National Economy, November-December 2004

1. Adam Glapiński – The Method and Research Programme of History of Economic Thought See summary
2. Marian Gorynia, Barbara Jankowska – Branch Competition Versus Internationalisation and Globalisation See summary
3. Janina Godłów-Legiędź – Corruption and Economic Freedom in Transition Economies See summary
4. Izabela Bludnik – Keynesian Theories of Hysteresis See summary
5. Piotr Wójcik – Convergence of Poland’s Regions in the Years 1990-2000 See summary
6. Marek Martin – Technology Level of Small Technology-based Firms and Barriers to their Growth See summary

1. Book review: Competitiveness of Regions in the Period of Transition to a Market Economy. An International Comparative Analysis: Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, edited by Wojciech Kosiedowski, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, Toruń 2004, pp. 499, reviewed by Eufemia Teichmann
2. 27^th International CIRET Conference at the Warsaw School of Economics – Piotr Białowolski, Sławomir Dudek
3. List of publications in 2004

The Method and Research Programme of History of Economic Thought 

The article analyses development of the history of economic thought methodology. Two major models of practicing this discipline are distinguished: a nominalist one and a relationist one. The nominalist model, which had a dominating position at the early stage of development of economic sciences, was characteristic of physiocrats and classicists, and is still continued nowadays. The relationist model developed within the framework of the Scottish Historical School, the German Older and Younger Historical Schools, Marxism and the Sociology of Knowledge. The dispute among those models found its culmination in the Methodenstreit of the late 19th century in polemics between the Austrian School and the Younger Historical School. It concerned the methodological status of the science of economics and, by the same token, its history. A nomothetic, deductive and synchronic approach was presented on the one hand, and an idiographic, inductive and diachronic approach on the other hand. On the one hand, a model was developed of practicing history of economics as an internal history of logical self-improvement of economic theory through creative effort of subsequent generations of economists. On the other hand, a model of the economic theory was proposed as an exogenous history covering development of the theory of economics in connection with social development and the history of other social sciences. The dispute over methodology in the history of economic thought has been wrapped up in writings by M. Weber and, especially, by J.A. Schumpeter. Then, the article analyses the way in which historians of economics make use of achievements of subsequent stages of development of contemporary philosophy of science and various theories of knowledge development. It examines possibilities for application of the K.R. Popper, T.S. Kuhn and I. Lakatos model in history of economics research. Reasons for popularity of the Lakatos model among economists and historians of economics are pointed out.

The article provides an analysis of internationalisation and globalisation consequences for competition on a specific domestic branch market, which is a market more and more opening up to foreign competition. Enterprises, which have been so far operating on domestic markets, make a decision to go out with their business operations (commercial or manufacturing) abroad. Some of them not only go outside their domestic markets, i.e. internationalise their activities, but even conduct their operations in a way integrated on a global scale, thus applying a global strategy. In view of such a company behaviour, in the case of many branches we may talk about internationalisation and globalisation of competition.

During the discussion over internationalisation and globalisation consequences for branch competition, both static an dynamic aspects of the branch are taken into account. This means that changes to the branch structure are analysed along with behaviour of “domestic” enterprises as confronted with those entering the branch of foreign firms. Besides, indications are given for the global nature of competition as a process.

The article analyses the relationship between corruption and economic freedom in transition economies, on the basis of the corruption perceptions indices published by Transparency International, and the economic freedom indices drawn up under auspices of the Heritage Foundation. We seek answers to the question to what extent the hypothesis that the increase in economic freedom reduces corruption finds confirmation in the countries undergoing deep institutional changes involved with the transition from a centrally-planned to a market economy. In the first part of the article, basic corruption and economic freedom indices are characterised, while the second part contains an analysis of correlations between Corruption Perceptions Indices (CPI) and Economic Freedom Indices (EFI). On that basis, and as a result of an analysis of suggestions from the New Institutional Economics a conclusion has been formulated that the nature of relationships between the degree of corruption and the scope for economic freedom in transition economies is more complex and less unequivocal than in mature market economy democracies. In transition economies, due to cultural and political factors, economic liberalisation is accompanied by strengthening tendencies towards using political power and official functions for fostering private interests.

In the 1980s, a very sharp rise in unemployment rates was recorded in Europe. In accordance with the dominating monetarist view, that phenomenon was explained by the impact of real factors, like trade union activity and increased financial protection of the unemployed. By the same token, a thesis that demand-related factors were irrelevant and having only a short-term effect on unemployment was advocated. Nevertheless, numerous empirical studies did not confirm the occurrence of sudden adverse changes to real factors blamed for labour market developments in Europe. Consequently, neo-keynesianists came up with a supposition that the NAIRU - the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (or the natural rate) may depend on past levels of the market equilibrium rate. This way the concept of hysteresis has been devised, according to which the NAIRU (the natural rate) may change not only and exclusively due to the impact of real factors, but also due to aggregate demand fluctuations.

The conditional convergence hypothesis is a major implication resulting from neoclassical growth models. The fact that poorer regions develop faster than richer ones does not have to mean that the variation in their incomes diminishes over time. Classical methods of convergence analysis are unable to grasp the income polarisation effect, i.e. “club convergence”, either. For this reason, an analysis of full distribution of income and its dynamics may be of interest. This method has been applied to analysis of convergence of regional GDP per capita in Poland in the years 1990-2001.

During the analysed period, regional convergence was not the case in Poland, as the GDP per capita was very stable. Nevertheless, one can talk about income polarisation in that period. Relative differences between poor and rich regions were growing. However, the situation in the first half of the 1990s was distinctively different from that in the second half of the decade.

In 1990-1995, disproportions diminished sharply. With an overall decline in GDP, richer voivodships were subject to a relatively stronger impoverishment. Nevertheless, one can talk about club convergence rather than absolute convergence during that period. Only during the mentioned sub-period, the poorest regions had the chance to exceed the level of 80% of relative GDP per capita. During that period voivodships faced a much better chance for relative enrichment than impoverishment. Consequently, the club of richer regions was much more numerous than the group of relatively poorer regions.

In 1995-2001, the trend was reversed, as the regions were becoming relatively poorer, and income disproportions increased again. The probability for the poorest regions to increase their income above 80% of the average was marginal in that period. The Mazowieckie voivodship, being the richest one, had a clearly distinctive position and was developing much faster than the remaining regions.

The tendency towards diminishing the differences in the group of the poorest voivodships, apparent in each of the analysed periods, may be an indication that those regions were becoming relatively poorer and richer alternately as compared to one another, but none of them grew rich enough to break away from the group of the poorest ones.

Technology Level of Small Technology-based Firms and Barriers to their Growth

The article is an attempt of specifying if and to what extent the impact of barriers to development of small technology-based firms (STBF) depends on the level of technological advancement of these entities. The typology of barriers to development adopted in this study covers 12 kinds of barriers. The classification of industry by the degree of technological advancement, as proposed by the OECD, has been adopted as a criterion for selection of economic entities. It can be seen from the analysis of gathered empirical data that the information barrier is the one whose impact is to the highest extent associated with the degree of technological advancement. It is followed by the infrastructure barrier and the financial barrier.