The aspects of institutions’ influence on economic growth and the priorities of their development are studied in the article. Two complementary analytical techniques are suggested. The first one, based on the discrete institutional alternatives method, is aimed at the "institutional design"...

The mechanism of euro functioning is analyzed in the article from the standpoint of limiting the autonomy of monetary authorities of the European monetary union members, which precludes them from manipulating national currency for the short sighted political interests and postponing painful...

Economics has firms maximizing value and people maximizing utility, but firms are run by people. Agency theory concerns the mitigation of this internal contradiction in capitalism. Firms need charters, regulations and laws to restrain those entrusted with their governance, just as economies need...

The paper shows the role played by the concept of parallel money in understanding the evolution of the monetary circulation in Russia in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. As evidenced by historical investigations, the experience of parallel money circulation is both theoretically...

The article examines the scientific legacy of the Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan (1919—2013). The focus is on the evolution of his views on constitutional political economy. The article shows the displacement of Buchanan’s preferences from the expansion of inclusiveness of...

This paper is the first attempt at quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Soviet literature on general equilibrium theory in 1960—1990s. We divide the papers into four subgroups: von Neumann—Gale class of models and equilibrium growth; Arrow—Debreu class of models; disequilibrium...

In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that a country's national income depends on its labor productivity, which in turn hinges on the division of labor. But why are some countries able to take advantage of the division of labor and become rich, while others fail to do so and remain poor?...

Indivisibilities are at the core of economic theory as rarely individuals can or want to limitlessly divide goods, inputs and activities, as well as related economic phenomena such as economies of scale, externalities and public goods. Indivisibilities help in explaining conflicts over social...

Drawing on actual reinterpretation of Mauss’s classical essay on “the Gift”, the authors examine four ideal-typical forms of gift which recur in the anthropologic literature, and theoretically analyze them under relevant contemporary phenomena. Kula - as reciprocity gift-, Potlach – as...