Publications

This article addresses Kondratiev’s approach to the problems of economic dynamics, cycle and conjuncture in the context of a new methodological agenda which was formulated in the 1920’s in Europe and the USA by representatives of the “brilliant generation of economists,” mostly members of the econometric movement and its adherents among Russian economists. A distinguishing feature of this generation was that its representatives were striving to make economics an objective science penetrated by rigorous ways of thinking and based on a unification between the theoretical quantitative and the empirical quantitative approaches to the study of economic phenomena. This paper discusses Kondratiev’s project on the general theory of economic dynamics as an embodiment of that methodological agenda. It also highlights a free exchange of ideas between Kondratiev and economists from different countries as a breeding ground for the emergence of the project and a necessary condition for its implementation.

Dissemination and adoption of Western economic ideas in Russia was never simple and always bore the marks of socio-political and ideological circumstances, inner economics process and national intellectual traditions, generally speaking. It is no surprise that the history of Austrian economics in Russia was a long winding road. We distinguish three different waves, each rather complex: from the 1890s until the late 1920s, Austrian economics were introduced and, to a certain degree, adopted and criticized; from the beginning of the 1930s until the mid-1980s, a hostile attitude was mitigated with ignorance; last, from the mid-1980s onwards rediscovery came with dissemination and limited acceptance. Our purpose is to analyze the peculiarities of the perception of Austrian economics by Russian economists in the 20th century, to see the reasons for its criticism by most Russian economists, and to study the specific character of its adoption by some who, albeit few in number, considered it promising.

This paper focuses on Soviet practices and debates on money during the 1918-1921 period. In the first part, we briefly present the Bolshevik policy and discussions on eliminating money as a means of payments and calculation. In the second part, we outline in details A. Chayanov's model of in-kind accounting by making some comparisons with O. Neurath's proposals for an economy in kind. The latter had a decisive influence on Soviet Russia. Finally, we conclude with some reflections on the role of these models for ecological economics, modern efficiency measuring and monetary theory.

In this study we reconstruct the Balkan countries’ monetary relations with Western Europe in the period of the Latin Monetary Union (LMU), particularly from 1867 to 1912. We concentrate on the complex puzzle of LMU and its relations with the Balkans within the theoretical framework of dependent capitalism, reduced to “the incompatibility hypothesis”, based on which we analyse the dynamics of interest rates on the Balkan countries’ foreign debt. Our original monthly database (1875-1912) shows that the Balkan countries wishing to join the LMU at the end of the 19th century were asymmetric in relation to the core countries (France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland). Their incorporation into the LMU created an agio between gold and silver. Monetary union required a policy of stringency in the Balkan countries if they were to converge toward the core, but their remoteness from the centre (both geographical and economic) consigned them to the periphery.

Among the recent or revisited assumptions in the literature, the “dependent capitalism” hypothesis has met growing interest and relevance in the context of the 2008 economic and financial crisis. The purpose of the present article is first to expand the scope of the dependence analysis to the Balkan countries, both members and non-members of the EU, and second, to demonstrate that dependence also appears in these countries in a differentiated way through another institutional form, not included in the initial theoretical framework of Hall and Soskice, monetary regimes. A monetary regime can be considered as a structuring institutional form, expressing the power relations between national and foreign actors. In the dependent capitalism case, where foreign capital prevails and the trade balance dynamics is determined by the capital account, one could expect that monetary regimes would be implemented in a way to protect the capital and interests of foreign investors in the long term, hence to delegate monetary sovereignty to the investor’s country of origin. In the first part of the paper, some theoretical and methodological aspects of the dependent capitalism in post-socialist countries and of the specific monetary regime on which it is based, are discussed. Then, in the second part, the dependence analysis is illustrated by the case studies of monetary regimes in the Balkans during the period from 1990 to 2015. © 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

World War I marked the final point of the continuous process of fiduciarisation of money, of the detachment from its substance, the final point of establishing « Russian type of ideal money ». Paper currency was a Russian tradition, since 1769, until the introduction of the gold standard in 1897. The war brought back the dominance of the paper currency. In this paper, I will consecutively dwell on: (i) the role of paper currency and loans during the war and the discussions among the leading Russian economists as regards the evolution of the monetary regime. I will then examine, (ii) Tugan’s business cycle (conjunctural) theory of the value of money associated with aggregate demand, and especially with the development of the model of money demand and its endogeneity, and finally (iii) on Tugan’s proposals for managed paper currency by controlling the exchange rate.

