Competitive Market Economy Research Articles

Africa in the politics, ethics and justice system of an open borders world

Politics of globalization demands that all countries of the world should open their borders for free movement of goods and services in a competitive market economy. The emerging anti-migration laws in Europe, America, and Australia, portrays another picture. Proponents think, borders should be open because of the equal liberty of all,1 and the universality of human dignity and rights.2 Opponents argue for border restrictions on the basis of national sovereignty, national interests, and the right to self-determination of sovereign communities.3 The two camps believe that the subject of migration, the human person, is an individual, who is rational, autonomous, self-conscious and a self-propelling being. What divides them is the view that human beings have the right to exclude others from their properties and territories, hence supporting border restrictions. On the other hand, human beings have the social responsibilities to include others to share the properties and territories belonging to them, thus supporting open border policies. This paper hypothesizes that, for a better understanding of international relations, we must go beyond the individualistic understanding of the human person and the open borders discourse. African philosophy, which seems to offer a better alternative, opines that the human person is an individual and a socially corporate being that is intrinsically different from others, yet essentially related to others. This individual needs a conducive social and personal atmosphere to prosper, which can only be created in their own countries.

The public administration in front of current challenges in Greece and Europe

Reforms in EU member states as well in Greek public sector are based upon the Refit system. Main purpose is the “catharsis” of Greek public sector in order to reduce the deficiency of General Government according to the MO’s programs. That caused redundancy, mobility, availability of the public servants. The main purpose is to regulate the state upon principles appropriate to the agreed objectives of Lisbon treaty that must be flexible. This kind of flexicurity is based on a highly competitive social market economy via the precarity system in order to diminish the economic crisis.

Reputable Relevant Realistic Reliable and Rigorous Human Resource Management Strategic Approaches and Practices in the 21st century

Human resource management is a multi-dimensional and complex phenomenon comprising a number of management themes. Without reputable, relevant, realistic, reliable and rigorous Human Resource Management strategic approaches and practices, companies can fail to effectively operate in a global market. The world has become interconnected as companies operate in a competitive global market economy. Even though Human Resource Management continuously gains scholarly attention yet there are still many gaps in it which need attention. There is no conclusive research on Human Resource Management strategies and approaches in the management of complex workplace issues. These complex issues faced today include convergence, divergence and cross-vergence of International Human Resource Management approaches, Cross-Cultural Management, Reward Strategy, Talent Management, and Control or Commitment Strategy. This paper provides a springboard for a better understanding of the Human Resource Management strategies, approaches and practices in the management of complex workplace issues. Appropriate management of people endows companies with unique and indispensable capabilities and capacities needed for differentiating and survival in a global market economy. The paramount goal of an organisation is to meet and satisfy customer needs and to be a market leader. Reputable, relevant, realistic, reliable and rigorous Human Resource Management strategies can help to fulfil the needs of customers, thereby increasing company profitability.

Issues of Government Pricing and Budget Normalization in Construction

There are many issues associated with the government pricing of construction products, the main of which are addressed in the presented study. With the government playing a key role in determining the budgeted cost of construction, the Ministry of Construction, Industry, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation has been radically reforming pricing and budget normalization in construction since 2016. The author of this study briefly analyzes the results of these reforms and formulates proposals for addressing the issues of improving pricing in construction. Aim . The study aims to examine the current state of government pricing and budget normalization in construction, to determine the ways of shifting from the base index method for making estimates according to state standards and prices to the development of budget documentation using the input method based on real (market) standards for construction resources with participation in construction competitions. Tasks. Based on the results of the study, the author determines the ways for the construction industry to shift from the base index method for making estimates to the input method for determining the budgeted cost of construction according to market norms and prices of construction resources. The author also identifies ways of improving methods for determining overhead costs and estimated profit for local cost estimates. Methods . This study uses general scientific research methods to examine the problems of pricing of construction products according to state standards for resource consumption and unit costs of work measurement. Results . The major drawbacks of the 2001 budget-normative base are identified, and the main objective of construction pricing reforms in a competitive market economy is formulated. The shortcomings of the state estimate standards and federal unit costs introduced by the Russian Ministry of Construction are shown. It is established that the government pricing system causes problems in the assessment of the real cost of construction projects, budget implementation, and timely commissioning of projects. Basic methods for the pricing of construction products are provided. Conclusions. In government pricing, the budgeted cost of construction is not determined by real (market) standards, technologies, and prices of construction resources. Following the example of other industries and developed countries, it is necessary to shift to the market (input) method for competitive pricing of construction products in a market economy.

