TheMarketForIdeas

Are Planned Economies Our Destiny?

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

H.S.H. Prince Michael of Liechtenstein

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I am from the government and I am here to help”. These were not the words of an anarchist or a person opposing the concept of the state in general. These were the words of the head of probably the largest government in the world, President Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan saw very clearly that government should have limits and should leave most decisions to the free choice of free citizens. He followed the principle that the state should only do those things which only the state can do. More

The Bear Stearns of Romania Memories from a not so distant past crisis

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Bogdan C. Enache

Despite a lot of public rhetoric and noisy politics, the Romanian episode of the recent Great Financial Crisis has not been adequately chronicled to date.True, in Romania, a country with a low – but increasing – financialization rate by Western standards, there has not been any Lehman Brothers-style bankruptcy in the local banking industry. However, despite repeated public statements made, since the beginning of the Crisis, by Mugur Isărescu and other officials at the National Bank of Romania (BNR), that the Romanian financial system is crisis-proofed, there has actually been a Bear Stearns-type of failure not long after the global panic spread into the country as well.  More

China’s Belated Spring Cleaning

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Nicoleta Stoianovici

Historically, Chinese reform has been a byproduct of constraint. As James Kynge wrote in his book “China Shakes the World”, the country’s initial openness towards capitalism did not stem from a well-orchestrated strategy, but as a means to combat high unemployment and a payments crisis brought about by excessive spending in an attempt to jumpstart China’s manufacturing industry. Funding for the $12 billion investment was expected to be generated through an ambitious project – drilling in search of oil deposits – yet results were meager at best. As a result, part of the expenditure was postponed, yet the money already spent left behind a significant deficit. More

Toward Understanding the Balkan Economic Thought (I)

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Nikolay Nenovsky

The notes that follow are a preliminary summary of our observations and studies in the field of Balkan economies and economic thinking as well as of scholars engaged in the subject of economic traditions in the Balkan region. The main characteristics of economic thinking in the Balkans set forth below must not be regarded as established definitively but rather as the first approximation towards the elucidation of the Balkan type of economic thought (BET). More

Toward Understanding the Balkan Economic Thought (II)

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Nikolay Nenovsky

The notes that follow are a preliminary summary of our observations and studies in the field of Balkan economies and economic thinking as well as of scholars engaged in the subject of economic traditions in the Balkan region. The main characteristics of economic thinking in the Balkans set forth below must not be regarded as established definitively but rather as the first approximation towards the elucidation of the Balkan type of economic thought (BET). More

On the Minimal Wage, with Responsibility Economy Near Us (IV)

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Gabriela-Mariana Ionescu

The syntagm “minimal wage” used instead the syntagm “minimum wage” is intentioned and requires a little bit of explanation. “Minimum wage” is used in the labour legislation, and signifies the lowest level of the administratively established nominal gross monthly wage in the economy, warranted in paying. In fact, what the law establishes is not the minimum level, but the minimal one. What is that meaning? The minimum wage is the actual wage in the real economy, and thus a wage level generated by the labour market. As a consequence, the minimum wage can vary from time to time and also, of course, it can vary related to the administratively established “minimum wage”, but never below the last. As the administratively established wage must be fixed (at least until the next normative changing), it seems be clear now why this wage must be called minimal but not minimum wage. More

How Did Horses Become a Luxury?