The writings of Thomas Robert Malthus continue to resonate today, particularly An Essay on the Principle of Population which was published more than two centuries ago. Malthus Across Nations creates a fascinating picture of the circulation of his economic and demographic ideas across different countries, highlighting the reception of his works in a variety of nations and cultures. This unique book offers not only a fascinating piece of comparative analysis in the history of economic thought but also places some of today’s most pressing debates into an accurate historical perspective, thereby improving our understanding of them. Providing a complex and multi-faceted analysis of the reception and dissemination of the works of Malthus, this book examines how his approach was misunderstood and distorted throughout his lifetime and beyond. It illuminates the different ways in which groups of actors, including laymen, politicians and experts, have reacted to his work in specific historical and intellectual contexts, and with particular theoretical, political and moral concerns. Detailed breakdowns of the main controversies over his work are also explored. An insightful read for scholars studying economics and history of economic thought, this book guides readers from Malthus’s original publications to their continuing impact today. This will also be a useful volume for ethics, political thought and intellectual history students.

The article traces trends in Soviet economic discourse from the 1920s until perestroika. We examine the works of leading political economists of this period through the lens of debates on market exchanges under socialism—the central theoretical issue of the political economy of socialism. The discursive structure underlying the debates can be traced back to the writing of the first Soviet textbook on political economy, personally supervised by Joseph Stalin. Our purpose is to assess the impact of this textbook on subsequent discussions of the role of commodity production and market exchanges in a socialist economy. The story suggests that Soviet economic discourse was neither homogeneous nor stable. Rather, it consisted of several subdiscourses of different levels of authoritativeness allowing for a certain stable core as an attribute of any authoritative discourse, as well as for more flexible elements that adjusted the structure to new political and ideological challenges.

We focus on some original approaches so as to find a solution to the “coordination problem” of the decentralised commodity economy in the different interpretations (and refutations) of Marx, stressing the central role of money. We reconstruct in a comparative perspective the approaches of two contemporary French scholars, Jean Cartelier and André Orléan and of two Russian economists, Isaak Rubin and Peter Struve who worked in the beginning of the last century. Our reconstruction starts with Marx although other approaches are also possible. Each of the four scholars under review offered his own methods of solving the issue of coordination. Althoughthe ideas of the four authors intertwined, we can differentiate between two pairs namely Rubin/ Orléan (part 1) and Struve/Cartelier (part 2). This corresponds to the radicality of their analytical solutions. While the formerpair upheld the theoryof value (each one in his own way), the latter actually eliminated it (again each one in his own way). 

We focus on some original approaches so as to find a solution to the “coordination problem” of the decentralised commodity economy in the different interpretations (and refutations) of Marx, stressing the central role of money. We reconstruct in a comparative perspective the approaches of two contemporary French scholars, Jean Cartelier and André Orléan and of two Russian economists, Isaak Rubin and Peter Struve who worked in the beginning of the last century. Our reconstruction starts with Marx although other approaches are also possible. Each of the four scholars under review offered his own methods of solving the issue of coordination. Althoughthe ideas of the four authors intertwined, we can differentiate between two pairs namely Rubin/ Orléan (part 1) and Struve/Cartelier (part 2). This corresponds to the radicality of their analytical solutions. While the formerpair upheld the theoryof value (each one in his own way), the latter actually eliminated it (again each one in his own way). 

This article offers a historical overview of the development of agricultural cooperative credit in the Bulgarian and Serbian lands from the Ottoman era to World War I. Essentially, we present an institutional and comparative analysis of the genesis, transformation and forms of agricultural cooperative credit over the long term, its driving forces and mechanisms.  

The main task of the study is to reconstruct the evolution of the agrarian cooperative sector in Bulgaria in the years of communism (1944-1989) from the standpoint of a long-term historical perspective and as a result of the accumulation of two leading institutional transmission mechanisms. The first institutional mechanism is associated with the available institutional inertia being the result of Bulgaria’s capitalist past (kind of path dependence), where the cooperative sector and social forms, deeply embedded and rooted among Bulgarians, were put under the government control. The second institutional factor, which determined the image of the cooperative model in Bulgaria under communism, was an external one and was associated with the transfer of the Soviet cooperative agrarian model. Under the communist ideology, the cooperatives were devoid of their original character and were subordinated to the state planned economy.

