

- Bracing for Hurricane Democracy Alexandru Georgescu
- Zombified Finance and the Walking Dead Economy Alexandru-Ștefan Goghie
- Romania’s Recovery According to the World Bank Dan Pălăngean
- The 2008 and 2020 Global Crises – Differences and Similarities Grațiela-Denisa Iordache
- Europe’s Paradigmatic Dilemmas amidst Pandemic Woes: How the COVID-19 Crisis May Reshape EU’s Geostrategy Adrian-Ioan Damoc
- Annotating the Paris Agreement Henrique Schneider

- Conservatism and Spiritual and Social Recovery Richard J. Bishirjian
- NASA & SpaceX Launch – A New Milestone in Space Exploration Olga Bodrug, Kassandra Maduzia, James Snedden,Michael Migaud, Mohammad Ahmadi, Justin Bullock
- COVID-19 Distributions and Balances of Power. Interview with Professor Cezar Mereuță Adelina Mihai
- Some Thoughts on COVID-19 Pandemic Shock Emil Dinga
- Charter Cities: Vernian Fantasy or Human Reality? Alexandru-Costin Udrea
- The Inconsistency of Biological Analogies in Economics Vlad Popescu

- The COVID-19 Pandemic – Changing the Paradigm Florin Paul
- The Race to the Bottom in Oil Alexandru Georgescu
- On the Self-Testability of the Minimum Wage Gabriela-Mariana Ionescu
- Brâncuși’s Endlessness and the Scarcity of Some Means Octavian-Dragomir Jora
- Communicative Action, Subjective Perception and the Hermeneutics of Capital Structure Alexandru-Ștefan Goghie
- Was the Islamic State a Real State? Răzvan Munteanu

- The Anthropocene-Fallacy: Learning from Wrong Ideas Henrique Schneider
- Technology and Ethics: Of Man and Wisdom Georgiana Constantin-Parke
- On Brexit and Other Exits Andreas Stamate-Ștefan
- With Regards to Government Charity for the Private Sector Emil Dinga
- Political and Economic Fallacies: A Tribute to Sir Roger Scruton Steven Alan Samson
- Russian Relations with North Korea Stephen R. Bowers and Kelli M. Nab

- From Marxism to the Ideology of Free Society in 1989 Romania – Transition or Rupture? Ștefan-Dominic Georgescu
- The Power of Vague Things: A Cautionary Tale Steven Alan Samson
- Playing on High Difficulty: The Trade Barriers of Modern Video Gaming Vlad Moraru
- 21st Century Ethics and the New Jus Vitae Necisque? Georgiana Constantin-Parke
- Modern Monetary Theory and Its Poisonous Implications Silviu Cerna
- Gazprom as Policy Instrument Stephen R. Bowers

- The Earthly Algorithms of the Heavenly Affairs Octavian-Dragomir Jora
- Sicut in Caelo, Et in Terra Adrian-Ioan Damoc
- The Supreme Unity, the Unity of the Species Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu
- To the Moon and Back Alexandru Georgescu
- The Steering Wheel with Free Will Ana-Maria Marinoiu
- In Memory of Romania’s Last King: His Royal Majesty Michael I (1921-2017) Bogdan C. Enache

- INFatuated, INFuriated, INFlexible? Narciz Bălășoiu
- Future Tense in the Job Market Mihnea Alexandru Ciocan
- Some Thoughts on the Criteria of Nominal Economic Convergence in the EU Emil Dinga
- State Role vs. State Size Gabriela Ionescu
- The Return of Microeconomics Alexandru Georgescu
- The Passions of France Adrian-Ioan Damoc

- New Developmentalism, Old Ideas Bogdan C. Enache
- Karl Marx and Switzerland Henrique Schneider
- Drifting Away Vlad Roșca
- Simion Mehedinti and the Romanian Geopolitics
- A New Way of Solidarity within NATO Florin Luca
- The Impact of Russia’s Strategic Interest in the Black Sea Region on the Imbalance of the Russian Economy Leonela Leca

