Article
Изучение доиндустриального и индустриального обществ методами неоклассической теории
The paper analyzes the classical and neoclassical assumptions concerning the effect of the natural and the institutional environments on the comparative welfare of various countries. The distinction is considered between the preindustrial and industrial societies as to their natural and institutional conditions.
This work is an attempt to explain an enigma of the Russian economy's debarterization which took place in the beginning of the XXI century in the context of institutional-and-macroeconomic analysis of the structure of payments' system. This system is treated as the important part of an institutional environment. Debarterization is explained by a combination of long economic expansion, increasing «money supply/GDP» ratio and growing credit activity of the banks, and also administrative and tax pressing of the government. Nevertheless, the Russian payments' system is basically different from the Western one. The main measured differences are low «money supply/GDP» ratio, high «cash money/total money supply» ratio, an absence of M3 and M4 aggregates. The main causes of this underdevelopment of the payments' system are ineffective enforcement of the contracts by the state, high administrative barriers to entry, a lack of mutual trust, big shadow sector. The main consequences are narrow possibilities for financing both expensive (and long-lived) investment projects and innovative activity.
The paper presents an approach to quantitative estimation of socio-economic benefits from oil extraction (in the US). The approach explicitly distinguishes the contribution of non-institutional and institutional factors. Calculations show that in the United States the influence and dynamics of institutional factors are related to steady deterioration of natural conditions of oil extraction. In general, the US resource regime can be called stimulating, as is evidenced by a small proportion of adverse effects due to preservation of residual oil.
Written on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Piero Sraffa's Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, the papers selected and contained in this book accounts for the work completed around the two central aspects of his contribution to economic analysis, namely the criticism of the neoclassical (or 'marginalist') theory of value and distribution, and the reconstruction of economic theory along the lines of the Classical approach. Divided into three volumes, the book debates the most fruitful routes for advancements in this field and their implications for applied and policy analysis. The third volume collects papers concerning the interpretation of Sraffa's contribution, its relation with other streams in economic thinking, methodological debates and the history of economic thought or the evolution of his views both in general and on specific themes.