The Compatibility of Private Health Insurance Schemes with EU Law: Applying the Health Insurance Exception beyond Substitutive Private Health Insurance

AbstractThe lack of clarity as to the scope of the health insurance exception enshrined in Article 206 of the Solvency II Directive has created uncertainties surrounding the implications for government intervention in the private health insurance market. A contentious interpretation of the health insurance exception, offered by former EU Commissioner Bolkestein, and the approach subsequently taken by the Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union in assessing the compatibility of Member State intervention in private health insurance have led to a divergence in the application of EU law, which further increases uncertainties around the legality of Member State intervention. This article proposes an alternative interpretation of the health insurance exception that draws on a contemporary understanding of private health insurance as a socio-economic institution aimed at achieving a highly competitive social market economy. This alternative interpretation extends the applicability of the health insurance exception from substitutive private health insurance to complementary private health insurance that covers statutory user charges and thus improves the compliance of national health insurance systems in several Member States with EU law and enhances the coherence of EU law.

Towards a European Innovation Principle Endorsed by Better Regulation

Innovation is an essential element of sustainable growth. While the internal market is defined by the objective of a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment (Article 3 (3) TEU) innovation becomes a precondition of a sustainable and green economy. It leads to higher productivity and competitiveness while also bringing social and environmental benefits. By definition, innovation cannot be preordained. It takes place in response to diverse incentives. The policymaker’s task is not to pick winners but to ensure that the entire economy becomes better-suited for innovative outcomes. Regulation matters at all stages of the innovation cycle, from research and development, to diffusion, commercialisation and beyond. Therefore, a toolbox of innovation-enabling legislation can help to unleash the innovative potential of European companies and individuals. The author is of the opinion that the innovation principle should - in a fair balance with other treaty based principles - be integrated in all of its stages and expressed through a range of instruments. The resulting cultural change will mean that innovation will be better accepted as a sustainable way of addressing Europe’s societal challenges and improving its green growth prospects. Also, he concludes, that regulation has the potential to drive innovation when it is well-designed, flexible and regularly updated to reflect market developments.

The European Union building from Public Choice to Ordo, Röpke’s and Einaudi’s ideas of Europe

The first part the article deals with the Public Choice approach to the European Union as a club of sovereign states that decide to share, without losing sovereignty, some segment of their public goods and related power under the subsidiarity principle. It also deals with Ordo, Röpke’s and Einaudi’s liberal third way between historical capitalism and a competitive market economy, with – at its centre – the people and the civitas humana. The second part presents the dualistic performances of the main countries of the euro area, building on the analysis of eight parameters for the period 2013–18, and discusses the incompleteness of the institutional construct of the European Union. The third part discusses potential solutions to these problems in the light of Ordo, Einaudi’s and Röpke’s ideas of Europe.

The Core of economies with collective goods and a social division of labour

This paper considers the Core of a competitive market economy with private commodities as well as (non-Samuelsonian) collective goods that are provided through an endogenous social division of labour. Our approach is founded on the hypothesis that every agent is a “consumer–producer”—producing private commodities as well as consuming collective and private goods. We develop the $$\sigma$$ -Core concept, assuming that collective goods are scalable with community size. We show that the $$\sigma$$ -Core can be founded on deviations of coalitions of arbitrary size, extending the seminal insights of Vind and Schmeidler for pure exchange economies. Our analysis also shows that self-organisation in a social division of labour can be incorporated into the Edgeworthian barter process directly. This is formulated as an equivalence of the $$\sigma$$ -Core and a structured $$\sigma$$ -Core concept based on blocking coalitions that use internal divisions of labour. Furthermore, Grodal’s theorem is extended, allowing applications of metrics that express productive similarities between agents making up blocking coalitions. Finally, we consider the equivalence of the $$\sigma$$ -Core and the set of cost share equilibrium allocations.

