Contemporary Economic Theory Research Articles

Mapping Journals and Researcher Contributions in the Realm of Islamic Economic Education: A Bibliometric Review

This bibliometric review provides a systematic analysis of scholarly contributions in the realm of Islamic economic education, a multidisciplinary field that integrates Islamic principles with contemporary economic theory and practice. Drawing upon bibliometric techniques including citation analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, and visualization tools, the study identifies prominent journals, highly cited publications, thematic clusters, and emerging trends within Islamic economic education. The findings offer insights into the evolution, impact, and future directions of research in this field, highlighting its significance in promoting economic empowerment and social justice within Islamic societies. Practical implications derived from the analysis inform curriculum development, policy formulation, and strategic planning initiatives, facilitating informed decision-making for academia, policy-makers, and practitioners. Overall, this bibliometric review contributes to advancing knowledge in Islamic economics and underscores its relevance in addressing contemporary socio-economic challenges.

DOES THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS LEAD TO A SUSTAINABLE WORLD? CORE CONCEPTS AND CROSS CUTTING ISSUES

The challenges associated with implementing SDGs at the state level require a thoughtful consideration of contemporary economic theories, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovative approaches such as the Landscape Approach. Understanding the influence of neoliberal economic agendas, refining implementation frameworks, and embracing dynamic, adaptive strategies will be essential for navigating the complex landscape of sustainable development. The challenges in implementing Sustainable Development Goals are intricate and diverse, ranging from political and bureaucratic hurdles to financial and social complexities. Collaborative efforts, transparency, and transformative changes are essential to overcome these challenges and make meaningful progress toward achieving sustainability objectives. Additionally, in the context of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, the barriers and opportunities are highlighted across various dimensions, encompassing economic, environmental, and geopolitical aspects.

Impact of dividends and capital intensity of labour on real wages in post-communist economies

This paper aims to verify gains and losses from foreign direct investment as well as outflow of capital in the form of dividends from Central and Eastern Europe. The topic of dividend outflow is currently at the centre of political as well as media interest. At the same time, it is prone to simplistic interpretations and possible political intervention might exert a significant negative social impact. The contemporary economic theory and empirical research are in relative consensus on the positive effects of foreign investment. Most notably, it increases capital endowment of labour. However, the questions that have not yet been resolved are the rate of intensity, phases and channels of foreign capital flows. The effect of foreign investment during the different phases of foreign life-cycle is practically unexplored. The need for this type of research does not arise in Western Europe’s economies as they are in a position of creditor compared to Central and Eastern Europe. Therefore, the article examines whether the outflow of dividends is associated with the deterioration of aggregate demand or an increase of export capacities. Through the panel regression method, these relationships are captured in Western Europe’s economies and compared with the Central and Eastern Europe’s economies. The effect of capital intensity and dividend outflow on real wages in the post-communist countries was examined. The findings break down the myth portrayed in the media concerning the cost of dividend outflow and, on the contrary, they confirm substantial benefits stemming from the capital inflow. Late stages of foreign investment cycle connected with dividend outflow do not bear any adverse effects. The high profitability of foreign-controlled enterprises is in line with the favourable wage development of domestic labour force.

The genesis of contemporary economic theory, by Alexander Tobón Arias

Is economic theory still useful today? In a new book, Alexander Tobón Arias answers that question (I’ll come back to this at the end) as he presents and attempts to promote the history of economic theory. The author was motivated to write this book by a “growing contempt of many economists for economic theory” in favor of applied economics. The synthesis he proposes aims to shed light on theoretical economics.

On the Assumptions of the Cobb-Douglas Production Function and Their Assessment in Contemporary Economic Theory

On the Assumptions of the Cobb-Douglas Production Function and Their Assessment in Contemporary Economic Theory

Эпохальные открытия Николая Кондратьева и их место в современной экономической науке

The article describes 130th years since the birth of outstanding Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev (1892–1938) and the 100th anniversary of the publication of his main scientific work “World Economy and its conjunctures ...”. The article presents three his great discoveries: the long waves of innovation in economic growth ranging from forty to sixty years; the second, the dynamism and instability of the market economy, which was explained only later, at the end of the 20th century, by synergistic economics; and the third, the need for the government’s active response to crises in economy by stimulating the self-regulation mechanisms inherent in market relationships. Kondratiev’s theory predated Keynesianism, which appeared during the Great Depression in the 1930s. The long wave theory was taken further by Joseph A. Schumpeter in his famous theory of economic development in the 1930s. In addition, the article outlines the prospects of development of the ‘Schumpeterian synthesis’ combining contemporary economic theory with Kondratiev– Schumpeter’s theory of innovative cyclical economic development. The key principles of the long-term forecasting of socio-economic development from the perspective of Kondratiev’s long wave theory are highlighted. The study proposes an information model of technological progress suitable for long-term forecasting of economic and technological development in the 21st century. The most suitable modes of production of technological information for the development of the information (1982–2018) and digital (2018–2050) economies are described. A special focus is made on the case of the US economic development. Forecasts are calculated to describe the future trajectories of technological progress and economic growth in the digital era (2018–2042) in the upward phase of the 6th K-wave.