- The Professionalization of the Public/Political Decision-Making Emil Dinga
- Is Small still Beautiful? A Swiss Perspective Henrique Schneider
- The Romanian National Cathedral: The Voice of a People Freed Georgiana Constantin
- Wisdom and Perseverance Ahmed Abdulla Saeed bin Saeed Almatrooshi
- The NEET Tag and Intergenerational Existence on Labour Market Monica-Florica Dutcaș
- The Regional Resources of Ukraine and New Opportunities for Economic Development Until 2030 Ganna Kharlamova Nina Chala Olexandra Gumenna Tetyana Osinchuk

- Football-ism – The Ultimate Global Ideology Savian Boroancă Vlad Roșca
- “Search Neutrality” Is Not Possible Henrique Schneider
- Excess Democracy? Andrei Sandu
- Freedom Under Assail Tanja Porčnik
- From the Queen to the Tsar: on Trump’s Travels to Europe Adrian-Ioan Damoc
- Operational Research of the Libyan Civil War and the EU Neighborhood Policies George Zgardanas

- Are Planned Economies Our Destiny? Prince Michael of Liechtenstein
- The Bear Stearns of Romania Bogdan C. Enache
- China’s Belated Spring Cleaning Nicoleta Stoianovici
- Toward Understanding the Balkan Economic Thought Nikolay Nenovsky
- On the Minimal Wage, with Responsibility Gabriela Ionescu
- How Did Horses Become a Luxury? Maria-Mirona Murea

- Romanian Capitalist Economic Thought. Brief notes on pre-1989 diasporic and post-1989 domestic debates Octavian-Dragomir Jora
- Rebuilding Economics Emil Dinga
- The One-Size-Fits-All of the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” Reports Emmanuel Olusegun Stober
- “Are Central Banks Literally Independent?” Silviu Cerna vs. Ion Pohoață
- Some Thoughts on the “Global Competitiveness” Costea Munteanu
- Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose Mary Lucia Darst

- Pandora’s Botnet Alexandru Georgescu
- On the Nature of the Concept of Tolerance Emil Dinga
- Romania’s “Sonderweg” to Illiberal Democracy Bogdan C. Enache
- A Community in Search of Unity, a Union in Search of Communion
- Defence and Security: The UK and Romania after Brexit Adam Sambrook
- Orient and Occident – Perceptual and Complementary Macro-Regions Viorel Mionel

- European Construction. Intellectual Project vs. Emergence Emil Dinga
- Challenges and Opportunities for the Future of Competitiveness Dragoș Preda
- Womenomics – Is It Worth Talking About Gender? Mariana Nicolae
- The Youth Atlantic Treaty Association and Its Role in Promoting Euro-Atlantic Values John Jacobs
- Water – the Ultimate Geostrategic Resource Viorel Mionel
- North Korea: “Reading the Tea Leaves” Alexandru Georgescu

- Cultural Goods and Cultural Welfare: Some Praxeological and Proprietarian Notes Octavian-Dragomir Jora
- Trump and the Paris Agreement Alexandru Georgescu
- The Risks of the Belt and Road Initiative in the Construction of Eurasian Economic Corridor Liu Zuokui
- Music Industry Development – Future Global Trends on the Rise Paul Niculescu-Mizil Gheorghe
- Cultural Diversity: Same Question, but a Different Answer. The Story of Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Raluca Șancariuc
- Planning for Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe: Mises’s Proposal for Political Integration Matei-Alexandru Apăvăloaei

- Shakespeare & Eminescu – Measure for Measure Adrian George Săhlean
- Ethnogenesis in Davos Alexandru Georgescu
- The Clash of Realism and Liberalism: Understanding the Nature of Cooperation on Energy Security between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia Ayhan Gücüyener
- Robots and Empire(s) Adrian-Ioan Damoc
- Debating the EU's Fiscal Union Filip Clem
- Space Debris – Visualizing the Risk and Informing Stakeholders Adrian Gheorghe

