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The global financial crisis has clearly been a matter of great consternation for the business-as-usual faction of mainstream economics. Will the World Financial Crisis turn out to be that experimentum crucis that triggered a scientific revolution? In this article, we seek to assess the likelihood of a paradigm shift toward heterodox approaches and a more pluralist setting in economics emerging from the academic establishment in the United States—that is, from the dominant center of knowledge production in the economic discipline. This will be done by building the analysis on a combined Lakatosian framework of “battle of research programs” and a Bourdieuian framework of “power struggle” within the academic field and highlighting the likelihood of two main proponents of the mainstream elite to become the promulgator of change.

The purpose of this study is to elucidate and appreciate the growing importance of social knowledge in economic systems. It is thoroughly evident that socially available information as a variable is being employed in economic modeling—and, social concepts and principles are being increasingly employed to model economic systems. Despite the growing importance of social elements in economic theory and modeling, there appears to be a general lack of appreciation and understanding effected by fallacy of about what constitutes social knowledge in particular, and social information in general, and then, why there should be social elements included in economic systems. The goal of this paper, therefore, is to undertake a formal analysis of the theory of social knowledge based on Kenneth Arrow's (1994) paper, and to explain why this is so relevant in modern economic systems. This study, therefore, attempts to demonstrate understanding of the concept of social knowledge in its present context—the digital age, with the aim of advancing knowledge in this field. Finally, the study also provides general knowledge about the subject of social knowledge in the context of economic growth.

The article is devoted to the sale of goods using one-page websites. The article highlights the main features and differences of such sites from online stores. Also led the scheme of work, the highlighted pluses and minuses of single-page sites. Based on a large number of deficiencies, the rationale for the low efficiency of this type of sales is provided.

This article analyses whether automation and offshorability risks overlap with non-standard employment. The research uses data from Spain, as this is a country with one of the highest temporary employment rates across the world since the 1990s. In general, the analysis shows that automation risks affect slightly more to those with non-standard work arrangements. However, higher educational level is crucial to be much less exposed to automation risks, irrespective of the type of contract or the working time. The offshorability risk also has a small overlap with non-standard employment, but has the opposite relationship with the educational level. The results suggest that specific training policies attending to those with lower educational levels in non-standard employment would be advisable to protect some workers against automation risks, but not against offshorability.

We distinguish between (i) voting systems in which voters can rank candidates and (ii) those in which they can grade candidates, such as approval voting, in which voters can give two grades—approve (1) or not approve (0)—to candidates. While two grades rule out a discrepancy between the average-grade winners, who receive the highest average grade, and the superior-grade winners, who receive more superior grades in pairwise comparisons (akin to Condorcet winners), more than two grades allow it. We call this discrepancy between the two kinds of winners the paradox of grading systems, which we illustrate with several examples and whose probability we estimate for sincere and strategic voters through a Monte Carlo simulation. We discuss the tradeoff between (i) allowing more than two grades, but risking the paradox, and (ii) precluding the paradox, but restricting voters to two grades.

In the society utility is the vital concept, especially in mathematical economics. It is considered as the tendency of an object or action that increases or decreases overall happiness. In social sciences, the property of a commodity that enables to satisfy human wants is called utility. This paper has tried to operate utility maximization policy of an organization by considering two constraints: budget constraint and coupon constraint. To develop the maximization policy of utility function, the techniques of multivariate calculus are used. In this study four commodity variables are used to operate the mathematical analysis efficiently. In this article Lagrange multiplier technique is applied to achieve optimal result throughout the study.

In this paper we prove the existence, uniqueness and saddle-point stability of the steady state (or balanced growth path) of the Romer (1990) model by utilizing the reduction of dimensionality. Furthermore, we found out a set of policy instruments to improve the monopolistic competitive equilibrium allocation up to social optimum.

Traditional theoretical literature which neglects the benefits of stabilization policies (e.g., Lucas 1987 and 2003) ultimately relies on the small impact that macroeconomic volatility has on aggregate income and consumption. In this article, we argue that such an approach is both theoretically and empirically weak. From the theoretical viewpoint, the cost of volatility should be measured including not only monetary magnitudes, but also those psychological costs whose relevance has been stressed by behavioural economics and which are correlated with the number of unemployment episodes. We refer here to the implications for experienced utility of loss aversion, the endowment effect and hedonic adaptation. This theoretical problem is coupled with the empirical finding that the effects of downturns are not randomly distributed and serially uncorrelated, i.e., they affect more frequently those who have less (in terms of skills, income and wealth) and who suffer greater wellbeing losses from each shock. It follows that the traditional (and Lucas) analysis disregards the main causes of wellbeing losses determined by downturns. Hence, it cannot be considered as a theoretically sound basis for denying the usefulness of policies aimed at preventing downturns and/or of micro regulation policies aimed at preventing the impact of downturns and labour force reallocation on the labour market.

This article has two objectives: to study the 1997 episode of hyperinflation in Bulgaria and to compare and contrast this analysis with the post-Keynesian theoretical approach. This approach highlights the role of three components observed simultaneously in order to understand the emergence of hyperinflation: a virulent distribution conflict, the presence of indexing mechanisms, and finally flight from domestic currency into one or more foreign currencies. The article reveals that a transitional economy like that of Bulgaria in the 1990s may generate hyperinflation in the absence of any violent distribution conflict: the transition and the banking crisis engender inflation. The foreign exchange rate is decisive in the emergence of hyperinflationary dynamics (and therefore mistrust of domestic currency). Lastly, this interpretation of hyperinflation is confirmed by an econometric analysis.

Over the last few years, the interest on alternative protein sources, such as edible insects, has been growing rapidly. However, Western consumers' acceptance of insects as a food source is very low, mainly due to unfamiliarity with insect-based food. We investigate consumers' attitude and behavior and estimate their willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for three products that vary on a between-subjects basis, the proximity of insects in the food chain. The data were collected through an online questionnaire of 451 consumers in Greece and WTP was elicited using the Contingent Valuation (CV) method. Our results show that the majority of Greek consumers are not willing to pay a premium for an insect-based energy bar and cookie; on the contrary, they would require a discount to acquire such products. On the other hand, consumer acceptance is higher for a gilt-head bream that is fed with insect-based feed. Consumers with positive WTP are on average willing to pay a premium of 15.8%, 17% and 31.8% for the energy bar, cookie and gilt-head bream, respectively, while consumers that are not WTP a premium would require discounts of 43.8%, 42.4% and 30.7%, respectively.