Hansenova i Samersova hipoteza o sekularnoj stagnaciji u makroekonomiji

At a times when the world's most developed and those less developed economies are recording historically weak levels of economic performance after the Great Recession of 2008, when the world is facing decades of low demographic growth, in the frames of macroeconomic theory Summers revives the discussion about Hansen's once-debated and forgotten "old" secular stagnation hypothesis through a "new" secular stagnation hypothesis. Consequently, the subject of research in this paper are Hansen's "old" and Summers' "new" secular stagnation hypotheses, which together belong to Keynesian theories of stagnation and are based on the demand-side causes. The aim of this paper is to analyze, present and explain the key determinants of the observed instances in macroeconomic theory, trying to contribute to contemporary economic theory in terms of a critical analysis of the secular stagnation hypothesis of the two most important theoretical points of view in the macroeconomic thought.

Magnitudes in Badiouʼs Objective Phenomenology and Economic Consumer Choice

The young Marx once remarked that political economy finds itself in an estranged form and is therefore in desperate need of a critical reconstruction of its object [Gegenstand]. He proposed a complete deconstruction of economic objectivity and its categories, hoping to recover the true species-life of man. In the article, we assert that contemporary economic theory remains confined by this estrangement, despite managing to ‘revolutionize’ itself out of the grip of classical political economy. The subjectivist-marginalist reliance on ‘measurable’ consumer preferences not only solidified the discipline’s estrangement, but also wrested away any remaining basic principles of economics through neoclassical reconceptualization. A break with estrangement would require novel critical economic thinking that would do away with the discontinuity between classical and neoclassical (contemporary) economics. It would therefore need a rich enough framework to scrutinize its principal categories. We argue that Alain Badiou’s objective phenomenology possesses a complementary synchronic structure able to conform to basic economic tenets, allowing for a comparative and synthetic approach. This would then be the basis for a new model of economic theorizing. We conclude the article with Marx’s value form, seeing it as a possible central category of a newly proposed economic framework.

Accounting, publicity and class conflict in Victorian Britain

This paper studies the role of publicly available accounting information in class conflict between capital and labour in Victorian Britain. The company investigated – the Staveley Coal & Iron Company Ltd – is one of the earliest industrial enterprises registered under the Companies Act 1862. The period studied is 1863, when the company was incorporated, through to 1900 by which time the workforce comprised approximately 6400 colliery and iron workers. The history of the company is contextualised in two ways. First, by positioning it within the coal and iron industry in terms of market share, size and profitability. Second, by locating Staveley’s labour management policies within relevant contemporary economic theory. It is then revealed, through an in-depth study of the company’s archives, that the directors sought to manage and manipulate the workforce through the provision of welfare facilities and by denying worker access to accounting information relevant for wage bargaining purposes. The study also unveils the directors’ report as an instrument deployed to project the image of a caring employer and to explain, to its shareholders, the sound business sense of committing resources for that purpose.

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСНОВЫ ОСУЩЕСТВЛЕНИЯ ДИВЕРСИФИКАЦИИ В АГРАРНОМ СЕКТОРЕ ЭКОНОМИКИ

The issue of revealing the essence of the concept of «diversification» in contemporary economic theory is relevant. This is associated not only to conceptual theoretical approaches, but also to the development of the global diversification process in the real sector of economy, including in the agro- industrial complex. The article examines the existing interpretations of this concept and identifies its distinctive features. Definitions are quite heterogeneous and it is difficult to form an unambiguous idea on their basis what is meant by diversification. This is due to the use of this term in various fields. Basedon the definitions of diversification examined in the article, the authors propose to consider diversity as its distinguishing feature, or rather its expansion, which can be expressed in an increase in the range of products, types of production, emergence of new fields of activity. As a feature of the research approach of various authors, the fact uniting their views on interpretation is that they consider diversification in the economy at various levels. The following types of diversification can be distinguished among the possible: structural and sectoral (depending on the level of the economic system); financial, production, trade, infrastructure, etc. (depending on the scope of application); internal and external (depending on the territorial/ local principle). The study of the theoretical foundations of diversification allows concluding that the conceptual foundations of diversification need to be refined. The heterogeneity of the structure of agricultural production and the economy in rural areas necessitates a comprehensive consideration of diversification in relation to the agricultural sphere and pointing out its system-forming elements.