The concept of Methodenstreits is used to analyse the relationship between behavioral and mainstream economics. A Methodenstreit is understood by the authors as a dispute between the more abstract and the less abstract canons of the economic science. It undergoes several necessary stages: discovery of a new research instrument, an exaggerated debate between the canons, and mutual enrichement after the debate. The article reviews the following Methodenstreits: empirical investigations of Hall, Hitch, and Lester vs neoclassical theory of the firm (the ‘full cost controversy’ and the ‘marginalist controversy’); Katona’s consumer research vs Keynesian macroeconomics; Simon’s bounded rationality approach vs neoclassical maximization; and experiments of Allais and others vs expected utility theory.

The 9th issue of the almanac The Origins (“Istoki”) contains several sections. The first one offers a provocative pamphlet by Thomas Carlyle, who coined the famous epithet “dismal science” referring to political economy in the context of the justification of slavery in American colonies. On the pages of this book, he is answered by John Stuart Mill. The articles by the modern economists J. Persky, P. Groenewegen, N.A. Makasheva, and R.I. Kapeliushnikov also discuss this subject.
The second section contains the texts presentedat the Round table on the issues of modern macroeconomics, which include a fundamental contribution by R.M. Entov. The almanac also features articles by N.A. Rozinskaya, D. Dear and M. Shiotanion the economic relations between the Russian Empire and the East in the late 19th – early 20th centuries, as well as an article by the Bulgarian colleagues N. Nenovsky and P. Penchev on the activities of S. Demosthenov and N. Dolinsky, Russian émigré economists in Bulgaria. The article by L.S. Grebnev, an employee of the Gosplan in the 1970s and 1980s, is dedicated to the history of the Soviet economy. E.G. Yasin shares his reflections inspired by the analysis of Grebnev’sarticle. Yu.B. Kochevrin’s article contains an original analysis of the theory and practice of the functioning of monetary system underreal socialism in the USSR. The issue concludes with a previously unpublished memoir about L.V. Kantorovich.
The almanac is designed for students and professors of economics, as well as for researchers and all interested in the history of economic thought and national economy.

The paper examines the arguments held by Marx’s contribution to the study of technical  change, distribution,  and  heterogeneous  labour.  In  contraposition  to  some  mainstream  views  on  these issues,  we  show  through  textual  exegesis  that  the  upshot  of  Marx’s  analysis  is  that  technological progress would not only mean an eventual rise in unemployment; it is also a means to reduce the likelihood of distributional conflict between profits and wages.

This edited volume examines the relationship between economic ideas, economic policies and development institutions, analysing the cases of 11 peripheral countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

It sheds light on the obstacles that have prevented the sustained economic growth of these countries and examines the origins of national and regional approaches to development. The chapters present a fascinating insight into the ideas and visions in the different locations, with the overarching categories of economic nationalism and economic liberalism and how they have influenced development outcomes.

This book will be valuable reading for advanced students and researchers of development economics, the history of economic thought and economic history.

The paper’s aim is a historiographical review and an analysis of the basic works published by Bulgarian scholars and devoted to the topic of money and prices in the Ottoman Balkans during the 18th and 19th centuries. This period is very important, both in a more general context – from a European and Ottoman perspective, as well as from a Balkan and Bulgarian point of view. We have used a chronological approach and have outlined two periods in our study – between 1878 and 1989 (the time of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom and the subsequent communist regime in Bulgaria) and from 1990 until today (i.e. the period after the democratic changes). The reviewed studies are divided into two main groups: (i) historical studies on money and prices and (ii) numismatic ones. We have given priority to some smaller publications, as they are less known to Bulgarian and foreign researchers. In general, larger studies are known to scholars dealing with the region’s monetary history.  

The chapter traces the history and reconstructs the logic of ownership debates in Soviet economic thought. Despite crucial role that ownership received in the Soviet economic literature, this concept predominantly was conceived legally thus making economic discourse inconsistent and dogmatic. Attempts to overcome this inconsistency by the leading schools of Soviet economic thought are considered and related to the broder contexts of ideological, political and economic discourses.