Economics Award Research Articles

Digital transformation in organizational health and safety to mitigate Burnout Syndrome.

In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified Burnout Syndrome as an occupational risk factor, affecting an estimated 10% of workers, resulting in lost productivity and increased costs due to sick leave. Some claim that Burnout Syndrome has reached epidemic proportions in workplaces around the world. While signs of burnout are not difficult to identify and palliate, its real impact is not easy to measure, generating a number of risks for companies from possible loss of human talent to decreased productivity and diminished quality of life. Given the complexity of Burnout Syndrome, it must be addressed in a creative, innovative and systematic way; traditional approaches cannot be expected to deliver different results. This paper describes the experience where an innovation challenge was launched to collect creative ideas to identify, prevent or mitigate Burnout Syndrome through the use of technological tools and software. The challenge was endowed with an economic award and its guidelines stated that the proposals must be both creative and feasible from an economic and organizational point of view. A total of twelve creative projects were submitted, including each of them, the analysis, design and management plans, to envision an idea that is feasible and with the appropriate budget, implemented. In this paper, we present a summary of these creative projects and how the IRSST (Instituto Regional de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo) experts and leaders in OHS in the Madrid Region (Spain) envision their potential impact on improving the OHS landscape.

Winners of the World Marxian Economics Award (2021)

Winners of the World Marxian Economics Award (2021)

Acceptance Speech for the World Marxian Economics Award (I)

Acceptance Speech for the World Marxian Economics Award (I)

Quo vadis, "nobelovské" ocenění za ekonomické vědy?

Quo Vadis, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences? The so-called Nobel Prize in Economics is not one of the original Nobel Prizes according to the testament of A. B. Nobel. Although it has been the target of various critics since its inception in 1969, it has become the most prestigious economic award. The paper summarizes more than 50 years of the history of this award, including the focus of the laureates, and asks - sometimes provocative - questions about the perspectives of economic science in the 21st century.

Korea’s Saemaul Undong as a Controlled Economic Development Experiment Merits a Nobel Prize

This paper evaluates Korea’s Saemaul Undong as a “controlled economic development policy experiment” no less favorably than the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize-winning research, the Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). Saemaul Undong had adopted a discriminative incentive policy rule defined as “economic discrimination” (ED) that helps only those villages that help themselves based on their actual performances. It had successfully driven Korea’s now well-known development miracle by transforming virtually 30 million people of all towns in Korea to people with a self-helping mindset within a short ten years from 1970 to 79. The Saemaul Undog turns out to be the pathfinder for modern-day behavioral and experimental economics. In this regard, The RCT is not comparable to Saemaul Undong in terms of originality, scale, and achievement. The paper then presents the sustainable model of rural development for poverty alleviation based on the Saemaul Undong experience and a “general theory of economic development” by this author. This model specifies the holy trinity of rural development; the rural markets consisting of rural households, the village organizations inclusive of all households managed by the village leaders playing the role of entrepreneur, and the government, that need to work concertedly to set and enforce the ED rule. In addition, the government needs to supplement the formal ED rule with self-help mindset education for motivation and continuously allocate rural infrastructure and cash-generating projects to be undertaken by the individual villages according to the ED policy rule. Finally, the paper argues that Korea’s experiences of successful economic development, including rural development, had been a test-bed for this model and amounts to confirm its empirical validation. The paper concludes that the Saemaul Undong policy and the theory behind it may be more than enough to merit the Nobel Economics Award.

Премия «Тульский бизнес» в условиях пандемии

In the article, the author considers the award «Tula Business- 2020». For 10 years, «Tula Business» has become the most valuable economic award in the region. Its purpose is to identify the best company in Tula and improve the comprehension of the participants. Over the years, the «Tula Business» award attracts funds to the regional economy and establishes beneficial cooperation for companies both within the region and abroad. The 2020 pandemic makes a difficult situation for the organizers but all the elements of solemnity were observed, and the presentation of the award «Tula Business-2020» becоmes a notable event in the region.

Winners of the World Marxian Economics Award (2019)

Winners of the World Marxian Economics Award (2019)

A longer way in: Tryouts as alternative hiring arrangements in organizations

In this article we introduce and propose a research agenda on tryouts, a hiring arrangement in which individuals spend time in organizations performing job-related work prior to the chance to become regular, full-time employees. We define tryouts as a construct and discuss how tryouts differ from traditional, direct hiring. We provide a typology of alternative hiring arrangements that serve as tryouts and evidence for their utilization. We theorize that tryouts stem from changes in the nature of work, organizations, and labor markets in the 21st century. For labor market researchers, we raise questions about not only the consequences of tryouts—such as who is hired, what kinds of jobs they lead to for workers, and the social and economic awards attached to such jobs—but also about the motivations of individuals who engage in tryouts, how these motivations (and the consequences of tryouts) differ across demographic groups, and how tryouts may create multi-tiered hiring systems. For organizational scholars, we suggest that tryouts update theoretical conceptualizations of hiring, and lead organizational behaviors to commence during hiring that demand further attention. While worthy of study in their own right, we also discuss reasons that tryouts offer an “ontological laboratory” for assessing theories on organizations, labor markets, and the origins and remediation of workplace inequality.