The Wage Fund Theory and the Gains from Trade in a Dynamic Ricardian Model

This paper explores the role of wage fund as the basic source of credit, capital or finance in a dynamic Ricardian model, which consists of three classes of agents: the workers, the capitalist, and the producers of goods. We introduce and develop an elaborate dynamic wage fund model in the context of contemporary economic theory. The modified golden rule can be derived based on a mechanism significantly different from the standard Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans optimal growth framework. We also show that, although international trade in a static setting in the wage fund framework has real asymmetric distributional effects on the welfare of the agents just like the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, those asymmetric distributional impacts are nullified in the dynamic setting. In fact, trade liberalization is Pareto improving along the balanced growth path.

Economic cycle and economic consequences of the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the Czech Republic

Research background: The global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is for human society unprecedented. Coronavirus is dramatically changing people’s lives, and despite of uncertainty about the future, it is certain that its global consequences will have many dimensions. The it is undeniable that there have been significant economic impacts are unquestionable today impacts. The Czech economy, like the rest of the world, is facing an unexpected exogenous shock. This being manifests itself with varying intensity both at the level of sub-markets and on the side of aggregate supply and demand. It is literally a textbook example, explaining the outbreak of the downturn phase of the business cycle. Nevertheless, the sudden slowdown of economic activity as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, quarantine and the state of emergency, has many specificities across countries. Purpose of the article: The primary goal of this article is to analyze the economic consequences of the pandemic crisis in the reality of the Czech Republic. On this basis, it identifies the specifics of a pandemic crisis, in the context of a broader framework of economic theories of business cycles. Methods: The analytical part of the article is processed based on publicly available statistical data and economic forecasts. The derivation and argumentation of the conclusions is based on an empiric-inductive approach, methods of synthesis and comparison. Findings & Value added: The article maps the business direct and mediated economic contexts of the economic cycle caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the reality of the Czech Republic. It identifies the differences and specifics of the downward phase of the pandemic business cycle and derives their possible long-term impacts. At the theoretical level, the ambition of the article is to bring new knowledge to the contemporary economic theory of business cycles.

Why Forrester Wished to Replace Both Differential Equations and Economics?

While many eminent economists have expressed disdain about the abstract nature of contemporary economic theory and how it is removed from reality, few offer a cogent solution to this problem. Jay Forrester, a control engineer turned economist proposed replacing the abstract economic model with a manager-based construct. He also aspired to replace differential equations with an intuitive integration process that can be implemented on a digital computer. This paper attempts to understand how economic theory separated from reality and how modeling using Forrester’s intuitive calculus can make it verifiable and operational.

Jews and Muslims in Globalization Literature and Theory From William Shakespeare to Ayad Akhtar

The use of Jewishness as a trope for understanding contemporary economic theories arguably originates with Karl Marx’s characterization of the commodity as an “inwardly circumcised Jew”, which Slavoj Žižek extends to include money itself. The notion of commodity is central to contemporary economic and globalization theory, and Marx’s characterization of it has gone largely unchallenged. At a time when circumcision as a religious practice is once again controversial, we would do well to attend to such discourse. I contend that many of the discourses and problems that inhere to both popular and theoretical constructions of globalization – such as circumcision, nationalism and cosmopolitanism – impact Muslims and Jews alike, often in strikingly parallel and interconnected ways. By way of illustration, I undertake a reading of the literary oeuvre of Ayad Akhtar, a Muslim-American writer of Pakistani descent. While his work is best known for its critical examination of the place and identity of the American Muslim in the post-9/11 world, I argue Jewish–Muslim intimacy is the key to Akhtar’s identity politics, a fact which reframes questions of globalization, and ought to trouble its contemporary theorizations. Far from being a subject of theological or ethnographic interest, I contend that the Jew in the literature and culture of South Asia and its diaspora provides a set of discursive practices for negotiating transnational and non-local identities, such as South Asian Muslim, diasporic Indian and global citizen.

Was Sismondi a “Smithian” Critic of Industrialization?

The article recasts the economic writings of Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi, and his critique of industrialization in particular, in light of Sismondi’s self-proclaimed indebtedness to Adam Smith. Sismondi’s economic thought was shaped by his opposition to Napoleon’s protectionist economic policies and took the form of a critique of monopolies made in the name of the common good. After Waterloo and the collapse of the empire, Sismondi developed a critique of the British school of political economy and its corresponding model of economic development through the generalization of wage labor, mechanization, and large-scale farming. In his last years, during the early 1830s, Sismondi took aim at “industrialism” itself, a term which for him grouped together all those contemporary economic theories asserting that society should be organized by and for production exclusively. However, throughout his career as an economist, in developing these opinions Sismondi claimed to be faithful to Adam Smith’s understanding of what political economy should be. This article seeks to demonstrate that Sismondi’s theoretical production was deeply rooted in his evolving “neo-Smithianism.”

