Diversity, or variety, is the essence of economic life in the sense of underlying choice; economic calculation gives numerical substance to how people make choices in their daily endeavours, either as consumers or entrepreneurs. How does variety/diversity takes shape in the realm of institutions and policy making? Is the range of choices open-ended? The last couple of decades has revealed an overwhelming offensive of the neo-liberal paradigm in
terms of defining “best practices”. Even language was shaped accordingly with market reforms being seen in a quasi-single theoretical and policy framework. Are we heading towards increasing uniformity with regard to institutional and policy set ups, worldwide? An affirmative answer would underline the successful market based transformation of a series of command economies. Some convergence between institutional patterns in the USA and the
EU economies might be alluded to in the same vein A supportive argument for this line of reasoning could be that what matters for individual achievement, in the end, are equal opportunities. But this argument can be turned around when debating the merits of various institutional set ups in terms of creating fair chances for people. A sceptical answer would highlight the mounting challenges which confront societies, whether rich and poor, and the international community in general –in spite of the high hopes of not long ago. The demise of the “New Economy”, the series of corporate scandals in wealthy economies and the subsequent recourse to new regulatory legislation, recurrent financial and currency crises throughout the world, and the controversies surrounding the activity of IFIs, should compel “ideologues”, of all sorts, to be more humble in their prescriptions. This essay argues that there is substantial scope for institutional and policy diversity to operate as a means to foster economic development; that there might be a paradigmatic cycle in the dynamic of economic policies.

Definition and role of institutions. Institutions are diverse: examples from OECD countries. Does institutional diversity matter for comparative economic performance? The problem of measurement. Do institutions tend to converge or diversify further? What are the driving forces? What did we learn from institution building in transition economies? Need for a better understanding of interactions between institutions and policies. The OECD work and
experience. Conclusion: the need for a vision.

At the onset of transformation there has been a close to consensus view that the market system has no alternative. While this insight has found its place in the current mainstream on development economics, the so-called Washington consensus or post-Washington consensus (Kolodko, 2000, pp.119-141 andpp. 348-356; and Williamson, J, 2000, Srinivasan, T.N.,2000), very few would venture to repeat in an academic writing the once famous dictum of Vaclav Klaus: the third road leads to the third world. Much of western Europe has remained within the framework of the welfare state, despite its obvious limitations. Also in
the transforming economies, the rollback of the state has proven to be much less than the tough normative language adopted by early reformers would have indicated. Actually, it is the structure rather than the size of public spending in these countries that may be a source of social and economic strains by providing less than optimal conditions for sustaining economic growth.

The enlargement of the European Union is an almost everywhere accepted necessity, but at the same time of course also a compromise. Economies or regions of different economic, social, institutional, etc. development become united in Europe with a territory from the Atlantic to the Eastern borders of Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. This integration process going along with the worldwide globalisation will imply a new distribution, or a redistribution of the factors of production. First of all the human capital will be touched by this development.2 One of the most important results found by social sciences in the 20th century is the realisation of the immense role played by human factors in the process of economic development. The extremely high efficiency of human capital and the high mobility could diminish the regional differences in the economic development and therefore in the social life. But even this is one reason for the mentioned re-allocation of the human capital. In the frame of a very simple static model (See e. g. Bishi – Kopel [2002]) the flow of human capital between different regions – called the European Union and the New Member States – will be analysed. The introduction of search costs extends the field of policy-analysis.

The paper offers a property rights and monitoring cost explanation for the allocation of residual income rights between the carriers and truck drivers under internal governance. First, by applying property rights theory, we argue that the structure of residual income rights depends on the importance of noncontractible (intangible) assets of the truck driver to generate a residual surplus. The more important the truck driver’s intangible knowledge
assets, the more residual income rights should be transferred to him. In addition, we controlled for the monitoring costs as an additional explanatory variable of the allocation of residual income rights. According to agency theory, the higher the variable proportion of the driver’s income, the higher the monitoring costs.These hypotheses were tested by using data from the Hungarian trucking industry. The empirical results are supportive of the hypotheses.

