Germany's Social Market Economy: A Blueprint for Latin American Countries?

[Introduction ...] This paper tries to answer these questions taking five steps of argumentation. Firstly, the paper briefly sketches the theoretical and empirical background of the modern liberal market economy concept. Secondly, it outlines in more detail the basic ideas of the ordoliberal social market economy concept and some modern amendments to this concept based on institutional economics’ ideas. Thirdly, the paper compares the two concepts and it uses institutional data to describe two prototypes of economies based on those concepts of the United States and Germany. Fourthly, the same databases are used to describe the institutional status quo in five Latin American countries. The fifth and last step of the argumentation discusses the limitations of a simple blueprint idea with regards to economic orders. The paper ends with conclusions on options and limits of taking the liberal or the social market economy concept as a blueprint for Latin American countries

Economic Ideas and Institutional Change: Evidence from Soviet Economic Discourse 1987-1991

In recent years, institutional and evolutionary economists have become increasingly aware that ideas play an important role in economic development. In the current literature, the problem is usually elaborated upon in purely theoretical terms. In the present paper it is argued that ideas are always also shaped by historical and cultural factors. Due to this historical and cultural specificity theoretical research must be supplemented by historical case studies. The paper analyses the shift in ideas that took place in Soviet economic thought between 1987 and 1991. This case study, it is argued, may contribute to our understanding of the links between ideas and institutions. More specifically, it sheds new light on the issue of whether the evolution of economic ideas is pathdependent, so that they change only incrementally, or whether their development takes place in a discontinuous way that can best be compared with revolutions

Neueste Institutionenökonomik und neue Brücken zwischen Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften

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Conflicting Patterns of Thought in the Russian Debate on Modernisation and Innovation 2008–2013

Contains fulltext : 181950.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)This article draws conclusions based on an analysis of the relationship between economic ideas and institutional change in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, so far covering roughly the years from 1971 to 2007. It analyses the recent debate on economic modernisation in Russian economics. We argue that the relative failure of transition has to be seen in the context of a ‘failed transition of the mind’ and that the recent modernisation debate resembles the debate of the Brezhnev period

Economic ideas and institutional change: the case of the Russian Stabilisation Fund

An intense discussion is taking place in international political economy on the influence of economic ideas on institutional change. Case studies so far have, however, mainly focused on the Western industrialised countries and research seems to be biased towards cases in which new ideas caused lasting institutional change. The present paper addresses these two shortcomings by analysing the case of the Russian Stabilisation Fund (SF). This case is an example both of the impact of global ideas on a non-Western emerging country and of a ‘near miss’ in the sense that imported neoliberal ideas failed to assert themselves enduringly. Paradoxically, it can be shown how the neoliberally based idea of the SF even contributed to the return to Soviet patterns of industrial policy. The main reason for this, we argue, is that the Fund's implementation was not preceded by economic and political debates. Accordingly, the imported institution of the SF had to be filled with ideational content after its implementation

Economic ideas and institutional change: the case of the Russian Stabilisation Fund

An intense discussion is taking place in international political economy on the influence of economic ideas on institutional change. Case studies so far have, however, mainly focused on the Western industrialised countries and research seems to be biased towards cases in which new ideas caused lasting institutional change. The present paper addresses these two shortcomings by analysing the case of the Russian Stabilisation Fund (SF). This case is an example both of the impact of global ideas on a non-Western emerging country and of a ‘near miss’ in the sense that imported neoliberal ideas failed to assert themselves enduringly. Paradoxically, it can be shown how the neoliberally based idea of the SF even contributed to the return to Soviet patterns of industrial policy. The main reason for this, we argue, is that the Fund's implementation was not preceded by economic and political debates. Accordingly, the imported institution of the SF had to be filled with ideational content after its implementation