June 25, 2013

Democracy in Post-Communist Countries

Why is Belarus a dictatorship? Why is Poland a consolidated democracy? These countries have so much in common but at the same time one is the democracy and another one is the dictatorship. In my recent paper I argue that post-communist political development depends on institutional stickiness of democracy in a given country. Poland had more institutions that facilitated democratization. Belarus had more institutions that inhibited democratization.

Here is an abstract: 
Structural explanation of political development offers a finite set of factors that cause democracy to consolidate or not (Acemoglu and Robinson 2006). This approach is, however, insufficient to explain political development of post-communist countries because it ignores a role of social arrangements in democratic consolidation. The field of comparative political economy is becoming more acceptable to the idea that social institutions have significant impact on political development (Boettke et al., 2005). Using transitional experience of post-communist countries, I demonstrate that institutional stickiness of democracy depends on a combination of causal factors, including underlying political culture (Boettke et al., 2008; Pejovich, 2003).

June 21, 2013

Carl Menger Essay Contest

The Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, in collaboration with the Foundation for Economic Education and the Charles Koch Foundation, is pleased to announce the fourth annual Carl Menger Essay Contest.
The purpose of the contest is to recognize and encourage undergraduate scholarship in the Austrian tradition and the broadly catallactic approach to social science which it represents, an approach common also to the Scottish Enlightenment of Smith and Hume, the French Liberal School of Say and Bastiat, the Virginia School of Buchanan and Tullock, the UCLA price theory of Alchian and Demsetz, and the Bloomington School of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, among others. We invite essays that explore, advance, challenge, or apply the ideas of these and related schools of thought.
The catallactic approach emphasizes exchange and the rules in which exchange takes place. James Buchanan articulates this approach in his famous article, “What Should Economists Do?” (Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 30 (1964), No. 3). Peter Boettke’s Living Economics describes the catallactic approach as the “mainline of economics.”

June 13, 2013

Beyonce and Economics

Teaching and learning economics is a lot of fun.  You can teach and learn principles of economics by referring to pop music. And I've got two words for you: "to the left."