TheMarketForIdeas

The Arctic Maritime Corridor

Mihnea Alexandru Ciocan

In the context of ever-growing concern regarding global climate and the consequences that will impact our society in its entirety, it is worthwhile to approach a topic that may be seen in a positive key – the emergence of a new transport route through the Arctic Ocean. This arctic passage would facilitate the maritime commercial link between East Asia and Western Europe and the East Coast of North America by providing an alternative route. On paper it is shorter and therefore could be deemed as a great economic advantage. This article gives a short analysis of the true feasibility of this new and presumptive transport corridor by examining it briefly from 4 points of view: geographic, logistic, economic, and in the end, the geopolitical perspective.  More

Apple’s Handheld Evolution: From the Newton MessagePad to the iPhone

Alexandra Ispas, Cosmina Stroinea

Ever wonder how some things came to be? Just look at your phone. We cannot even imagine life without it anymore, but it is not always that we think of how much sweat and tears were put into achieving this particular invention. To be more specific, let us take Apple’s inspiring story. You have most certainly heard of an iPhone. The smartphone that most of us are so familiar with and which has a personal note given by the first-person pronoun “I” is, technologically speaking, based on the touchscreen concept which makes reading, writing and watching videos much easier to carry out. It certainly is a key that opens up a tremendous number of doors for user interactivity and we probably would not be able to give single-word answers when asked “what advantages does the iPhone bring us?” More

Mutating Mindsets and Contagious Behaviours (Part III): Diagnosing the Geopolitical and Geoeconomic Risks of the Coronavirus Outbreak

Adrian-Ioan Damoc

In the previous parts, we argued why behavioural economics does a better job of explaining consumer and supplier behaviour in the time of the coronavirus outbreak than the neoclassical paradigm. Both approaches were discussed at a theoretical level and were then applied to the current situation as a case study. We can note that the common link between the demand-side behaviour and the supply-side behaviour is uncertainty – perhaps not so much with regards to the threat the virus poses for personal health, but rather towards the public policies and containment measures the authorities will implement which, decidedly, are not very transparent. More

Owning Now, Owing Then. Culturally Sustainable Development Is about Material Property as Much as It Is about Spiritual Legacy

Octavian-Dragomir Jora

Social Science and Humanities Research Association (SSHRA) is an international community of researchers, practitioners, students and educationists that is devoted to the development and the spread of ideas in the field of social sciences and humanities. SSHRA is promoted by Eurasia Research. SSHRA aims to bring together worldwide researchers and professionals, encourage intellectual development and create opportunities for networking and collaboration. These objectives are achieved through academic networking, meetings, conferences, workshops, projects, research publications, academic awards and scholarships. More

Romanian Capitalist Economic Thought (II)

Octavian-Dragomir Jora

“The disappearance of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 reflected the collapse of the existing belief system and accordingly the weakening of its support organizations” (North 1997, 18). Such a verdict catches the image of a bivalent process of deconstruction and institutional reconstruction: from former imposition of material and moral servitudes to economic and political liberalization. But that new order – of the market and of the multiparty system – could have been accomplished, ultimately and inevitably, with the same people who inhabited the old institutional and organizational architectures, both at the top and at the base of society. The intellectual scaffolding of transformation became a critical resource, and its training and performance were, among others, functions of epistemic tradition and transfer. More

The Great Firewall of Europe

Alexander Fotescu

This issue is about statecraft, long-term strategy and will: Wille zur Macht.Incidentally, it is also about EU policies in trade, defence, democracy, industrial strategy, cybersecurity and digital, the Security Union, counter-terrorism and finance.Europe’s slowness and apparent inability to take strong action to protect its interests has long been decried by stakeholders on all sides. Yet, at the conclusion of Juncker’s term (last #SOTEU 12/9), we have the means to finally protect Europe and start asserting ourselves as a world power. That is, if we manage to get the political understanding and will to wield what is at our disposal. We now have the tools. This is about a cluster of policies coming together. Cybersecurity is but one piece of the puzzle. More

People-to-People – The Fundament

Basil Constantinescu

Chinese pencils, Chinese pen cases for school, Chinese erasers, Chinese sneakers, Chinese toys - these are some of the symbols associated with China which are still present in the collective memory of the Romanian people. It is a real fact that, on the grounds of the great diplomatic relations that our country has built with China, we have all received with great joy these things, as children. On the other side, Romanian Music, Dance, Dacia, Roman, furniture as a symbol of luxury… But the relations among our countries have gone beyond diplomacy, trade, and mutual support in times of need. And these are perhaps the richest we ever build in the last 70 years, somehow different than any others. Because they are built on a strong, unique foundation: emotional connection between our peoples and sympathy.  More

Has Facebook Really Incorporated Us?

Being a social network, Facebook is about protecting privacy with one hand and pledging for publicity with the other. With over two billion users, Facebook scales up (or down) the challenges of every human community (or those of the human species as a whole).While controversies continue to surround its “automatized algorithms” that are “manually… manipulated”, Facebook magnetizes more and more users to its socializing service.We Share the Following 10 essays written by students who Like to scout and scour.  More

How to Regulate the Financial System in the Digital Age

Sorin-Nicolae Curcă

In 1920, after the disaster that followed the First World War, contemplating the period before it, Keynes noted:„The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantities as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits and advantages”. More

ADI DASsler’s “Impossible is Nothing” and “The Miracle of Bern”

Alexandru-Costin Udrea

“It’s over! Over! Over! Germany are the World Champions!”, Radio reporter Herbert Zimmermann’s jubilant words still resound in the hearts of many Germans, as a newly-created West Germany conquered the most coveted trophy in international football, having beaten the famous “Golden Team” of Hungary in the 1954 World Cup Final. Thus, one of the greatest surprises in the history of the sport opened up new horizons for post-war Germany. What is often overlooked, though, is how Adolf Dassler’s entrepreneurial spirit paved the way for this remarkable performance, for his famous sports shoes helped the German players attain a decisive advantage over their rivals, since the football field from Bern was soaking wet at the hour of the match because of the heavy rain that had fallen that day.  More

Exploring the Transformation of Human Work in Relation to the Shock of the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic

Monica-Florica Dutcaș

Work is one of the concerns of our daily lives. Permanent, but often on very short-term, concerns about work issues are at the forefront of public debates specific to the economic or other fields of social sciences. Countless scientific studies and reports have referred to workforce, professional skills, working time, employment, unemployment, income from work, stress or happiness at work, well-being and work-life balance, their results firmly arguing that the nature of work has changed and that innovation in work can be a driver for sustainable labour productivity growth. As a result, a large number of strategies, policies, programs, measures, each of them regulated at national, regional, union, global level have been elaborated in order to know and control any type of imbalance between the demand and the supply of work. Regardless of the extent to which this has been achieved, or lack thereof, it can be seen that the solutions to the problems have been under the spur of the moment and nobody and nothing has been prepared for what is happening today with the workforce and could happen tomorrow or later on the labour market.  More