The Credit Problem of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, the State Credit Policy of the Federal Ministry of the Economy and Financing by Credit Institutions, 1955 to 1963

This paper examines the demand of German Mittelstand businesses, or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - including the Handwerk (craft sector) and retail trades - for medium- and long-term capital in the mid-1950s, and how this demand was met by mobilizing capital from banking institutions, especially from savings banks and credit cooperatives, under the regulatory framework and policy coordination of the ministerial committee (Arbeitsausschus). The Bundeswirtschaftsministerium established this committee with delegates from interested groups among the Mittelstand and financial institutions in West Germany. Although impressive economic growth came in the 1950s, with high investments in many industries with public-sector assistance, Mittelstand firms suffered from a lack of capital, which changed their structure of performance, markets and ability to finance expansion of their business. The ministerial committee drafted guidelines and coordinated the interests of each Mittelstand group and banking institution to solve the problems in a competitive market economy. As individual incomes were restored and the capital market stabilized by the late 1950s, the financial support structure of the Mittelstand economy was built on regional savings banks, credit cooperatives, and credit-guarantee associations, providing them access to external capital in the early 1960s.

CURRENT CHALLENGES OF LEGAL EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY

Annotation on the collective monograph as generally edited by Sopilko I.M., Dey M.O. «Contemporary Challenges in Legal Education in the University Space». The reviewer points out that the monograph examines the important issues of legal education as the main lever of Ukraine's education system and the priority direction of the state's personnel policy. This is objectively conditioned by its social role and the task of forming a qualified legal corps, which is a condition for ensuring the progressive development of Ukrainian statehood, building civil society, promoting human rights and freedoms, creating a socially oriented and competitive market economy. The urgency of the monograph is due to the fact that in the conditions of globalization and liberalization, the interdependence of the countries of the world is enhanced and a gradual process of market integration is carried out. New conditions are causing a dramatic increase in the role of education and science in society. From now on, they are the basis and at the same time the main driving force of progress. Only those nations that have realized the full significance of these profound changes in time and responded to new challenges are likely to succeed. The focus on EU law and international law becomes a significant factor in the development of legislation in other countries, including Ukraine. Against this background, democratic change requires the harmonious development of the economic, political and legal systems. In this regard, the problems of restructuring the existing system of training of lawyers armed with modern knowledge, culture, high level of civic and social consciousness became urgent. This monograph is a fundamental scientific work, in the writing of which the co-authors proceeded from the concept of determining the role of education, culture and educational activity in the student environment. The issues of teaching methods teaching in the higher education system are studied separately. The reviewer concludes that the material presented in this paper will be useful for scientists, teachers, graduate students, students, practitioners, as well as employees of small and medium-sized businesses, business entities of all levels.

Sustainable development: Structural transformation and the consumer demand

This paper examines the feasibility of environmentally sustainable growth in a competitive market economy assuming various types of technological changes affecting pollution emissions and ultimately climate change. We consider two final outputs and two factors of production, accounting for both pollution flow and stock effects. If the initial level of pollution emissions satisfies certain boundary conditions, a Pigouvian pollution tax may assure sustainable growth without any further government intervention. This is true even if exogenous technological change is assumed to benefit exclusively the pollution-intensive industries (the “dirty” sector). A consumers’ composition effect (often neglected in the literature), driven by an endogenous change in the relative prices between clean and dirty final goods under an optimal pollution tax, plays a critical role in the structural transformation process to achieve long-run sustainable economic growth.

