Role Of Government In Economy Research Articles

Parliaments’ involvement in the Recovery and Resilience Facility

ABSTRACT The article analyses the national parliaments’ role in assessing and following up on national Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRP) as a proxy for their further involvement in Economic Governance. It also highlights the scope available for the European Parliament in RRP scrutiny, and possible ways forward for a common parliamentary approach to upcoming challenges. The article proposes to deepen interparliamentary (national and at the EU level) cooperation and interaction with other EU stakeholders, like the EU Court of Auditors, the national fiscal boards, and the European Commission. Furthermore, COSAC is recognised and suggested as one of the appropriate platforms for such cooperation. Considerations on parliaments’ overall role in Economic Governance underlie the analysis.

Technocratic Keynesianism: a paradigm shift without legislative change

ABSTRACT Despite anticipated curtailment of their powers, the past decade saw technocratic actors take on an increasingly powerful role in economic governance. Focusing on the EU, I analyse these epochal shifts as a move away from the market liberal paradigm that informed the 1992 European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The 1992 EMU combines a highly restrictive attitude to public money creation with a permissive laissez-faire attitude to private credit money. In the face of the dual crises of COVID-19 and the climate emergency, EU technocrats have abandoned key tenets of the EMU. The European Central Bank provides targeted and large-scale support for pandemic-related fiscal expenditures. Banking regulators and supervisors actively guide the allocation of credit with an eye to its economic and environmental impact. However, constitutional structures lag ideational shifts and the new technocracy is haunted by issues of legality and legitimacy. To pursue the new policies within the old constitutional structures, policymakers engage in strategic ambiguity: the policies are justified in terms of both new economic policy priorities, as well as by reference to the instruments and goals of the earlier market liberal paradigm.

ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE SCOPE OF GOVERNMENT: DO WE HAVE A GENERATION GAP?

Today an impact of government on citizens’ daily life is bigger than ever before. The extent to which people support governmental actions is related with their support of the whole political system. The scope of government varies across different states as well as people’s attitudes towards it also vary considerably. The scope of government, according O. Borre and E. Scarbrough (1998), is referred to both the range of government activity and the degree to which governments engage in activities, such as spending on services, taxing, regulating citizens and regulating their behaviour, providing resources for defence, improving the environment and sometimes doing nothing what concerns societal problems. Depending on the role of government in economy and social sphere we can distinguish how small or big the government is. The ISSP Role of Government module data provides a wide range of variables indicating people’s attitudes towards different elements of governments’ actions. Recent research, e. g. a study of Pew Research – The Generation Gap in American Politics (March, 2018) – shows the important difference in generational attitudes towards the scope of government. According to this study two younger USA generations, Millennials and Gen Xers, stand apart from the two older cohorts, Baby Boomers and Silents – especially Millennials (those, who were born in 1981 and later) have increasingly liberal outlook. Thus, the main question of this article - does the same generational divide might be observed in other countries and what are the main differences in generational attitudes towards the scope of government from the cross-national perspective?

THE ECONOMIC ROLE OF THE STATE IN CONDITIONS OF GLOBALIZATION

State (government) intervention in the economy has a long history. This issue has become especially crucial after the formation of the market economy. The cyclical (uneven) nature of market economy development determines state›s intervention with various levels in certain periods. the role of government in economy is getting more important in recession and crisis periods and it is becoming less important in a period of the normal development of the economy. The most obvious proof of this is the global financial and economic crisis of 2007-2008, that has been overcome by the active anti-crisis policy of the State. The government’s role in the economy during the post-crisis period was relatively weakened. Globalization significantly changes the state›s economic role, but it does not nullify it. Nowadays, the relationship between the state and the economy is crucial and beneficial for both sides. In the modern economic system the state has one of the most important parts of the market economy. Unlike the private market, which is determined by the profit and-loss categories, the main objective of the State›s economic activity is to maximize welfare of the entire society. Governments of the countries participating in the globalization process are not able to carry out economic policy without taking into consideration the interests of the global members - international financial and economic institutions, transnational companies (TNCs) and regional unions.

