Economic vs. juristic thinking in Carl Menger’s principles of economics

Austrian Economic School is increasingly being treated as one of the most significant and ever more influential bodies of ideas affecting the contemporary economic science. It is well known that Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School, was a lawyer by education. The paper is devoted to the degree to which his legal education influenced his economic theorizing. After a close examination of the Menger’s conceptual apparatus and the epistemological ramifications of the key notions underlying his thinking, the paper concludes that the juristic background of the far-reaching theoretical contributions contained in Menger’s Principles was truly decisive. That holds true despite the fact that Menger only exceptionally utilized the juristic vocabulary. The key ingredients of his theoretical creation? such as the individual autonomy, the coincidence of the wills in concluding a contract the effective protection of property and making transactions based on the individual motivation to further one’s own interests to the utmost? are clearly inspired and in many ways influenced by private law, particularly the doctrines underlying the Roman Law and the Austrian Civil Code

Communication campaigns to engage (non-traditional) forest owners: A European perspective

In Europe, private forest owners play an important role in achieving sustainability goals, such as those set by the European Green Deal. Efficient communication and coordination with these actors is therefore central. However, ongoing structural changes in forest ownership have in many cases silenced traditional communication channels, especially those involving owners of small forests. Their economic performance is often negligible at an individual level, yet collectively their forests play a pivotal role in a context of increasing demand for wood products. In this article, we analyse and compare forest campaigns in nine European countries. Specifically, we assess one-way and two-way communication models applying different techniques to engage (non-traditional) forest owners. Our analysis of 34 campaigns shows that (i) one-way communication models are still more widely used in the forest sector to engage non-traditional forest owners than two-way communication models; (ii) one-way communication aims at informing and is effective for short-term awareness raising, while two-way communication aims at persuading and is essential to trigger forest management activities over the long-term, (iii) interactive learning tools can play a crucial role for reaching and engaging (nontraditional) forest owners. We further conclude that campaigns could be improved by having 1) joint campaigns with public and private actors, 2) convincing narratives developed based on a good understanding of forest owners' motivations, 3) adapting the timing of campaigns to windows of opportunities and 4) developing intermediary associations (e. g. non-traditional forest owner associations) as connectors and trust builders between different actors as they play a crucial role in providing information to forest owners and supporting their engagement