The article argues that Ostroms’ institutionalism has a dimension that is complex and profound enough to deserve to be considered a “social theory” or a “social philosophy”. The paper pivots around the thesis that the “social philosophy” behind the Bloomington School’s research...

Lamentations on societal and environmental developments become increasingly audible in our times. Currently, we can hear almost every day about reaching the balance in a very sensitive triangle economic sustainability-social sustainability-environmental sustainability. It is largely omitted that...

Transparency is a crucial condition to implement a CSR policy based on the reputation mechanism. The central question of this contribution is how a transparency policy ought to be organised in order to enhance the CSR behaviour of companies. Governments endorsing CSR as a new means of governance...

In the early stock market in London there were substantial risks of non-payment and fraud. (Mortimer, 1801) According to Hobbesian theory, we would expect stock markets to develop only after government has implemented rules and regulations to eliminate these problems. The historical account,...

Public choice economists began studying the economics of anarchy in the 1970s. Since then, the amount of research on anarchy has burgeoned. This article surveys the important public choice contributions to the economics of anarchy. Following the lead of the early public choice economists, many...

Networking, as an organising principle of the urban systems, is a basic feature of the territorial policies and practices, but also a classic concept of the theory of urban geography and of spatial planning. In the first place it refers to the fundamental characteristic of cities and towns, not...

The ruling political party or the ruling government has rights in drafting and implementing economic policies including the budget policy. In the case of Malaysia, as observed, the budget policy is associated with the long or medium term economic development plans that are drafted, current...

The motivations of the Arab Spring that have marked the history of humanity over the last few months have left political economists, researchers, governments and international policymakers pondering over how the quality of political institutions affect consumer welfare in terms of commodity...

Switzerland was one of the last OECD-countries to introduce a program for old age security – the AHV. For many decades, expenditures both in absolute terms and as a portion of GDP remained low in OECD comparison. In the 1970ies however, expenditures exploded – within 10 years, the...

Some states treat a same-sex marriage as legally equal to a marriage between a man and a woman. Other states prohibit legal recognition of same-sex marriages in their constitutions. In every state that has a constitutional restriction against same-sex marriage, the amendment was passed by a...