- The Long Slide towards Autocracy János Kornai interviewed by Zoltán Farkas
- Trumponomics – A New “New Deal” for the American people? Alexandru Georgescu
- The Costs and Benefits of Endowing the Romanian Army George Tăslăuanu & Marius Zgureanu
- Musk v. Hawking Andreea Paul
- The Chinese Dream – An Exhortation to Achieve Daniel Tomozei-Dimian
- The 12 Labours of Narendra Modi – India’s Demonetisation Saga Raluca-Andreea Manea

- To Be or Not to Be... Charlie! Camil A. Petrescu
- The Dissolution of the Communities Alexandru Georgescu
- The Banks in the Economy Silviu Cerna
- Geo-economics and Geopolitics of Brexit Crisis Napoleon Pop
- The Piketty-ism – A Childhood Illness for the 21st Century Ion Pohoață
- Simion Mehedinți – A Man of Fulfilled Ideas Silviu Neguț

The Anthropocene-Fallacy: Learning from Wrong Ideas
The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change. While it is not an academically established definition, as of yet, it is proposed to have begun in the 1950s. This article posits that the concept is erroneous in at least two ways. First, it relies on a normative, activist, appropriation of science. Second, it disregards the system-property of the ecosystem, which is marked by the continuous interaction between the system and its parts, or agents. But more than this, the idea of the Anthropocene is a case study for how activist agendas appropriate science and academia depriving it from an important academic feature, its skeptical method. More

Technology and Ethics: Of Man and Wisdom
In Isaac Asimov’s Bicentennial Man, the fictional robot character of Andrew Martin spends centuries suffering many modifications in order to be accepted by humanity as one of their own.The story shows Andrew, whose name comes from the Greek Andras, meaning man, as an innocent being endowed with unique skills and creativity, one of a kind among his robot peers. His original name was NDR, but the young girl who was a member of the family that owned him called him Andrew. Andrew becomes sad once he is acquainted with idea of death, especially after the demise of his master, whom he called Sir. Soon after this acquaintance with death he starts wearing clothes, as he is changed by the experience and for some reason starts to feel bare without them. Slowly, he works towards transforming everything he is into what his master was, a human. The story ends with him making the ultimate sacrifice, trading his immortality for the right to be called human. More

On Brexit and Other Exits (Praxeo)Logical insights regarding economic and political integration
The United Kingdom has just spent its first days out of the European Union. The exit, completed by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson (the third British PM in a row, since Brexit began, four years ago) together with his political counterparts from the intricate EU institutional architecture, stands proof that in the age of multilateralism, unilateralism is far from a lost idea. More

With Regards to Government Charity for the Private Sector Economy Near Us (XXV)
In a market economy, which is also presumed to function within a free society, generally, the goods and services needed for individuals are acquired through economic transactions (regularly through work and the processes around it – saving, investments and so on). Part of these goods and services are delivered by the state (more exactly, by the public sector of the state), the so-called public goods. The present intervention is intended to advance some considerations about the phenomenology of the public goods. It must be mentioned that there are two categories of public goods: More

Political and Economic Fallacies: A Tribute to Sir Roger Scruton
Adam Smith’s invisible hand, Frederic Bastiat’s essay “What Is Seen and What Is Unseen,” Michael Polanyi’s Tacit Dimension, Friedrich Hayek’s “spontaneous order,” and the Christian doctrines of subsidiarity and sphere sovereignty – these are ideas we ignore at our peril. We may not understand exactly how they work, but, as Shakespeare put it in another context in Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” More