The Economic Role of the Chinese Government: Between the Centralized Political System and Decentralized Markets

China’s centralized political system has tried to adapt to alien decentralized markets in the past few decades, and the economic role of government is at the centre of the adaptation. This paper compares the economic role of Chinese government now to that in the early 1990s, and finds that the Chinese government does not always adjust its economic role to accommodate market reforms. In some cases, reforms had been reluctantly allowed but reverted soon after they served the intended purposes. In the case of capital market development, the government is only willing to accept very limited changes. Financial liberalization seems to be inconsistent with China’s centralized political system because financial market volatilities can lead to uncontrollable political risks and a well-functioned capital market can impose hard budget constraints on local governments, both of which are regarded as undesirable because they will weaken state capacity.

INNOVATIVE POTENCIAL IN INSURANCE – THE INDIVIDUAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CUSTOMERS EVALUATION

Dynamically changing insurance market and the growing expectations of customers and business partners, intensified competition cause the need of constant introduction or improvement of modern solutions. It is highly connected to innovations. It should be stressed that the transformation of Polish economy and the process of emerging of more and more new private companies caused, on the one hand the reduction of government role in economy and on the other hand it forced companies to obey free market rules, which characterizes the adjusting to environment and the growing share in the market. For the positive creation of corporate image the open attitude of managers and directors becomes extremely important. They are aware of the importance of innovation in company life. This novelty is being spotted by the surroundings of the company, and specifically by its business partners. The positive assessment of innovation is often the starting point of making new business relations. The negative assessment can make them difficult. A good company image is nowadays one of the most basic company aims, and the condition of business success. The creation of good company image by emphasizing the high level of innovation among potential customers (insurance agents, brokers) became one of the basic tasks for insurance companies, because the growth of the company depends on customers. Insurers being aware of the importance of innovation are forced to create such systems, which allows the introduction of new technologies in the process of selling new policies in every distribution channel. The aim of this article is to present the essence of the innovation on the insurance market and to show its significance in the customers appreciation. This article consists of two parts. The first part is theoretical and presents the characteristic of insurance market innovation and its significance in the development of branch. The second part of this publication contains empirical material such as data taken from survey studies conducted in 2016, in the field of innovation evaluation seen from main insurance participants perspective (individual and institutional customers). The research was conducted in Wielkopolska area on the sample of 180 individual and 151 institutional customers (MSP).

Przedsiębiorczość jako konieczny czynnik spójności

Cohesion is one of the most commonly used and exploited concepts in the terminology of the European Union, and raising the subject has been the EU's main task for at least forty years. Unfortunately, the attempts to create and implement an efficient cohesion policy have so far proved to be of limited success. The author of the paper proposes a hypothesis that the reason for this low effectiveness is the dominance of political objectives over economic ones. It seems that the desired change of cohesion policy priorities is introduced by the Europe 2020 Strategy, which emphasises that the role of economic governance is conducive to the development of entrepreneurship.

Public Goods, Market Failure, and Voluntary Exchange

The core of public economics traditionally addresses two situations of market failure: externalities and public goods. While externalities fit neatly into neoclassical economics, public goods proved substantially more difficult to pin down. An interesting thread in the story of public goods relates to the application of voluntary exchange theory—the idea that the revenue-expenditure process should be determined by the same fundamental laws and procedures that govern market prices in the private aspects of the economy. Driven by the changing political landscape of Europe and greater demand for responsive government, voluntary exchange theory emerged in the 1880s as a competitor to models that represented government as a monolithic decision maker. That voluntary exchange has faded out of the public finance literature belies the role it served launching the public goods debate of the 1950s. In this article, voluntary exchange is used as a vehicle to examine positions taken on the market failure engendered by public goods. What we see is that the discussion was less about the mechanics of voluntary exchange theory or solutions to public goods problems than it was about beliefs regarding the economic role of government and how to delineate the appropriate boundaries of public economics inquiry. This in turn was stimulated by the larger background context of the period, particularly the nexus of free markets and democracy.

