Economic Freedom: Theory First, Empiricism After

The aim of this paper is to argue in favor of theoretically well-founded empirical examinations on how economic freedom affects economic performance, which is not the case, as we argue, in most of the huge empirical literature developed after the construction of various indexes of economic freedom. In this spirit we develop a concept of economic freedom based on Hayek (1960): absence of coercion except for state coercion to enforce known general rules. Trying to formulate Hayek’s ideas on a less abstract level, as a step further we propose a categorization of government actions, which gives us some guidance about which government actions hurt and which do not hurt economic freedom. Our concept of economic freedom allows us to conceptualize the measurement of economic freedom in a different way from the indexes of economic freedom.

Status and Negative Ties: A Longitudinal Network Study among Adolescents = Státusz és negatív kapcsolatok: Egy longitudinális hálózatelemzés középiskolások körében

The PhD thesis examines how the negative, "dark side" of interpersonal relations and status positions interrelate among secondary school students in Hungary. Consequently, the thesis has two important goals. The first, the scientific aim is to measure and empirically analyze the interrelated dynamics of the negative relationships and the status positions of adolescents in secondary schools, using a Hungarian longitudinal dataset. The second, the practical aim of the project is to offer insights and incentives for policy makers, school psychologists and teachers in Hungary

A politikus becsülete avagy megbuktathat-e a Nemzeti Kaszinó egy főispánt?

Through the example of a lord lieutenant (főispán), Sándor Erdősy, this study examines how questioning his honor affected the career of a lord lieutenant during the early 20th century, and how much did the verdict of the honor court following a refused duel contribute to his downfall. Erdősy was the head of Maros-Torda County and Marosvásárhely for only a few months in 1910. The conflicts in the county started to intensify as early as the internal crisis of 1905-1906, eventually leading to the altercation analized in this study, which received national publicity. While examining this sprawling story we can learn about the intertwining of local and national politics, as well as the utility of the press as a political weapon, but the study is primarily concerned with the conflicting concepts of honor in this case, how various parties instrumentalized the concept of honor, and how political interests partially triumphed over group norms

Növekedés, intézményrendszer és piaci folyamatok = Economic growth, institutional mix and market process

Kutatásunk alapvető kérdése az volt, hogy az intézményrendszer hogyan és miért gyakorol hatást a gazdasági növekedésre. Erre az osztrák iskola megközelítésében kerestük a választ. A kutatás elméleti részében egy olyan keretet dolgoztunk ki, amely feltárta a gazdasági szabadság, az intézmények és a vállalkozás közötti összefüggéseket. Ennek sarokpontja egy koherens gazdasági szabadság-koncepció megalkotása volt, mely Hayek (1960) szabadság-koncepcióján alapult. Elméleti koncepciónk egyik fontos következménye volt, hogy lehetővé tette a kormányzati cselekvéseknek a gazdasági szabadság szempontjából történő felosztását szabadság-kompatibilis és nem kompatibilis tevékenységekre. Az osztrák iskola vállalkozáselméletére (Kirzner 1973) építkezve elméletünkben a gazdasági szabadság koncepciója elkülönült a hatékonyság koncepciójától, s a gazdasági szabadság intézményei a gazdasági növekedés különálló tényezőjét jelentik. Ennek oka az, hogy a gazdasági szabadság intézményei támogatják a vállalkozói felfedezéseket. A vállalkozás tehát az a csatorna, amelyen keresztül a gazdasági szabadság képes kifejteni jótékony hatását. Elméleti struktúránk empirikus kutatásunk számára is megadta a keretet. Ennek során egyrészt kidolgoztunk egy mérőszámot, amely a szabadság-kompatibilis és nem kompatibilis intézmények szétválasztásán alapul, majd ezzel és más gazdasági szabadság indexszel ország-keresztmetszeti regressziókat végeztünk. A vizsgálat alátámasztotta elméletünket. | The major concern of our research was to investigate why and how institutions affect economic growth. To give an answer to this question our theoretical framework was Austrian economics. In the theoretical part of the research we developed a framework to explore the relationship between economic freedom, institutions and entrepreneurship. Its cornerstone was a development of a coherent concept of economic freedom which was based on Hayek's (1960) concept of freedom. An important consequence of our concept was that it allowed us to categorize governmental actions from the viewpoint of economic freedom into freedom-compatible and freedom-non-compatible actions. Our concept of economic freedom, connected with the Austrian theory of entrepreneurship (Kirzner 1973) is a category in its own right which is different from that of economic efficiency and it is a separate factor in economic development. The reason behind that is that entrepreneurial discoveries are supported by the institutions of economic freedom. Thus, the channel through which economic freedom deploys its beneficial effects is entrepreneurship. In our empirical analyses we relied on our theoretical framework. Here, on the one hand, we developed a measure based on the separation of freedom-compatible and non-compatible institutions, and on the other hand, we did cross-country regressions with our measure and another economic freedom index. The results provided a support for our arguments

A Framework for the Analysis of Student Well-Being in the Pisa 2015 Study : Being 15 In 2015

In 2015, PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment) asked students to describe their well-being in addition to collecting information on students’ subject-specific skills. This paper provides a comprehensive overview and details the policy relevance of the following five dimensions of well-being covered in PISA 2015: cognitive, psychological, social, physical and material well-being. In addition, the paper outlines the underlying indicators of each dimension and their theoretical and analytical value for education policy. This paper concludes by identifying data gaps within the indicators and exploring how future cycles of PISA could bridge these gaps in order to provide a more comprehensive portrait of students’ well-being