Russian Relations with North Korea
The changing relationship between Russia and North Korea has its beginnings when the Soviet Union and China became rivals for influence within the Communist world. In the contemporary context, there is a triangle of complicated relations involving Russia, China and the United States. In an analysis of the history of Russian foreign policy, Michael Mandelbaum quoted former Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who observed that no important international question could be resolved "without the Soviet Union or in opposition to it". While that was the standard during the Soviet era when the Kremlin was routinely opposed to Western initiatives, Russia is well past that powerful situation and now focuses on certain regions as being paramount while others are only peripheral concerns. What we now refer to as Russia’s post-Communist foreign policy began before the collapse of the USSR when Mikhail Gorbachev began to speak of values other than those of Marxism-Leninism as the driving forces of international policy. Under Gorbachev’s “new thinking”, there was a focus on universal values such as a clean environment and not simply the advancement of "international class struggle". For Gorbachev, it was important that the Kremlin be able to cooperate with the West and be integrated into Western institutions that helped shape the international economy. Of course, this innovation eliminated the USSR as the main benefactor of those states which once comprised the “Soviet bloc”. The Brezhnev doctrine was repudiated and the Soviet military would no longer guarantee the maintenance of Communist party regimes in East Europe. More

Romania: A New Energy Power After a slowly diminishing status, brighter days to come?
While contemporary interest in energy questions focus on the Middle East, Romania has an impressive record in petroleum production which can be traced to 1517. Romania has a history of more than 150 years in oil extraction and in 1838 became the first country in the world with the production of 275 barrels of oil. It was followed by the United States in 1859 and Italy in 1862. By the 19th century, Romania had become one of the largest petroleum producers in Europe and Ploiești was among the best-known centers and was the site of the first Romanian refinery. Bucharest was the first city in the world illuminated with 1000 kerosene lamps, using kerosene which was produced in Ploiești. More

From Energetics to Economics Starting from the nodal analysis concept, engineer Cezar Mereuță opens up a new domain of inter-disciplinary research for economists
The fine connoisseurs say that statistics are perfectly comparable with the beach attire of an attractive young woman: reveals what everyone is allowed to see, but hides from the public eye the most appealing details. Because statistics is a science preferred by the economists, and in the economy some of the most intensively used benchmarks are turnover and gross domestic product (GDP), here are some very relevant examples: More

Russia’s Trump Card Against China and Reshaping Power Dynamics What Russia stands to gain from the US - China rivalry
On 18 December 2019, Donald Trump, the current President of the United States of America, was impeached by the House Judiciary Committee following allegations of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the third US President to be impeached after Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton (while Richard Nixon stepped down before a vote could be cast on his impeachment). The charges brought against Trump were attempting to coerce Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky into helping him win the upcoming 2020 elections by launching an investigation against Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden, and his son Hunter regarding pressure by Biden, as Obama’s VP, to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the energy firm employing his son. Trump apparently sought to ensure Ukraine’s help by withholding American military and diplomatic support for Ukraine. More

The Efficient Wage and Its Challenges Economy Near Us (XXVI)
The standard Economics states that the gross nominal wage which is consistent (that is, non-contradictory) with the criterion of economic behaviour of the employer – the gross profit maximization – must be at most at the level of monetary expression of the marginal labour productivity (such a level could be called the optimal-based wage – OBW). Let us presume, for the sake of discussion, that the employer does not wish to exploit the employee, so he does not pay less than the OBW. But what happens if he pays more than the OBW? Here emerges the concept of the efficient wage (EW), that is that gross level of the wage which is higher than the OBW. In the present intervention, I will discuss some issues related to the concept of EW, in the very context of Romanian economy where, quite recently, such a philosophy of remuneration was implemented. More

My Mauser Is Bigger than Yours The arms race in the South Caucasus
The arrival of four recently acquired Russian Su-30SM heavy multifunctional jet fighters in Armenia is far from being defined as ‘turning the chessboard on one’s opponent’, but it definitely triggers a new stage in the arms race between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Eight more jets of this kind are expected, bringing the total number to 12. The deal marks Armenia’s ambition to deconstruct Azerbaijan’s long enjoyed air superiority over the frontline and beyond. More

Leadership à la CEE: Values & Approaches
Another book review? Of yet another leadership book? There are and continue to appear so many books on leadership from so many angles, including innovation, creativity and artificial intelligence. And yet, what makes this particular book special and entices readers to pick it up and read it are first of all the authors and the region they chose to deal with. The book in discussion is “Leading in the Age of Innovations: Change of Values and Approaches” by Lenka Theodoulides, Gabriela Kormancova and David Cole, published by Routledge, 2019, in the Routledge Studies in Leadership Research Series. You can find it here. More