JEL- Index: G32, M2

The question is simple; the answer could be quite complicated. Inter-organisational marketing researchers define business relationships as interactive exchanges between two organisations. Does this mean anything for institutional economists? A business relationship is created by weaving actor bonds, resource ties and activity links. Business relationships exist and change through time. The establishment, development, maintenance, as well as termination of a business relationship all require investments from the participating parties. A business relationship does not exist in an isolated manner, but other market and non-market actors can equally influence it. In reality, numerous other relationships and actors affect business relationships. As a result, these actors indirectly influence business relationships through the change in behaviour of one of the parties within the business relationship. These directly and indirectly affected relationships create a business network. For an organisation business relationships have different functions. External resources needed
for operation and value creation are fed by them. Value creation for the customer and value sharing with the customer take place in business relationships. They are forms of an organisation’s interdependence. A business relationship is a special form of governance of the partners’ mutual efforts. A business relationship has its own value for each organisation. Each organisation has several business relationships, each with different value. In business markets,
where buyers are always organisations, the business relationship portfolio is the market itself. Inter-organisational marketing researchers use very different theoretical foundations to study business relationships. Modern contract law based research distinguishes about a dozen norms of behaviour in business relationships. Institutional economic-rooted studies argue that we should use the plural-forms approach (price, authority and trust must be employed together) to explain these very complex phenomena. Research using communication theory concluded that multiple periods of business negotiations were required to develop even primitive norms. The paper concludes with some elements of a possible answer to the title question.

Our world is more and more characterized by complexity and interdependency. In the developing New Economy it is expected that the role of information and knowledge transfer, along with the role of cooperation, are some of the most important issues. Some psychological mechanisms, such as trust, will be instrumental ingredients of the new economy. It is speculated that the functioning of such complexity-reduction and cooperation-aiding, such a psychological mechanism as trust becomes a focal point of interest. This paper aims to clarify the workings and influence of trust on economic transactions, prices, and cooperation.

Jorurnal of Economic Literature (JEL) code: D8, L14, P22

In April 2003, the EU Accession Agreement was officially signed for the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic. These countries are destined to become EU members in May 2004. As part of the “acquis communautaire”, participation in the new version of the exchange rate mechanism (ERM II), and subsequently in the European Monetary Union (EMU) is obligatory for all new EU members (no opt-out clause is available). Therefore, the question today for the accession countries is no longer whether or not to enter the eurozone but rather the time horizon when the entry should happen.

Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) code: E42, E58, F33.

The value creation process in a company and the competitive position are critically influenced by corporate resource allocation and proper valuation of investment alternatives. After the Second World War, capital budgeting and strategic planning emerged as two complementary but different systems for resource allocation. The real options approach developed in the ’80s may provide a useful tool for making a connection between capital budgeting and strategic management. Real options are implicit managerial and operating flexibilities embedded in many non-financial assets and liabilities. In a wider sense: “A real option is the investment in physical assets, human competence, and organisational capabilities that provide the opportunity to respond to future contingent events” (Kogut-Kulatilaka, 2001). This paper shows that Just-in-Time (JIT) system as management philosophy can be regarded as a knowledge-based or capability-based implicit strategy rather than a simple, easy-toimitate best practice approach. Moreover, implementation of JIT can be considered as a strategic investment. The presentation focuses on how the relation among strategic investments, developed technological systems and corporate strategy can be expressed through the real options view.

The paper examines development of state capacities and autonomy in East Central Europe during transition, and attempts to establish a relation between state characteristics and trajectories of economic transformation, especially with regard to privatisation and FDI. The assertion is that the quality of state capacities and the degree of state autonomy, although changing over time, mutually reinforces the formulating of economic policies, and hence in structural transformation. Thus, state characteristics are important determinants of transition outcome, but are themselves affected by structural economic changes.

Bubble is one of the most frequently used and colorful terms in economics. However, it is rarely explained in detail, most economists more or less agree on what it means. In the following paper we are going to show that the widely accepted explanation of bubble contains controversial, tautological reasoning. It is challenged from the theoretical side, but practical consequences will also be mentioned. Two questions hiding in the title above will be answered. First is to give a conceptual framework for analyzing stock prices to decide whether we can label as a bubble particular movements, upward and downward tendencies in stock prices. Second, with a coherent and consistent definition we will be able to answer the question whether there was a bubble in the Hungarian stock market between 1995-2002.