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Maria-Mirona Murea

Horses were domesticated in ancient times and the history of our companionship rivals that of civilization itself. The bond has been celebrated throughout all forms of art. Horses have been used as tillers, as war machines, as means of transportation, as athletes or actors, but also as faithful companions. We even know of famous horse from history – Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus, Caligula’s horse – Incitatus – whom he had planned to name consul, El Cid’s Babieca, Napoleon’s Marengo and recently Sergeant Reckless (a small Mongolian mare, that was an actual US Marine sergeant, trained to be a pack-horse during the Korean War and awarded several honors), or Roy Rogers’ Trigger – underscoring the proverbial and proven loyalty of horses and their need for respectful handling.  More

The World of Romania Works that made this planet a better place – Part II –

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

They strove to avoid being overly-parochial or nationalistic. The collection is neither exhaustive nor hierarchical, while the selection has no algorithm whatsoever behind it and no other rationale for the choices than every author-student’s own desire to share ideas on the works of a fellow countryman of repute. It is a “pop” exercise of “science / art journalism”, aimed at outliving Romania’s 2018 Centennial celebration, by “trading abroad” pieces of time-proof contemplation.  More

Has Facebook Really Incorporated Us? Globalization: Like, Follow, Share

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

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

Mihail Manoilescu: “Protectionism 2.0” – The (New) Name of the (Old) Game in Postwar Developmentalism

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Larissa Back

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

Romanian Stabilization in the 1920s and the Missing Gold Reserves

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Silviu Cerna

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

Does “Cultural Appropriation” Mean “Cultural Aggression”? Ubi ars, ibi patria (Stefan Zweig)

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Mary Lucia Darst

Zweig meant his variation of the old adage “Ubi panem, ibi patria” as an expression of the universality of beauty and culture and its power to unite people, regardless of ethnic background, nationality, or social class. His view of culture is certainly an ideal, one that is not acceptable in the modern game of identity politics. Currently, America’s netizen culturati are in a knot over the concept of “cultural appropriation”. The phrase is a semantically null assembly whose sole purpose is to create the illusion of division. The closest encyclopaedic explanation is the notion that there is no such thing as cultural exchange or fluidity in ideas, and any attempt to cross or meld cultures is an act of oppression against a vague and inconsistently chosen minority. Accepting compliments is not a distinguishing trait of the cultural police. More

A Short Behavioural Analysis of the Changes to the Social Security Tax in Romania Economy Near Us (III)

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Emil Dinga

Starting with January 1st 2018, the payment obligation which is automatically withheld regarding the social security contributions (for state pensions, health, and unemployment insurance) will be moved from the employer to the employee. In order to preserve the nominal net wage, the nominal gross wage was increased by an adequate rate. In fact, a combination of nominal gross wage increases and contribution rate decreases was used to this end. I would like to broach some predictable effects of the mentioned normative measure: a) the monetary illusion effect; b) the nominal income effect; c) the consumption and savings effects; d) the effect of social solidarity erosion; e) the efficient wage effect. More

A Social Space in Facebook Times The biased management of issues

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Marian-Andrei Done  Ștefania-Mirela Podocea

The Facebook personal profile, even if it is accessible to a small number of people, is a public space, not a private one. Social networks have become a central part of everyday life. Facebook is the most used social network, likely the second site that people visit when starting or opening their laptop after google. Being a social network based in principle on the exchange of personal information, it is not surprising that many users reveal a great deal about themselves in their online profiles. With over 500 million users, Facebook decisions about privacy settings are able to influence many people. While its changes in this area have led to many media and society group criticisms, Facebook has apparently continued to attract more users to its service. This article examines some disadvantages of using the Facebook social network, but also the mistakes users make when choosing their privacy settings. We believe that although they are not universal, changes to privacy settings have led to a decrease in criticisms against Facebook. We also find that both the frequency and type of Facebook usage, as well as the Internet qualification, are correlated with the change in privacy settings.  More

Can Trade Wars Be Good for the Economy?

