B31 - History of Economic Thought: IndividualsNávrat zpět

The paper presents the Chicago School economist Theodore Schultz's contributions to economic theory. Schultz is the only agricultural economist to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. The first part briefly describes the life of Theodore Schultz. The second part deals with his works in the economics of agriculture. The third part discusses his book The Economic Value of Education (Schultz, 1963). The fourth part analyses his work Investing in People (Schultz, 1981). The fifth part explores the book The Economics of Being Poor (Schultz, 1993). The sixth part outlines the book Origin of Increasing Returns (Schultz, 1993). The seventh part discusses his Nobel Prize lecture.

The overall impact of human activities on the Earth's system and its key elements such as biodiversity or climate is so great that the contemporary era is called the Anthropocene, where globalization is overwhelming and the global influence of human action equals natural processes. This brings about many problems of global nature that are difficult to solve as adequate governance of global common goods is not satisfactorily developed. The various historical and contemporary attempts to provide some form of governance at the global level are presented, including the concept of common heritage of mankind or community approaches. An important contribution represents the concept of global public goods that was espoused by many intergovernmental and international organizations, including the UN and the EU. The relationship with the global sustainable development goals and official development assistance is also mentioned.

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.

Liberal ownership rights are the essential basis of proper functioning of market economy, therefore the theory of ownership rights can also be considered the basis of theories governing all the areas of market economy functioning. The currentness of the presented issues in the Czech Republic has been rapidly increasing lately, with regard to the expanding erosion of ownership rights set democratically after 1989. The aim of this paper is to present the results of long-term research in renowned economic magazines, to draw attention to the extraordinarily current nature of the discussed issues determined by increasing instability of ownership rights in the Czech Republic in recent years and to promote an expert discussion of this topic in various economic and legal circles.

The paper discusses the contribution of R. H. Coase to economics and his role as a founder of the new institutional economics. Coase also contributed to the establishment of Law and Economics as a discipline, he is the author of the transaction cost theory and of the Coase Theorem. The paper discusses main aspects of his theory and his core theoretical contributions including more recent ones as well as their impact on the development of the economic theory and economic policy. The role of transaction costs, well established property rights, the institutional framework and the need to relate economic analysis to the real economic development and to overcome the isolation of the formal economic analysis are identifi ed as crucial contributions of Coase to economics relevant for the current stage of the development of economics and economic systems.

The purpose of the paper is to map the economic theory of Gary Becker. The first part outlines the life of Gary Becker. The second part analyses his economic approach to human behaviour. The third part covers the economics of discrimination. The fourth part examines the human capital theory. The fifth part is concerned with crime and punishment. The sixth part deals with economics of the family. The seventh part outlines economics of life.

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.

František Vencovský one of the most prominent Czech economists of the second half of the 20th century died five years ago. He has been valued for his very significant contribution to the historical development of the Czech economic theory, to the historical development of banking, monetary policy etc. Being a friend and follower of Karel Engliš, F. Vencovský applied Engliš's teleological method to the solution of contemporary issues especially in the area of money, exchange rate and monetary policy. In spite of working in different conditions than Engliš (centrally controlled economy) F. Vencovský took this attitude from the very beginning of his scientific life in the sixties and not only after 1989.

The paper is concerned with the economic theory of George Stigler. First part outlines the life of George Stigler. Second part examines his dissertation "Production and Distribution Theories" (1941). Third part discusses his textbook "The Theory of Price" (1946). Forth part is devoted to his "Essays in the History of Economics" (1965). Fifth part analyzes the work "The Organization of Industry" (1968). Sixth part explains "The Theory of Economic Regulation" (1971). Seventh part discusses Stigler's book "The Citizen and the State" (1975). Eighth part presents his autobiography "Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist" (1988). Stigler has become famous thanks to articles "Economics of Information" (1961) and "Theory of Economic Regulation" (1971), which says that interest groups and other political participants will use the regulatory and coercive powers of government to shape laws and regulations in a way that is beneficial to them.

In the following text we introduce those approaches to the methodology of economics that are relevant from the perspective of post-Keynesianism. After a partially historical outline of philosophical and methodological stances of John Maynard Keynes and Nicholas Kaldor we attempt to shed some light on a more recent methodological concept, critical realism. This approach is in one way or in other influenced by the two economists' ideas in the realm, as well as some other post-Keynesians. We argue that this, originally heterodox, concept has had an ambition not only to operate as an alternative to the methodology of mainstream, orthodox economics, but to substitute it and thus, proponents say, make economics as such more relevant.

The aim of this paper is to introduce roots of multi-agent approaches in economic theory. From the beginning, the opinion that economic system should be investigated on the basis of comprehension to its basic units was expressed by many scientists. Friedrich A. Hayek and Herbert A. Simon are two important scientists who may be designated as predecessors of multi-agent modeling. They incorporated similar principles as applied by multi-agent system approaches into their works before it was possible to deal with these principles through artificial intelligence. This paper links ideas of Hayek and Simon with multi-agent modeling, common principles and ideas are identified.

Karel Kouba belongs among the most prominent Czech economists of the second half of the 20th century. The paper analyzes his major contribution to the Czech economic thought in the context of economic reforms of the Prague Spring of 1968 and of economic transition in 1990s. In the communist era special focus is devoted to the theory of growth in the socialist economies, compatibility of plan and market and his inclusion of individual motivations into decision-making of agents within the centrally planned economy. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, K. Kouba showed the importance of microeconomic relations for the macrostability and the relevance of institutional economy for explaining the processes during the transition period. Kouba's story has also a more general message. It shows how the biggest talents were treated during the communist era in Czechoslovakia and which dilemmas they had to face.

The study deals with analysis of economic reforms in South-Eastern Asia affected by financial crisis in 1990s. Authors have stressed, that it was a result of internal and external influences, which caused not only the fatal destabilization of main economic fundaments of affected countries and they have had consequences on international business authority of these countries. It was approved, that the high rate of internal interdependence of countries affected by crisis and also the interdependence on Japan, could be considered as basic, but hidden accelerators of crisis. Nevertheless using of important reforming interventions eliminated most of the economic implications of it the risks of re-outbreak of the crisis have been decreased to certain level only. For prevention against its expansion are responsible all "attended" subjects and equally they have to share on realization of reforming economic programs for its long-term elimination.

This article is oriented on the analyses of the development of the mergers and acquisition process. The author shows the main reason and motivations of expansion MA and its influence on the globalization of the world economy. This activity is (in the time and the territory) very different and heterogeneous. The leading players of his process are the multinational corporations, however, the value of deals of SME's is going up, too. In the last years these activities concern to the change of strategy of MNC's, first of all to the supporting of cooperation among them. The latest period is under the increasing pressure of the development of the international production sharing and production cooperation. The final result of this process is creating to a new sharing of the economic power in the worldvide framework, as a whole and influencing all regions, the emerging markets not shows off.

One of the two laureates of the Nobel Prize for economics in 2002 is Daniel Kahneman. After taking a brief look at Kahneman's life, the present article surveys his contributions to our understanding of three aspects of human decision making: judgment, comparison of alternatives and types of utility. In all three areas, interesting economic applications of Kahneman's results are possible. Some of these applications are sketched.

Economic opinions of Johan Amos Comenius (1592 - 1670) were not completely described yet, although they can be found in several writings. Comenius differentiated from Medieval thoughts by his opinions in respect of an enterprise, a position of laws and an activity of sovereign, by refusing monopolies, emphasising the importance of level of education for the development and wealth-being of the nation, and by describing positive aspects of intellectual work. His opinions are often similar to mercantilistic point of view.