The Two Demands: Why a Demand for Non-Consumable Money is Different From a Demand For Consumable Goods

The paper explicitly discusses the key differences between a demand for consumables and demand for (non-consumable) credit money. For example, in contrast to consumables, money cannot be demanded by only one agent; it is a stock variable; credit requires special arrangements to implement trust now to clear up a debt later; for a finite time period there is zero demand for nonconsumable money (Hahn paradox). These issues are important for developing micro-foundations of monetary macroeconomics, including those for a liquidity trap and credit crunches, not well investigated in existing literature. Contemporary economic theory already has some answers, initiated by works of Martin Shubik. These micro-foundations are vitally important for understanding a credit crisis and credit cycle as interactions between real and financial sectors of economic systems.

Город как модель и форма общественного развития (об учебнике «Урбанистика. Городская экономика, развитие и управление»)

The paper provides a review of the case study textbook for university students called 'Urbanistics. Urban economy, development and management' of URAIT Publishers (Moscow). The reviewed book is valuably pro-active in urban policies and assists professional training of students who clearly understand the nature of urbanization processes, the respective findings in the spatial development of the country, its regions and urban planning as such. The textbook is written by a large team of 23 authors representing universities, research and project design institutions. Besides its formal key parameters this state-of-the art teaching guide offers attractive references to YouTube lectures of Russian and world scientists. It appears that students would have been grateful if considerable massifs of training material had been supplemented with 'summaries' of all the textbook chapters helping the authors systematically present their views and helping the students see the logics and key reference points of the course; also if an expanded glossary of main notions had been added. The ambitious task set by the authors in a systemic description of contemporary realia of a city as an object, including contemporary economic theories, problems of population, economy and finance has been basically met. By way of summarizing we can note that the engaged lecturer and a smart student will find the textbook both interesting and useful

Izazovi racionalne teorije izbora u savremenoj ekonomskoj nauci

In the focus of the paper there are some basic insights and ideas of rational choice theory, that is the "core" of contemporary economic theory. Also, rational choice theory is the "center" of modern political science and is used in various other scientific disciplines, such as: sociology, philosophy, political science, psychology, and the like. There are two main goals of this paper. One is to point out the limitations of rational choice theory as one of the theories of economic behavior (and decision making). The second goal is to analyze certain problems detected during the application of the rational choice theory in economics and to adequately consider the importance of alternative concepts, models, and theories from the point of view of improving the understanding of economic, social, political, and other processes in the economy and society as a whole.

Teorija racionalnog izbora - ograničenja i alternative

In the focus of the paper there are some basic insights and ideas of rational choice theory, that is the "core" of contemporary economic theory. Also, rational choice theory is the "center" of modern political science and is used in various other scientific disciplines, such as: sociology, philosophy, political science, psychology and the like. There are two main goals of this paper. One is to point out the limitations of rational choice theory as one of the theories of economic behavior (and decision making). The second goal is to analyze psychological programs of research of heuristics and bias in behavioral economics and to consider the importance of alternative concepts, models and theories from the point of view of improving the understanding of economic and social behavior.

The European Court of Justice and the More Economic Approach to EU Competition Law—Is the Tide Turning?

In the late 1990s, the European Commission embarked on a mission to bring EU competition policy more into line with contemporary economic theory. Over a period of ten years, it systematically revised key legal concepts of all three pillars of EU competition law. Most importantly, it adopted the consumer welfare aim, revised its understanding of competitive harm and countervailing effects accordingly, and committed itself to carrying out more in-depth assessments of the investigated conduct’s effects instead of relying on form-based presumptions of illegality. Initially, many tenets of the more economic approach were in conflict with the case law of the European Court of Justice, which had a broader understanding of the aims of EU competition law. However, after a few initial set-backs for the Commission, several recent judgments in cases such as MEO, Intel, Post Danmark I, and Cartes Bancaires suggest that the Court’s understanding of EU competition law is evolving and that it is willing to embrace at least a few of the Commission’s revised principles. In particular, it is adopting a more effects-based approach to assessing business conduct and is cautiously curbing its former concept of harm in exclusionary situations. At the same time, however, it continues to adhere to many of its former freedom- and fairness-based principles, so that a number of uncertainties and inconsistencies remain.