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Bogdan C. Enache

With the world economic community focused on US President Donald Trump’s acrobatics of escalating and deescalating trade battles, the question naturally arises if there’s actually any truth to his two-part statement, or tweet, that “trade wars are good, and easy to win”. Indeed, protectionism is an economic policy older than the science of Economics itself, but according to the classical theory of Smith and Ricardo it is just the oldest folly in the history of Economics. Modern neoclassical Economics incorporates and strongly validates the Smithian and Ricardian condemnation of protectionism, allowing deviations from it only in some exceptional and clearly specified situations. The explanation neoclassical Economics offers for the persistence of protectionism as a policy has changed however, replacing folly with a rational public choice theory of concentrated benefits for the beneficiaries and dispersed costs for those harmed. But is protectionism and its long history really just a folly?  More

How the Latest Trump Tariffs Will Affect Romania

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Bogdan C. Enache

On March 1st, US President Donald Trump announced that his administration will unilaterally introduce new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in the United States of America. Officially motivated by national security concerns under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, the announcement follows a similar decision to unilaterally introduce new tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines, for reasons of unfair competition, taken at the end of January. Along with pressures for a redrawing of the North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada and the retreat from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the decision constitutes the most palpable expression to date of the United States’ new protectionist trade policy, to which Donald Trump alluded to since he was campaigning on an “America first” platform for the White House back in 2016. But unlike the solar panels and washing machines tariffs of a month and a half ago, which targeted primarily Chinese, South Korean and other Asian economies, the new steel and aluminum tariffs risk triggering a full-scale trade war with the European Union’s – still – 28 nations trade bloc, Romania included.  More

Amfiteatru Economic, the Measure of Lastingness (Excerpt from the book Amfiteatru Economic, Year XX, by Vasile Dinu and Laurențiu Tăchiciu, ASE Publishing House, Bucharest, 2018)

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Octavian-Dragomir Jora

I started writing about economics and economy in the “big press”, both academic and mass-media, around the same time, somewhere in 2002. This, after having explored journalism during the university studies. I had understood the difference in the literary species between an article dedicated to the mass-media field and one published in academic journals, long before the biblio- and sciento-metric tsunami reached Romania, with its (inter)national indexations and citations of the scientific publications.  More

Not Too Young to Run

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Emmanuel Olusegun Stober

Leadership is influence, while influence is quality and substance. Looking at the age reduction bill, and how that will reshape Nigeria’s political space, Nigerians would need to ask themselves, is the plan to kick out the old people because they are outdated, and replace them with the young ones because they are perceived to have the capacity to do better?  More

Jeffrey D. Sachs, to Talk in Romania on Sustainable Development The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Aula Magna, March 8, 3:15pm

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

The Bucharest University of Economic Studies welcomes distinguished and world-renowned economist Jeffrey D. Sachs for a talk on sustainable development on March 8, 2018. He has been invited by the Romanian Government and will be a keynote speaker at a conference on sustainable development organized by the Department for Sustainable Development. More

ICESS 2018 – Challenges and Trends in Economic and Social Sciences Research The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, April 16-17, 2018

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Preparing to celebrate the 105th anniversary, the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (BUES) will host on April 16-17 the first edition of the International Conference on Economics and Social Sciences, under the following aegis: “Challenges and Trends in Economic and Social Sciences Research”. The conference is a great opportunity for participants to enhance their professional networks, by connecting and sharing own research topics with very influential researchers in the field, as well as with practitioners from leading companies from Romania and abroad. More

Photon(e)s 3.0 Zenobia

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

Zenobia, by Gelllu Naum – a coloured and fascinating book like a surrealist tableaux. A passage from it inspired me, more precisely the description that Zenobia makes about the narrator. I transferred the description visually, so that the drawing would afterwards born questions, assumptions, and translations of the same text. A sort of snake who swallows its tails, forever, around some enigmatic characters. More

Photon(e)s 4.0 Frames

No. 10, Mar.-Apr. 2018

The project I’m working on at the moment is influenced by a collection of photographs bought on eBay. I started with the thought of using them for collages or for other projects I’m working on, but the marks from their backs changed my plans because, well, you sometimes stumble at the threshold. With the family’s cat, in the reeks, or on the beach, the totally different frames one from another capture a couple of a Jewish family’s years that lives in England. I have more of them coming, so I recommend you to peek on Dissolved. More