Absolute Gains Are Still Gains: Why the European Commission Is a Winner of the Crisis, and Unexpectedly So. A Rejoinder to Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt

Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt’s sophisticated comment on our analysis of the European Commission’s role in economic governance notwithstanding, we stand by our conclusion that the Commission emerges as an ‘unexpected winner’ from the current crisis. It wins by significantly gaining competences in absolute terms — and unexpectedly so, given the constant murmur about the Commission being in decline. We agree, however, that further research is needed to fully grasp the complex institutional implications of the still ongoing crisis for the Commission.

Why the European Commission is not the “unexpected winner” of the Euro Crisis: A Comment on Bauer and Becker

The protracted euro area crisis has led to a resurgence of academic interest in integration theories. In a recent piece in this journal, Bauer and Becker argue that the euro crisis allowed the European Commission to strengthen its role in economic governance, in particular with regard to its implementation powers. Contrary to Bauer and Becker’s claim, I contend that the euro crisis has resulted not in strengthening the Commission. Rather, the Commission is undergoing “subtle disempowerment”, that is, a gradual transfer of decision-making authority and resources from the Commission to the intergovernmental level and to the European Central Bank. I illustrate the Commission's subtle disempowerment along three dimensions: the creation of the intergovernmental European Stability Mechanism; enhanced oversight mechanisms of the Commission via the troika constellation; and the creation of the European System of Financial Supervision, Banking Union and Single Supervisory Mechanism under the aegis of the European Central Bank.

An Investigation into the Efficiency of Monetary and Fiscal Policies in Iran Case Study: The 4th Economic Development Plan

This study investigates the efficiency of the quantitative targets of monetary and fiscal policies of Iranian 4th economic development plan using dynamic simulation approach. An open macro economy model was designed and eleven behavioral equations were estimated for different economic sectors of Iran for the period of 1971-2004 using autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL). When the accuracy of the model was determined, the quantitative targets of monetary and fiscal policies of the plan were implemented through a scenario and their effects on some of macroeconomic variables were anticipated for the period of 2005-2013. The comparison of anticipated, realized and targeted values suggests that a more contractionary monetary policy can be used to decline inflation. It should be noted, however, that this policy reduces production and causes depression. To minimize the negative effects of contractionary monetary policy on production sector, more concentration on improved productivity, cost efficiency and improved economic infrastructures are recommended. Judgment concerning the efficiency of fiscal policy targets requires deliberation. The large government size in Iranian economy raises incomes and increases government expenditure. Government income and expenditure should be set and allocated in a manner that it can prepare the prerequisite for minimizing government role in economy and developing the private sector activities. To determine the achievable quantitative targets for fiscal policies it is necessary to determine the optimal government size for Iranian economy, considering the lags of fiscal policies and a long-term planning with the least possible deviation during implementation.

The affluent society revisited

This book revisits John Kenneth Galbraith's classic text The Affluent Society in the context of the background to, and causes of, the global economic crisis that erupted in 2008. Each chapter takes a major theme of Galbraith's book, distils his arguments, and then discusses to what extent they cast light on current developments, both in developed economies and in the economics discipline. The themes include: inequality, insecurity, inflation, debt, consumer behaviour, financialization, the economic role of government ('social balance'), the power of ideas, the role of power in the economy, and the nature of the good society. It considers the current problems of capitalism and the huge challenges facing democratic governments in tackling them. Written in non-technical language, this book is accessible to students of economics and the social sciences as well as to those who would have read The Affluent Society and the general reader interested in contemporary affairs and public policy.

The Unexpected Winner of the Crisis: The European Commission’s Strengthened Role in Economic Governance

ABSTRACTSince the latest financial and economic crisis took hold of the European Union (EU), its economic governance architecture has been undergoing crucial changes. Research into the institutional consequences of these reforms is still fragmented — especially with regard to the function of the European Commission. This article seeks to fill this void by analysing the supranational executive’s role in the four areas that have witnessed the most important changes: financial stability support, economic policy surveillance, coordination of national polices and supervision of the financial sector. The empirical evidence suggests that the Commission continues to be a powerful player in EU economic governance, but its primary role is changing. While its agenda-setting power is decreasing, most decisions in economic governance depend on the Commission to make them work. With more and stronger implementation competences, it may be less visible. But it is not less important. This finding qualifies the degree of intergovernmentalism in economic governance.

