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Romania and Denmark – Beyond a Century of Diplomatic Relations
Romania and Denmark can look back on a long and successful cooperation. Since the decision of the Ion I. C. Brătianu Government to establish a Romanian diplomatic office in Copenhagen more than 100 years ago, bilateral relations have reached a level of excellence characterised by a constantly growing political dialogue, increasing economic exchanges, fruitful cooperation in various fields such as culture and science, and people-to-people contacts. It is both challenging and exciting to contribute, in my capacity, to building ever closer relations on this solid foundation, beyond the traditional areas of collaboration, and to diversify our cooperation. More
The Geography that Forged Our History
I do not know if we, Romanians, have a fixation for numbers, I tend to believe not, but we certainly have a penchant for inaugurations: we inaugurate whatever, in any way, just in case. We have reached the performance to crown them all, in 2018, of cutting the ribbon on a school toilet (!), or an end of a road that goes from nowhere to anywhere, and many others. We inaugurate with great pomp the openings of new “construction sites”, no matter which construction, because/although we are certain of one thing, that we will never finish them. More
Mihail Manoilescu: “Protectionism 2.0” – The (New) Name of the (Old) Game in Postwar Developmentalism
Mihail Manoilescu, more than an engineer, journalist or professor, was a Romanian political and economic thinker. Although in his country he was not recognized and his theory used, he has inspired other countries in different regions. His ascension was great, as great as his fall. Mihail Manoilescu ended up in the darkness of oblivion, obscurity and, consequently, death. More
Rumble in the Gulf – A Look at the Significance of the Saudi-Yemeni Conflict
Higher-order cognition in humans is one of the most commonly cited factors that separate us as a species from other life-forms on earth. It enables us to make sense of the patterns in our environment and the laws that govern nature, to think beyond our immediate sensory input and create art and beauty, to encode our knowledge, storing and preserving it, passing it down to further generations who would then use it to yield new knowledge as well as invent new tools and adapt the old into new, to reshape both the internal and the external world. Yet this gift does not come without its caveats, and human cognition is indeed often riddled with biases and shortcuts that, despite allowing us to simplify the complexity of our world, often dull our receptiveness to certain realities or, even more dangerously, offer the illusion of knowledge and understanding when, in fact, they are in short supply. More
Free vs. Fair Trade – Pandemic Edition
At the beginning of studying economics, the two basic ideas every undergrad learns about are the theories of absolute and of comparative advantage, respectively. Ricardo, one of the most influential classical economists, claims that countries specializing in the production of goods for which they have a comparative advantage – meaning a lower opportunity cost in producing those goods – will be better off after engaging in trade with those countries that specialize in different products and services. A win-win situation results from the increased efficiency that derives from specialization of countries, regions or companies. This indispensable theory provides strong arguments in favour of free trade and, more importantly, of the freedom to choose whom to trade with. Its implications apply to all individuals and companies inhabiting those nations. Yet, according to the preacher of fair trade, there seems to be something amiss with Ricardo’s theory. More
Innovation in the Eye of the Beholder: Optical Breakthroughs
The commonplace objects that we surround ourselves with are just as indispensable for our everyday businesses as they are, individually and collectively, piecemeal retellings of different parts of our civilization and the progressive attempts by mankind to better answer its ever-growing needs. As Jose Luis Borges once put it, many of our inventions are extensions of ourselves: “the microscope, the telescope, are extensions of [man’s] sight; the telephone is the extension of his voice; (...) the book is an extension of memory and imagination”. These extensions have enabled us to better master our environment and enrich our lives. More
The World’s 19 Most Powerful Countries Account for 71% of the World’s New Coronavirus Cases
On August 31st this year, 6 months have passed since the current pandemic forcefully started, on March 1st. It is an important opportunity to examine how the world’s great powers have developed effective government programs to reduce the number of cases. The power structure of the world is defined by nodal analysis as the number of hierarchically descending countries that account for 80% of the world nominal GDP. According to the latest definitive data available in the UN database in 2018, the power structure of the world consists of 19 countries presented in Table 1, each country being characterized by the share of total GDP and the share of total cases. More
Rebuilding Economics
In the last decades, the economic discipline in its hypostasis of Economics (i.e. positive economic theory) was, and also currently is, subject to radical and massive criticism not only from the non-economists (including physicists!), but also from notorious economists, including Nobel Prize winners.The perspectives of such criticisms are very different, starting from the conceptual bases, focusing on the methodological framework, and ending with the predictive potential. Of course, although the initial criticisms were focused on the mechanical ways of economic thinking (by taking over the Newtonian paradigm in physics), other points came to the forefront in recent years: the required interdisciplinary character of Economics, the issue of truth in the economic field (in a wider sense: in the social field), the required evolutionary nature of Economics, because of the evolutionary nature of the society, and even the requirement of a new formalism in Economics based on something other than differential equations (which do not indicate the dynamics – i.e., the causality – in the economic process) and so on. More
The One-Size-Fits-All of the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” Reports
The recently released World Bank “Ease of doing business 2018” report put Nigeria at 145 out of 190 countries surveyed, just behind Niger. This ranking represents a significant improvement over that of last year, when the country was ranked 169th. Therefore, there are several questions that need to be asked: Are these statistics enough? Is Nigeria’s business environment now friendly with entrepreneurs and investors? What do these figures mean to the ordinary Nigerian? More
A Century of U.S.-Romania Relations
Romania’s Strategic Partnership with the United States is a cornerstone of our foreign and security policy. The Partnership’s multiple dimensions, ranging from political to military, from economic to cultural, provide invaluable support for Romania’s development and the fulfillment of its strategic potential. A permanent, open and beneficial dialogue lies at the heart of this relationship. More
Romanian Stabilization in the 1920s and the Missing Gold Reserves
Despite ending the First World War as one of the victors and, as a consequence, having doubled its territory and population and reaching its political goal, i.e. the union of the territories with the majority of the Romanian population in the form of a national state, Greater Romania was, economically, severely affected by the war. According to certain estimates, the war has caused ROL 31 billion worth of damages (Romanian Leu). In addition, the war triggered the disruption of the economic activity, trade deficits in relations with foreign markets, financial chaos and inflation. More
Human Action. The Foundation of Society
Over time, numerous socialist utopians have sought the perfect society. Some had colossal plans and some claimed good intentions, but when social conditions would not meet their hopes and dreams, they blamed moral precariousness. In order to achieve their ideal society, they needed only the “good princes” and the so called “virtuous citizens”. In some cases, these utopians (or their followers) used brute force to reshape society for “a greater good”. They brought concentration camps, instituted reeducation programs, abolished all beliefs that were not theirs, rebuilt the past to match their claim, and redesigned the language in order to limit and control the thought process. In all of these cases, socialist utopia, through the application of brute force, leads to dystopia. More
