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

Corporate social responsibility and the ‘game of catallaxy’: the perspective of constitutional economics

Corporate social responsibility, Market economy, Constitutional economics, D21, J53, L21,

How do norms emerge? An outline of a theory

Norms, institutions, public goods, collective action,

Environmental cognitions, land change, and social–ecological feedbacks : an overview

Understanding land use transitions requires analyzing how, when facing qualitative environmental change, human agents may modify their beliefs, values, and decision rules. This article first reviews some of the useful theories analyzing how environmental change can have a feedback effect on behaviors, via the environmental cognitions. Then, it discusses three propositions for more cognitively realistic agents in land change science: (i) land use choices result from multiple decision-making processes and rely on various motives, influenced by social norms, emotions, beliefs, and values toward the environment; (ii) social–ecological feedbacks are mediated by the environmental cognitions, that is, the perception, interpretation, evaluation of environmental change, and decision-making; (iii) human agents actively re-evaluate their beliefs, values, and functioning to adapt to unexpected environmental changes. Empirical and modeling studies in land change science can progress by linking the three components of the feedback loop, that is, environmental changes, environmental cognitions, and land use practices