheidel; it is the "four horsemen of the equalization" that reduce the gap between rich and poor, that is, the social inequality is temporarily smoothed destructively. It has been established that during large-scale wars, revolutions, the destruction of states there is a permission of cyclically exacerbating contradictions of social development, which generate the deployment of long-term socio-economic cycles (cycles of changing the forms of society; hegemony establishment cycles in the world-system, long political cycles, Kondratiev waves, etc.). Therefore, the changes in the levels of socio-economic inequality generated by these "horsemen of the equalization" are also cyclic.

MODERN APPROACHES TO DETERMINING THE CYCLICALITY OF URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The cyclic nature of development is intrinsic to socio-economic systems. Despite the fact that none of the economic cycles is identical to another one, they all have the same stages. The city is a complex multifunctional system. The economy of the city can be viewed as a set of entities belonging to different areas and activities remaining in different stages of the life cycle. The life cycle of the city is a succession of stages of emergence, growth, maturity, and decline. This continuity is the result of the cyclic development of a territory’s functional specialization. The duration and depth of the fluctuations at each stage of the cycle are determined by the influence of external and internal factors as well as the effectiveness of urban management. Therefore, the cyclic development for different territories can have its own specific trajectory. If the urban economy is flexible and adapts quickly to changes in the external and internal environment, the trajectory will be characterized by intermittent cycles. The more pronounced the change of the city development stages is, the more efforts should be made by the city managers in order to diversify the city’s functional structure and create alternative areas of labor application. The paper summarizes the concept of the ‘life cycle of the city’. It also considers the features of each stage of the city life cycle. The studies of the life cycle carried out by leading scientists and practitioners are analyzed. The methodology of assessing the stages of the life cycle and the prospects of urban development is proposed and justified. In the course of the research, the developments of domestic and foreign scientists were systematized and the limit values of indicators-identifiers of the stage of the territory life cycle were offered. Determining the stage of the city life cycle is an important tool assessing the prospects for the development of the urban territory and helping to make effective management decisions and prioritize strategic programs. The methodology of determining the stage of the economic cycle involves identifying points of growth that contribute to the transition from a state of depression or crisis to the phase of development (revitalization). This involves the search for objectively existing or potentially possible factors, prerequisites, resources that will provide an impetus to the advance of the urban economy. Such points of growth can be found in the city-forming sphere (new technologies at enterprises, new competitive types of products), resource factors (natural resources, transport infrastructure, medical, tourist, and other factors), scientific, educational, cultural, and other areas.

Economic Cycles of Carnot Type

Originally, the Carnot cycle was a theoretical thermodynamic cycle that provided an upper limit on the efficiency that any classical thermodynamic engine can achieve during the conversion of heat into work, or conversely, the efficiency of a refrigeration system in creating a temperature difference by the application of work to the system. The first aim of this paper is to introduce and study the economic Carnot cycles concerning Roegenian economics, using our thermodynamic–economic dictionary. These cycles are described in both a Q−P diagram and a E−I diagram. An economic Carnot cycle has a maximum efficiency for a reversible economic “engine”. Three problems together with their solutions clarify the meaning of the economic Carnot cycle, in our context. Then we transform the ideal gas theory into the ideal income theory. The second aim is to analyze the economic Van der Waals equation, showing that the diffeomorphic-invariant information about the Van der Waals surface can be obtained by examining a cuspidal potential.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Earnings Management: Moderating Impact of Economic Cycles and Financial Performance

This study analyses the relationship between earnings management and corporate social responsibility. To this end, we use a sample of 568 listed companies from the European Union between 2010 and 2018. We use discretionary accruals as the measure of earnings management, under the Modified Jones model. Corporate social responsibility is proxied by the Combined Environmental, Social and Governance Score from the ASSET4 database. We find a negative relation between earnings management and corporate social responsibility, suggesting that managers from more socially responsible companies have a more ethical behavior and, thus, financial reporting of higher quality. Additional analysis provides evidence that economic cycles and financial performance play important roles in the relation between earnings management and corporate social responsibility. During periods of crisis or of losses, the relationship is positive, suggesting that under unfavorable economic conditions, management makes opportunistic use of a sustainable company’s status to manage earnings.

