B25 - History of Economic Thought since 1925: Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm SchoolNávrat zpět

Frank Hyneman Knight made a significant contribution to neoclassical economics. The paper aims to examine his economic theory and political philosophy. The first part outlines the life of Frank Knight. The second part examines his thesis titled "Risk, Uncertainty and Profit" (1921). The third part analyses "The Economic Organization" (1933). The fourth part discusses the book "The Ethics of Competition" (1935). The fifth part takes a look at the political philosophy in the book "Freedom and Reform" (1947). The sixth part highlights the significance of Knight for the Chicago School.

With respect to the occurrence of economic crises it may be observed that economic performance of countries is determined by the quality of its institutions. It is the corporate governance failure that is said, in line with the new institutional economic theory, to be among reasons for the recent international financial and economic crisis. This study has the goal of confirming, by empirical analysis, the existence of correlation between, on one hand, the quality of the institutional environment expressed by index of economic freedom and by its selected subindexes, and, on the other hand, the macroeconomic environment for corporates - as characterised by selected macroeconomic indicators. In result, countries with higher foreign direct investments influx and higher per capita GDP show higher levels of index of economic freedom. Countries with higher level of property rights protection and lower corruption level achieve higher GDP per capita. Countries with higher ratio of government expenditure on GDP reach lower levels of index of economic freedom, this being interpreted as a substitution of private business entities and entrepreneurial initiative by a government.

The paper aims to show a comprehensive insight into the history of business economics science in the Czech Republic, marginally also on the European continent and worldwide. It depicts business economics in its beginning as a doctrine that was largely underestimated. This science was, for a very long time, a part of economics (national/public); only slowly has it gradually become an autonomous branch of science. This article shows historical attitudes to the theory of business in Bohemia as well as abroad since the end of the nineteenth century up to this day. It describes the period of statism in Bohemia within the context of business economics, it focuses on fundamentals of this science and depicts consecutively aspects from which the theory of business economics as a science arises in the transition period to free market economy. The paper discusses the future of business economics as a science that, considering current economic conditions worldwide, has a huge potential to grow. The article contributes to the worldwide discussion about its further development.

According to quite a number of scholars, even non-Austrian, some theories of Austrian school of economic thought do provide an increasingly relevant material to explain recent boom-and-bust economic cycles as well as financial crises. However, I argue, this development is not adequately reflected by a corresponding growth of Austrian influence within the economic orthodoxy. Quite to the contrary, many orthodox scholars have taken over rigidly Keynesian positions since the financial crisis culminated in 2008 and 2009. In my article I maintain that Austrians themselves have contributed significantly to such a situation by not preventing three major tactical mistakes, related to the domain of sociology of economics, from occurring. Firstly, they have not formed a really unified and thus influential group of scholars; instead, they have been divided into a few streams, sometimes with highly contradictory stances. Secondly, many Austrians have made bold predictions, especially with regard to possible enormous inflation stemming from the unprecedented provision of liquidity to the financial system during and in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, which have not been fulfilled at all. Thirdly, a critical number of Austrian school's economists do not effectively communicate with the rest of the profession and even, it seems, fail to adequately comprehend the orthodox analytical tools and theories.

The aim of the article is to explore how the results of the U. S. subprime mortgage crisis influenced economic policy of governments in highly developed countries. It analyses consequences of a state intervention especially for government budgets and a rise of government debts. Then the article discusses the point of view of the Austrian school. Austrian economists argue a state is not an economic subject and its fiscal policy is very dangerous for effective allocation of the available resources of production's factors. They advocate a society with a small government and liberal economic policy. The author believes that Austrian approach to economic problems is more realistic and more pertinent than the approach of those, who demand more government intervention.

The beginning of modern times, in contrast to the previous era, is still characterized by a growing importance of labour in human life. The article is focused on the new social policy and the evolution of institutions called workhouses and house of corrections which illustrate the growing meaning of labour. Workhouses, however they were seen as benevolent equipment, they have been strengthened also with practically advantageous symbiosis undertaken principles of mercantilism. Despite the controversial practice of workhouses, we can consider them as the most important stage in the long term evolution of active labour market policy. Labour as a topos of modern social policy identified new opportunities to help the poor and anticipated various forms of active labour market policies of modern times.

What is the role of entrepreneurship in economic development from the perspective of neo-Austrian and new institutional economics and what is the difference between these approaches? Neo-Austrian economists claim that economic development is caused by entrepreneurial discovery. New institutional economists argue that structure of incentives determined by the institutional environment provides a guideline for entrepreneurial decision-making. Hence, an institutional environment that rewards rent-seeking does not provide opportunities for economic development. In this paper we offer a comparison of these approaches to show that both entrepreneurial discovery and institutional environment are closely related. Moreover, with the comparison we demonstrate that entrepreneurial decision-making plays more important role in economic development when an institutional change is taken into account.

The aim of the paper is to set the agency problem into a broad context of New Institutional Economics with an emphasis on historical connections. In the first section, I explain the historical evolution of basic theoretical concepts like the theory of firm, the theory of market process and the theory of property rights. The second section is dedicated to the explanation of the general concept of agency problem extended with the problem of asymmetric information leading to adverse selection and the problem of moral hazard, in context of previous historical connections. In the last section, the author provides some suggestions for the further theoretical and empirical research.

This paper deals with the recent empirical phenomenon of intraindustry trade, i.e. trade in similar goods between similar countries. It treats this phenomenon from the point of view of the theory of structure of production, highlighting the importance of sequential nature of production and heterogeneity and specificity of factors of production, as developed by Carl Menger, Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk and their followers of the so-called Austrian school of economics. Simple theory of production structure, along the lines of Austrian economics, is presented and a useful tool for the analysis of intraindustry trade is developed. In the following discussion we make the case for vertical intraindustry specialization, complex manufactured goods and sliced-up production chains across countries. The reader immediately observes the importance of Austrian production structure theory for the analysis of intraindustry trade. We accordingly apply the concepts of the structure of production on intraindustry trade and analyze, in particular, the time- and place-aspects of international production. Finally, we show the relevance of our approach to intraindustry trade for the analysis of business cycle synchronization and Optimum currency areas theory.

The introductory parts of the paper analyse development of a local variety of capitalism in Slovakia from the institutional and evolutionary perspective. In early transition period privatisation policies were aimed at development of a liberal version of capitalism, based on fluid capital markets. These policies were confronted with institutional legacies of previous regimes. Privatisation, however, had major impact on structure of capital ownership and management. Next chapters compare contemporary Slovak capitalism with varieties found in other OECD economies. Major elements of institutional framework (labour market, business and financial environments) are subject to factor analysis. OECD member countries are compared via index of market coordination. Slovakia appears to be a market economy with middle levels of strategic market coordination and similar to Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Reliance on bank finance and dual economy are another distinctive features of the contemporary Slovak capitalism.