Public Economics, Market Failure, and Voluntary Exchange

The core of public economics traditionally addresses two situations of market failure: externalities and public goods. The desirability of government action in these cases hinges on decisions made in the revenue-expenditure process. How this process is envisioned can tell us quite a lot about conceptions and understandings of market failure. Reaching back nearly a century to the European continental public finance tradition, Public choice scholars revived voluntary exchange theory as a response to market failure. This theory suggests that the revenue-expenditure process should be determined by the same fundamental laws and procedures that govern market prices in the private aspects of the economy. Voluntary exchange became an ideological anchor for public choice, despite the oddity of suggesting a market-analogous solution for market failure. In this paper, I examine the treatment of Voluntary Exchange Theory in Public choice, as compared to mainstream public economics. Considered are Voluntary Exchange as a theory versus an analogy, the role beliefs about the nature and role of government have on theory-making and theory acceptance, and reactions to failures/inconsistencies/gaps pointed out in voluntary exchange theory conceptions (real or claimed). By exploring these topics, we can see the extent to which the debate over voluntary exchange theory illuminates deeply held and often buried ideological assumptions. One can also see that the nature and extent of market failure in public economics is, on a fundamental level, very closely tied to preconceptions about the economic role of government.

The building of economic governance in the European Union

This article seeks to shed light on the development over the past decades of the concept of economic governance. It asks what is understood by economic governance and what role the social dimension has played. The article offers an analysis of the problems and possible issues confronting the EU as it seeks ways to address the sovereign debt crisis by embarking on deeper economic integration. The article concludes that from the early days there have been questions about the exact interaction between economic and monetary integration and thus between ‘economic’ and ‘monetary’ union. Despite Delors’ original inclination, few were willing to establish any linkage between EMU and social matters. The crises have again brought out the need to consider the two in tandem. Moreover, with the increased role in economic governance accorded to EU-level institutions, there is a need to rethink the EU democratic model.

Framework for Assessing Efficiency of Farms and Agrarian Organisations

Broadly applied traditional frameworks for assessing efficiency of economic organizations in agriculture are (only) based on the 'technical efficiency' of the factors of production and the 'productivity of employed resources'. They compare the levels of efficiency of farms of different types, sectors, and countries without taking into account the transaction costs and the specific economic, institutional and natural environment of their development. At the same time, other agrarian organizations (contracts, associations, markets, public and hybrid forms) are not considered as alternative economic structures and are either ignored or studies separately. This paper suggests a new approach for assessing efficiency of economic organizations and public intervention in agriculture incorporating achievements of the interdisciplinary New Institutional Economics. Presented new approach includes: studying out the farm and agrarian organizations as a governing rather than a production structure; assessment of the comparative efficiency of alternative market, contract, internal, and hybrid modes of governance on the base of their potential to minimize production and transaction costs and to maximize the production and transaction benefits; analysis of the level of transaction costs and their institutional (distribution of rights and obligations, and the systems of their enforcements), behavioral (preferences, bounded rationality and opportunism of individuals), dimensional (uncertainty, frequency, assets specificity and appropriability of activity/transactions), technological (non-separability, economies of scale and scope) and natural factors; and determination of adequate criteria of farm efficiency and its effective boundaries – the potential to increase productivity of resources with minimum transaction costs comparing to a practically possible alternative organization. The new approach is also used to precise the needs for public interventions ('the economic role of government') in agrarian sector and to assess the comparative efficiency of alternative forms of public involvement. The analysis of socio-economic and natural environment and the transaction costs identifies a multiple cases of 'market and private failures' associated with non-identified or badly assigned property rights, ineffective system of enforcement of absolute and contracted rights, high uncertainty and dependency of activity, low appropriability, needs for collective actions etc. which necessitate a third-party public intervention in market and private sectors. The individual forms of public involvement (institutional modernization, assistance, regulation, taxation, hybrid or internal organization) are with unequal efficiency in the specific environment of different countries, regions, and sectors, and the most efficient one(s) is/are to be selected with taking into account the total (direct, private, public, transaction, third-party etc.) costs and the contribution to the sustainable development. Nevertheless, 'the public failure' is feasible and bad interventions, delayed, under or over-regulations, miss-management, corruption etc. are widespread and as a result the sustainable development of the sector is compromised.