Sustainability Challenges of Fast Fashion: Environmental and Social Impacts of Cotton Growing and the Ready-Made Garment Industry in Turkey

Turkey is one of the main actors of the global ready-made garment manufacturing industry both as a crucial country for organic and conventional cotton cultivation and as an exporter of yarn, fabric, textile, and RMG. Being a developing country, Turkey benefits from agricultural and industrial activities as they create employment opportunities and boost the national economy and development. On the other hand, Turkey also struggles to cope with the costs of this economic growth, such as the adverse impacts on the environment and human rights. In fact, except for certain legal loopholes, Turkish labour law and relevant legislation on environmental protection are mostly harmonised with the EU standards. Therefore, the main problems, such as unregistered foremanship, unregistered employment, informal workshops, and undeclared subcontracting seem to stem from the loose enforcement of these laws due to the deficiencies in the legal system in general. Other reasons that prove to create challenges for an effective implementation and enforcement of laws include: firstly, social realities, such as an increase in population, as a result of the high birth rates, rural-urban migration, and refugee influx, which is followed by high unemployment rates; secondly, economic constraints, such as a competitive labour market, market economy, and expensive eco-friendly technology; and, finally, structural obstacles, such as the lack of advanced irrigation systems and drainage canals, all of which are examined in this study in relation to cotton cultivation and the RMG industry.

Emotional intelligence and service quality: a meta-analysis with initial evidence on cross-cultural factors and future research directions

In an increasingly competitive market economy, retailers are seeking ways to manage customer perceptions of their service quality. Selecting employees who are high on emotional intelligence (EI), and training employees in emotional competencies, may be ways to improve service quality. This meta-analysis tests the claims that EI improves service quality. The findings indicate that EI is significantly and positively related to service quality and that this relationship is stronger (1) for cultures that are short (versus long) term oriented and that are indulgent (versus restrained), and (2) for professional services and service shops than for mass services. The EI–service quality relationship does not differ between cultures that are masculine versus feminine and high versus low in uncertainty avoidance.

The theory of ordoliberalism and the principle of non-discrimination in EU law: implications for the Member States on the example of Polish Labour Code

The principle of non-discrimination lies at the heart of the socio-economic order of the EU, the main parameters of which are sustainable economic growth, price stability, a highly competitive social market economy aiming at full employment and social progress, inclusion and social cohesion, non-discrimination, including equality between women and men and social justice (TEU: art. 3.3). Therefore, the prohibition of discrimination becomes a sine qua non condition for achieving EU treaty goals, strongly correlated with the theory of ordoliberalism. The aim of the article is to analyse the normative way of securing the principle of non-discrimination in EU law in the perspective of ordoliberalism and its implications for Polish law. The authors intend to answer the research question about the extent to which ordoliberal theory had an impact on the development of the principle of non-discrimination, understood as a subjective right to equal treatment, regardless of individual characteristics, other than nationality, through the comparison of relevant provision of EU law and the Polish Labour Code.

Revisiting Frank H. Knight's 'The Ethics of Competition'

James M. Buchanan revisited his mentor’s famous 1923 essay “The Ethics of Competition” in an essay written for the centenary celebration of Frank Knight’s birth in 1985. Buchanan’s paper focused on the first section of Knight’s essay, and outlined why it provided an inadequate criticism of a competitive market economy. Essentially, the essay was flawed by what Buchanan understood to be a methodological ambiguity which formed the basis for Knight’s ethical critique. A year later, in Buchanan’s Nobel Lecture, he made no reference to Knight, despite have widely acknowledged in other ways his general indebtedness to Knight’s appreciation for competitive markets in forming his own approach to public choice. After reviewing the structure of Buchanan’s criticism, the paper turns to examine what Knight did with his views on ethics, economics, and social/political organization after the mid-1920s. Knight’s Weberian turn led him to abandon the “successive approximation” method he had argued in favor of in Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (1921), and instead seek an economics that provided general insights from an ideal type analysis of market interaction, combined with a) a comparative social and political institutional analysis; and b) a comparative study of ethical systems to evaluate which was appropriate to the problems of a liberal, democratic society. At the end, a brief look at Buchanan’s movement toward Knight on methodological issues after his Nobel Lecture is examined. Buchanan’s changes come from a new appreciation for increasing cost and social ideas and norms, as well as his growing appreciation for Knight’s notion of democracy as “government by discussion.”