Acceptance Speech for the World Marxian Economics Award (I)

Acceptance Speech for the World Marxian Economics Award (I)

The plural roots of rewards: awards and incentives in Aquinas and Genovesi

In this economic debate, incentives (material, extrinsic) and awards (symbolic, intrinsic) are conceived as two opposite tools to prompt human actions. In this article, we provide a historical argument to problematise this opposition. We investigate the idea of prizes (“premi”) in the works of civil economist Antonio Genovesi, and its seeds in Thomas Aquinas’ thought. They both discuss if material rewards can crowd-in intrinsic motivations. Aquinas considered the crowding-out risks related to honour (award). Genovesi stressed the role of private prizes (incentives) and market in fostering the development of society, and claims that crowding-in is more common than crowding-out.

Weaknesses of contemporary management methods in the opinion of managerspractitioners

Weaknesses of contemporary management methods in the opinion of managers-practitioners The article analyzes two issues: a short description of the most important (according to the author) 15 contemporary management methods and the presentation of the opinion of the group of 18 top managers of medium and large enterprises from the Lodz region, nominated by local governments for the Lodz Voivodship Economic Award in the year 2017 on “knowledge and practical use of modern management methods”.

Winners of World Marxian Economics Award (2017)

Winners of World Marxian Economics Award (2017)

Acceptance Speech for World Marxian Economics Award (II): Marxism is Simply the Social Science of Our Time

Acceptance Speech for World Marxian Economics Award (II): Marxism is Simply the Social Science of Our Time

Winners of World Marxian Economics Award (2018)

Winners of World Marxian Economics Award (2018)

Acceptance Speech for World Marxian Economics Award (III)

June 17, 2016It is such an honor for me to receive the World Marxian Economics Award by highly valuing my contribution to the development of Marxist economics through my research activities and their results. I am sincerely grateful for that.Some days ago, my new book titled Marx's Theory of Interest-Bearing came out in Japanese. four-volume book consists of my various articles on Marx's theory of interest-bearing capital that I published over the last 30 years since 1982, though I improved and expanded them profiting from this opportunity.The book aims truly to reconstruct Marx's theory of interest-bearing capital through philological analyses of his own manuscripts and to convey it to readers because it is not able to see it when one reads the Engels's edition of volume III of Capital.After Marx's death, Engels found a number of manuscripts for Volume II and III of Capital, and he decided to edit the manuscript to publish them as Volume II and III, respectively. He was able to publish his own edition of Volume II shortly within a year and half. However, it took him 9 years to finish editing Volume III. main reason for consuming such a long period of time was the enormous difficulty in editing the fifth chapter of the manuscript that deals with interest-bearing capital. After a lot of hardships, Engels modified Marx's incomplete manuscript here and there and finally managed to publish his edition of Volume III that reasonably looks like a complete text. Without doubt, his skill of editing is astonishing. Nonetheless, Engels' own interpretation ended up creating Part V of his edition, which significantly differs from the characteristic and structure of the fifth chapter originally intended by Marx.In 1981/82 I conducted research on Marx's original manuscript for Volume III of in the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, and I was also able to read its deciphered text in the Institute for Marxism-Leninism in Moscow. I came to realize Engels's bias at the time. Since then over 30 years I have documented the difference between the fifth chapter of Marx's manuscript and the Part V of the Engels's edition in order to reveal what Marx analyzed in the fifth chapter of Volume III of Capital.In 1993, MEGA volume II/4.2 was published, and it became possible to read Marx's first manuscript of Volume III in a printed format. Before that I conducted my research based on my own notebooks that I made during my stay in Amsterdam and Moscow, but after the publication of the MEGA edition I can also use this edition while examining the content of Marx's manuscript.My new book marks the point where I reached after 30 years.In my book, I aimed at carefully examining how Engels edited the fifth chapter of Marx's own manuscript for Volume III, The Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital and created Part V of the current Engels's edition, so that I can reveal Marx's original structure and content of the chapter, which has become invisible in the Engels's edition.The fifth chapter of Marx's manuscript consists of six sections divided by title numbers with or without head titles. Sections 1 to 5 deal with his theoretical analysis of interest-bearing capital under the capitalist mode of production, and Section 6 is a historical description of the process in which the capitalist mode of production subsumed usurer's capital in the precapitalist mode of production under itself, transforming it to the modern interest-bearing capital. With regard to the first five sections, sections 1 to 4 largely correspond to Chapters 21 to 24 in the Engels's edition, and they maintain their original figure. Section 6 also is almost identical with Chapter 36, the last chapter of the Engels's edition. Thus, the problem revolves around Section 5 titled by Marx Credit. Fictitious Capital. Engels edited this section and divided it into 11 chapters (Chapters 25 to 35). …