Erasing the invisible hand: essays on an elusive and misused concept in economics

Preface 1. Adam Smith's invisible hand and the Nobel prize in economic sciences 2. The political economy of Adam Smith 3. On the identities and functions attributed to the invisible hand 4. Adam Smith's History of Astronomy argument: how broadly does it apply? And where do propositions which 'sooth the imagination' come from? 5. Conceptual and substantive issues and problems 6. The invisible hand in an uncertain world with an uncertain language 7. The invisible hand as knowledge 8. The invisible hand and the economic role of government 9. The survival requirement of Pareto optimality 10. Conclusions and further insights.

The 'Invisible Handout?' Smith, J. S. Mill and Marshall on Inequality and Progress

Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall shared a concern over excessive inequality of wealth and income, along with an attachment to individual choice, free markets and a minimal economic role of government. In this paper, I address the question of the size distribution of income, or the degree of inequality. Is there anything in Smith’s, Mill’s and Marshall’s analysis that would reduce inequality of wealth and income in a growing free market economy? I begin with Smith’s version of the Invisible Hand in Theory of Moral Sentiments. The paper draws from Theory of Moral Sentiments, Wealth of Nations, Lectures on Jurisprudence, Correspondence, and secondary literature. Although John Stuart Mill was skeptical of income “leveling” schemes that would violate liberty and destroy incentives, he did advocate a number of policy interventions - subsidized universal education, progressive taxation, estate taxes, etc. - that would reduce inequality. As an optimistic Victorian, Marshall thought that raising per capita output and income would play a large part of attaining higher living standards for the poor and working classes - a sort of rising tide raises all boats argument. He was also optimistic that individuals would become more benevolent as their incomes rose, so that the rich would provide more support for the poor voluntarily. One thing that emerges is all three looked for something beyond self-interest and competitive markets to reduce inequality - “sympathy,” education producing people who were producers and better people, and “economic chivalry,” for example. Also, all three tended to emphasize expanded opportunities for individuals to raise their incomes as a means to alleviate inequality, with a smaller role for redistribution policies.

Laurence S. Moss, 1944–2009

The American Journal of Economics and SociologyVolume 69, Issue 1 p. 90-134 Laurence S. Moss, 1944–2009 Warren J. Samuels, Warren J. Samuels University of Wisconsin Warren J, Samuels received his doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1957. He taught at Missouri, Georgia State, and Miami (his undergraduate school) for a total of 11 years and at Michigan State University for 31 years (1968–1999). He specialized in the history, philosophy, and methodology of economics and in law and economics (economic role of government). He edited the Journal of Economic Issues (1970–1981), founded Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, founded a series on Recent Economic Thought and another reprinting Classics in Economics, as well as several dozen other volumes. His research and writing have concentrated on the economic role of government and its place in the history of ideas. His 25-year research project has resulted in Essays on the Concept of the Invisible Hand, in press.Search for more papers by this author Warren J. Samuels, Warren J. Samuels University of Wisconsin Warren J, Samuels received his doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1957. He taught at Missouri, Georgia State, and Miami (his undergraduate school) for a total of 11 years and at Michigan State University for 31 years (1968–1999). He specialized in the history, philosophy, and methodology of economics and in law and economics (economic role of government). He edited the Journal of Economic Issues (1970–1981), founded Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, founded a series on Recent Economic Thought and another reprinting Classics in Economics, as well as several dozen other volumes. His research and writing have concentrated on the economic role of government and its place in the history of ideas. His 25-year research project has resulted in Essays on the Concept of the Invisible Hand, in press.Search for more papers by this author First published: 20 January 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2009.00697.x Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume69, Issue1January 2010Pages 90-134 RelatedInformation

Ekonomiczne konsekwencje intensyfikacji powiązań sieciowych w gospodarce globalnej

The aim of the paper is to discuss the economic consequences of growing importance of networking, its implications for improving innovation capacity of companies and whole countries. The evolution of main aims and the economic role of government is also discussed in this article.