Relations with East Asia – A View from Romania
The situation of the world today makes it difficult to even agree on whether we, as humanity, are going towards the right or the wrong direction. This is indeed a time of increasing fluidity, fake news, rapidly rising populism, which all makes vision and clarity of decision very uncertain for even the most educated and informed persons. Are democracy and advanced capitalism failing or are they being following various routes all heading eventually towards progress? And what does progress mean nowadays when artificial intelligence (AI) is offering blurred visions of some utopias and clearly lots of dystopias for a large number of people? More

The Market Liberalization of Space Odysseys
Towards the end of 2019, a software issue during launch meant that Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was unable to perform its first mission to supply the International Space Station as intended. It might by counted as merely one of the many problems often faced in cosmic exploration, yet this one was of particular interest because the spacecraft was created and operated by Boeing, a private business, as opposed to a public body such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), such as we have been widely acquainted to. In fact, NASA abandoned the manned spacecraft program in 2011 (the space shuttle fleet), due to the high maintenance costs, as well as the significant and politically unpalatable dangers. Instead, what it has done since then has been to rent berths in Russian Soyuz spacecrafts or to encourage private businesses to come up with replacements. That is how SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corporation and United Launch Alliance jumped onto the bandwagon of a game that, for the better part of the last century, was played by governments moved by Cold War logic. More

The Future of Cars: Reinventing Transportation
The automobile industry’s cycle-race to embrace electric and autonomous vehicles did not include all its factories and workers. Neither did softening global auto sales help the market situation. And a change in the downward slope of the number of available job positions is unlikely, with Bloomberg predicting at least 80,000 more automobile jobs to be cut in the coming years. Still, what is certain is that the disruptive future of transportation has already hit the road. More

Europe after Brexit: Isolating the Continent
The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union remains undoubtedly the event of the year 2020. From a technical, procedural and institutional point of view, it was an impeccable, flawless process, according to the provisions of the existing EU regulatory framework, even if it took place after a difficult journey over three years from the date of the British referendum in 2016. Historically, the event does not deviate from the British pragmatic-action note – from the epistemic point of view, it can be explained in the margin of the neorealist paradigm, and, from the emotional point of view, it raises interest only from the perspective of its media exploitation. More

A Leaflet for Economics?
It may be rightfully supposed that the first few months of higher education represent a turning point for most people. It is undoubtedly of a great importance that people take the decision of wholeheartedly stepping into a new environment and make the best use of it. In truth, contact with academia offers new perspectives to young peoples. This is not necessarily about a life turnaround, but more about a novelty represented by a field of activity which people had not been familiar with before, for the "newcomers" have just passed over the threshold between the "playground" of adolescence and the official domain of maturity. More

A Perspective by and for the Youth
To most of us, it goes without saying that today’s youth will be tomorrow’s helmsmen amidst the tumultuous sea that life is. For “the little ones had become big, and the big ones had become almost men during the two years they were adrift in the Pacific”. Given that the attention with which adults have called upon the importance of listening to young people has become a leitmotif within our modern democratic society, it is imperative that we, the future helmsmen, do not wait for a second call. On the other side, the mere fact of making your voice heard at least for a tiny bit of time in the middle of this interconnected world cannot represent, in most instances, a satisfactory accomplishment, unless the one who does so is well aware of being a strong vocal cord of one of the many youthful voices which can be heard today alongside our lands. A 19 year-old’s brief analysis of the context in which his existence and that of his beloved ones emerge may hopefully resound in the hearts of other teenagers and young adults scattered upon the face of the Earth. And the past experience has proven that it does. Therefore, I should like to replace Jules Verne’s “Pacific” with our world as it presents today and the two years of forced vacation his characters had to endure with the sabbatical entities that mould our civilization. More