Shortchanging Small Business: How Big Businesses Dominate State Economic Development Incentives

An analysis of more than 4,200 economic development incentive awards in 14 states finds that large companies received dominant shares, ranging between 80 and 96 percent of their dollar values. The deals, worth more than $3.2 billion, were granted in recent years by programs that, on their faces, are equally accessible to small and large companies. Yet big businesses overall were awarded 90 percent of the dollars from the programs analyzed, indicating a profound bias against small businesses.The fact that there is a slight amount of variation in the degree of big-business dominance among the states is not meaningful, since the programs vary in their targeting as does the industrial composition of the states covered. The key finding is how consistently the programs favor big businesses. This study errs to the generous in counting small businesses by assuming every award is to a small business unless proven otherwise. It also uses a multiple-variable set of criteria to define large businesses, informed by the small business groups whose opinions we recently published. Those criteria account for employment size as well as total number of establishments and local or independent ownership. Given small businesses’ important role in the economy — and their still-lingering credit access problems coming out the Great Recession — this massive allocation of tax breaks to big businesses is wasteful and ineffective economic development policy. As a policy solution, we do not recommend a simple reallocation of deals and dollars. Incentives such as those analyzed here often mean little to small businesses. Small business leaders whom we surveyed in our recent report In Search of a Level Playing Field, say that public goods such as education, transportation and job training that benefit all employers deserve more support. They emphasized that the long-lingering credit crunch from the Great Recession is their greatest challenge. To fund these public investments and credit access needs, we recommend that states reform their incentive rules by narrowing eligibility to exclude large recipients. One could call it means testing corporate welfare. To do so is entirely consistent with the theory of incentives, which is to address “market imperfections,” or to “prime the pump” and then pull back when the market’s invisible hand takes over.At the very least, states should substantially reduce the total amount of subsidy dollars flowing to big businesses, using safeguards such as dollar caps per deal (to end the surge since 2008 in nine- and ten-figure “megadeals”), dollar caps per job (to prevent the astronomical subsidy rates associated with capital-intensive projects like micro-chip fabrication plants), and dollar caps per company (to prevent a dominant employer from distorting spending).

Amartya Sen, The country of first boys

His original approach to human development having been broadly spread within the academic curricula as well as in the major international institutions, Amartya Sen needs no introduction. Although he received the economic science award in honour of Alfred Nobel from the Royal Swedish Bank in 1998, Sen can not be classified as being simply an economist –at least not in the narrower sense of the term. The present book confirms that heis a rare specimen of that endangered species: the ‘global int...

Acceptance Speech for World Marxian Economics Award (II)