China's E-Commerce: Empowering Rural Women?

AbstractThis article employs a feminist political economy perspective to explore the connection between e-commerce, entrepreneurship and gender in rural China. It discusses gendered engagement with, and discourses of, the new digital economy represented by Taobao villages, and asks: how has the success of rural e-commerce impacted the evolving gender mandate and hierarchy in a competitive market economy in rural China? Has rural women's participation in digital economic activities changed their gendered roles and the patriarchal structure in their family and village? This article argues that women's socioeconomic enablement does not necessarily translate into cultural and political empowerment. The enabling potential of female entrepreneurship is tempered by traditional constraints on women and digital capitalist exploitation of their cheap, flexible and docile labour.

Identify and Critically Examine Some of the Main Contemporary Issues and Challenges Facing Secondary School Leaders in China

This study is about issues and challenges of secondary school leaders are facing in China. It is seen as presenting the following features: lack of efficient funds in a secondary education which has become the sector of rapid growth with a decentralization of the Ministry of Education administration; run-off of high quality teachers in a competitive market economy; lower quality of teaching and learning between dilemmas of the traditional exam--oriented education and the new quality-oriented education that is being implemented as the Programme on Quality Education in the New Century which aims at developing quality of education. It is also seen as presenting the strategies in educational managements for principals as means to alleviate the problems in Chinese secondary schools.

Václav Šmejkal, Stanislav Šaroch and Pavel Svoboda, European Union as a Highly Competitive Social Market Economy – Legal and Economic Analysis, rw & w Science & New Media, Passau-Berlin-Prague 2016, pp. 178

Václav Šmejkal, Stanislav Šaroch and Pavel Svoboda, European Union as a Highly Competitive Social Market Economy – Legal and Economic Analysis, rw & w Science & New Media, Passau-Berlin-Prague 2016, pp. 178

Performance Analysis of Life Insurance Industry in India: West Bagalkot District

Indian economy and industry has undergone significant transformation since 1991-moving away from state controlled to a competitive market economy. The most remarkable of this transformation has been noted in the financial sector, particularly, in the Indian Insurance Industry which has opened up to all competitors-integrating financial services to the global economy. IRDA was established in 1999 to protect the interest of policyholders for promoting and ensuring orderly growth of the insurance industry and for matters connected therewith and also to amend the Insurance Act 1938, LIC Act 1956 and G.I. Business Act 1972. Under IRDA Act, 1999, Indian Insurance company means, any insurer being a company which is formed and registered under the companies Act, 1956, in which the aggregate holding of equity shares by a foreign company do not exceed 26% paid up equity capital of such Indian Insurance company and whose sole purpose is to carry on life or general or re-insurance business. Enhancement of this 26% to 49% is at higher level discussion stage.

Social mainstreaming through the European pillar of social rights: Shielding ‘the social’ from ‘the economic’ in EU policymaking

Implementing fiscal consolidation measures without first considering social stabilisers has led to turn what originally was an economic recession into a social crisis too. The economic and social divergences in Europe have increased to a point where the future of the social dimension of the EU has been put into question. There is however, a provision in the Treaties that obliges the EU to take into account social issues in all its policies and activities, namely, the so-called horizontal social clause enshrined in Article 9 TFEU. The potential of this clause to mainstream the social dimension of the EU and foster balance between social and economic policies has, however, not yet been untapped. The recently launched European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), which aims at achieving a highly competitive social market economy, brings to the table a number of rights-based objectives along with a number of indicators that might shed some light over the constraints faced by the horizontal social clause. This article aims at unravelling the potential of the horizontal social clause in envisioning parity between the social and the economic and providing a social pillar to the EU. This contribution provides first a legal analysis of Article 9 TFEU and it briefly discusses the problematic behind its poor implementation. Later, the potential of the horizontal social clause is discussed in the light of the current developments in the framework of economic governance. This article also suggests a number of scenarios where social mainstreaming should be duly implemented. It suggests that Article 9 TFEU may have an important role, in particular, with regard to austerity measures when envisioning it together with the EPSR.