Linkages between Energy Delivery and Economic Growth from the Point of View of Sustainable Development and Seaports

This paper presents the synchronisation of economic cycles of GDP and crude oil and oil products cargo volumes in major Polish seaports. On the one hand, this issue fits into the concept of sustainable development including decoupling; on the other hand, the synchronisation may be an early warning tool. Crude oil and oil products cargo volumes are a specific barometer that predicts the next economic cycle, especially as they are primary sources of energy production. The research study applies a number of TRAMO/SEATS methods, the Hodrick–Prescott filter, spectral analysis, correlation and cross-correlation function. Noteworthy is the modern approach of using synchronisation of economic cycles as a tool, which was described in the paper. According to the study results, the cyclical components of the cargo traffic and GDP were affected by the leakage of other short-term cycles. However, based on the cross-correlation, it was proved that changes in crude oil and oil products cargo volumes preceded changes in GDP by 1–3 quarters, which may be valuable information for decision-makers and economic development planners.

Analysis of the Hungarian investment funds along economic cycles

As a result of the 2008 financial crisis, the international financial system underwent a fundamental change. The crisis has highlighted various weaknesses in the economic system. One of these weaknesses was the unregulated nature of investment markets and their inefficient structural structure. Funds managed by investment fund managers have also been hit hard by the crisis. In the post-crisis period of 2008, there was a dynamic economic boom, which also affected the types of investment funds and their changes. However, the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onwards is a special crisis. Its unique nature is reflected in the fact that financial markets have remained stable under the influence of central banks. This, in turn, did not necessarily affect the investment market, and in particular investment funds, as expected in the event of a downturn. In our research, we illustrate the change of investment funds along economic cycles through the quantitative changes of Hungarian investment funds. In our analysis, we illustrate the evolution of fund changes through hierarchical cluster analyzes. In the course of our research, we found that Hungarian investment funds move in line with market and retail investment trends, and the structure of investment funds does not show a significant change during the sixteen years examined, regardless of changes in economic cycles.

Innovation, Ruptures and Economic Cycles in Technology Platforms: Proposition of an analytical framework

The world has been going through many technological transformations, which affect not only the productive systems, but also the prevailing social and institutional spheres, creating a fragmented and hard to understand scenario. Different theories aim at evaluating some specific dimensions of the complex process in course at the micro- meso- and macrolevels; however, none seems to encompass the multiple dimensions of the phenomenon concomitantly. To address such research gap, we resort to adaptive theory, which, on the one hand, turns to theoretical constructs on disruptive innovation, creative destruction and economic cycles; on the other, resorts to data and information on the emergence and proliferation of platforms for collaborative consumption. Our paper brings a unified theoretical conception, allowing a more comprehensive and integrated analysis of more than one dimension of the transformation process currently in course.

Inovação, Rupturas e Ciclos Econômicos em Plataformas Tecnológicas: Proposta de um Modelo de Análise

The world has been going through many technological transformations, which affect not only the productive systems, but also the prevailing social and institutional spheres, creating a fragmented and hard to understand scenario. Different theories aim at evaluating some specific dimensions of the complex process in course at the micro- meso- and macrolevels; however, none seems to encompass the multiple dimensions of the phenomenon concomitantly. To address such research gap, we resort to adaptive theory, which, on the one hand, turns to theoretical constructs on disruptive innovation, creative destruction and economic cycles; on the other, resorts to data and information on the emergence and proliferation of platforms for collaborative consumption. Our paper brings a unified theoretical conception, allowing a more comprehensive and integrated analysis of more than one dimension of the transformation process currently in course.