June 17, 2016Dear scholars and comrades,It is a pleasant surprise for me to learn that World Association for Political Economy (WAPE) has granted me its World Marxian Economics Award of 2016. I am very grateful. I understand that World Marxian Economics Award is for lifetime contributions to scientific innovation with aim of encouraging prosperity and development of Marxist economics throughout world. It is my honor to receive this award.I was born in April 1932 in a poor farmer's family in Gaoyou County, Jiangsu Province, China. I know much about poverty, backwardness and social contradictions of rural life in China. I witnessed Japanese invaders burning, killing and looting in my hometown, and I saw New Fourth Army's brave resistance in anti-Japanese struggle. These memories are still fresh in my mind.I was educated first in an old-style private school for a few years and studied in a countryside primary normal school for about 2 years. I did not go to middle school because my poor family could not afford it. I studied by myself to serve, my motherland and my people. I entered Renmin University of China in 1955 to study political economy and had chance to read more classics of Marx's economic works. After graduation from university, I kept on reading and doing more research on Marx's classic works from which I have benefited my whole life.The 10 volumes of Yifeng Wu published in 2015 show what I have learnt from Marx and how to apply Marx's economics. There are four interrelated themes: research in Marxist economics, research in Western economics, research in economic theory and reality, and comparative studies of Marxist economics and Western economics. A book review entitled Development of Economics through Comparative Study-Reading Yifeng Wu Anthology in People's Daily on February 3, 2016, said that the book is grounded in reality and demonstrates thorough research on a series of core problems in Marx's economics . . . It is of great significance.Many Chinese news media affirmed my position and views. They said that I am a Marxist Economist on People's Daily, I hold fast to Marxist economic theories on Chinese Social Sciences Weekly, and I am an economist of people whose work is based on Marxism on China Economic Times.Overview of Academic Achievements of Renowned Chinese Scientists in 20th Century, as part of national key books publishing project (under Qian Weichang's general editorship), summarizes my academic achievements as follows:1. Study of Origin of Marxist Economic TheoriesBritish Classical Economic Theories and Utopian Socialism are most important works in my study of origin of Marxist economic theories.British Classical Economic Theories presents a series of new views different from similar works at home and abroad. It argues that all economists who represented emerging capitalist class in rising stage of capitalism, and who studied internal relations within capitalist mode of production and relations of production, belong to school of classical economics. Those economists who tried to conceal capitalist contradictions and class antagonism when class struggle became acute do not belong to classical school. In this book, I divide Classical British Economic Theories into three stages, namely, emergence, development and culmination, and examined theories and policy propositions of 15 representative economists from these stages with my own comments. Its publication was reported in People's Daily and Guangming Daily, and reviewed in Economic Research and World Economy. They said that the book has both theoretical depth and makes a new contribution to its field. In 1995, it won First Prize of Award for Outstanding Achievement in Humanities and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities.In Utopian Socialism, I divide utopian socialism into four stages and discuss history of its origin, developments and gradual decline. …

Winners of World Marxian Economics Award (2016)

Winners of World Marxian Economics Award (2016)

Acceptance Speech for World Marxian Economics Award

June 19, 2015It is an honor of mine to receive the 2015 World Marxian Economics Award from the World Association of Political Economy (WAPE). My sincere gratitude goes to WAPE and the award committee. My age and health conditions do not allow my presence at this conference, but let me use this alternative way to share with you my experience in the research of Marxist economic theories.In 1956-1959, I studied in the graduate program at the Department of Economics, Remin University of China. In addition to the classes of Marxist economists such as Song Tao, Su Xing, etc., I took time to carefully read volumes 1-3 of Capital as well as major works of other founders of Marxism. In retrospect, these three years not only provided the basic knowledge in Marxist economic theories but also led me to become a real Marxist in terms of the view of the world.In 1959, I completed my graduate study and started to work in the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences after 1978), which was the beginning of my research career in Marxist economic theory. In 1985, I retired at the age of 60, but my research has never stopped. In over half a century, I have published five monographs and about 150 journal articles.Now I would like to share with you my reflections on a few important theoretical issues that have long occupied my mind.First, the Historical Positioning of the Preliminary Stage of SocialismIn 1987, Deng Xiaoping pointed out that China was still at the preliminary stage of socialism, a fact that should be the starting point of everything to be done. The concept of preliminary stage of socialism differs from Marx's idea of the first phase of communism, Lenin's transitional period, or Mao Zedong's new democracy. The question is, is there any support for such a concept from the theoretical system of Marxism? Marx's idea of five successive stages of social development, i.e., primitive society, slave society, feudalism, capitalist society, socialism and capitalism, can be seen in quite a few of his works. Marx also suggests in the Economic Manuscripts 1857-1858 a three-stage i.e., from relations of dependence to personal independence founded on objective dependence and then to universal development of individuals with individual labor as social labor from the very beginning. From the perspective of political economy, the five-stage model is based on production, especially the evolution of the ownership of the means of production, while the three-stage model is based on that of exchange relations. The two models reveal the general law of the development of production and exchange, respectively. It is their unity that provides a means to measure any specific stage of social development. China has taken a rather special route from the new democratic revolution to socialism. In the sense of the fivestage model, after the confiscation of bureaucrat-capital and the socialist transformation of national bourgeoisie, public ownership became the main body of the national economy, which indicated that China had crossed the Caudine Forks and entered the first stage of socialism. From the perspective of the three-stage model, however, commodity economy and market economy is yet to be developed, and people will still be involved in labor exchange through market and commodity forms. That is to say, China will remain in the second stage for a long time. Hence, the perspective that integrates the five-stage model and the three-stage model will allow us to grasp theoretically more accurate the scientific content of the preliminary stage of socialism.Second, the Distribution According to Labor at the Preliminary Stage of SocialismMarx suggests that the first stage of communism is characteristic of the distribution of consuming goods according to labor, and commodity economy and market economy will no longer exist. …