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• Development aid as a global public good – a case study

  86-97

  Boglarka Horvathne Angyal

  Views:

  102

  This study introduces a new concept to the analysis of development aid. Aid is regarded as a global public good where donors benefit from the advantages of aid without rivalry and exludability. The public-goodnature of aid is a logical explanation for the deficiencies of the international aid regime, especially the suboptimal supply of aid and the free-riding of donors. The concept of aid as a public good raises the question whether there are any actors who could produce this global public good. The study analyses whether nongovernmental organizations are able to fill this gap in the international aid regime. The model is introduced through a case study: aid in Afghanistan in general, and the activities of the NGO Hungarian Baptist Aid in the country.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classifications: F590, H410

• Freedom of the Markets versus Good Governance: Experiences in Central Europe

  35-61

  László Muraközy

  Views:

  119

  The market and the state, operation and characteristics of two institutions of key importance in the modern mixed economies, are investigated for the former socialist countries in this study. After two decades it can be seen more clearly what system has been established in the region, how it operates, and what its characteristics are. In the first part of the with the help of international comparisons we examine how free the market is, how good the rules are, and how much they help, or hinder, the fulfilment of its function. From an other aspect we compare the scope of the good governance and the size, the freedom and efficiency of the state. According to the evidence of the international studies examined, the former socialist countries established the forms of the market institutional system relatively quickly, but the operation and quality of these lagged significantly behind those of the developed countries. Also important conclusion of the study is that by the first decade of the millennium the characteristics of the former socialist countries are increasingly diverging from one another. Both the characteristics of the earlier socialism, and the more distant historical past which can be caught in the act within it, had and have an effect on the economic and social systems now established in Eastern and Central Europe.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: H1, P17, P27, P35

• The Economic Theory of Clubs

  64-85

  Nora Ilona Elek

  Views:

  160

  Defining club goods allows an analysis of goods that possess neither pure public goods nor pure private goods characteristics. This is the main significance of the economic theory of clubs. The present paper categorises club good among goods in general on the basis of the relevant literature, and specifies the core elements of a definition of clubs and club goods. Then, by summarizing the most important articles on the subject, this paper delineates fundamental questions and models of club theory. Finally, supporting the relevant practical issues of club theory, this study describes economic fields where the theory has been applied.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: H41, H49

• Corporate Governance from a Post-Communist Perspective

  69-82

  Peter Mihalyi

  Views:

  102

  In the aftermath of Enron and WorldCom scandals of 2001-2002, corporate governance (CG) has been put once again into the center of academic interest. Last time this happened in mid-1997, when a global financial crisis that began in Asia was widely attributed to appalling CG practices in Korea and Japan. Thus, for young readers this whole subject matter may seem to be an old hut. In reality, the term "corporate governance" has merely a 25 year old historiography. Systematic content analysis of the Anglo-Saxon press showed that the term CG arose first in the wake of the Watergate scandal. In the mid- to the late 1970s, public opinion suddenly discovered that major American corporations were involved in corrupt payments both at home and abroad. Prior to Wazergate scandal, competitive markets and good governance of business enterprises had been regarded as two sides of the same coin. It was a tacit understanding that well-run companies are honestly run companies and vice versa. Suddenly this equation was broken. Sence then the fast-growing CG literature has had a moral loading.

• The option value of education

  131-148

  Judit T. Kiss

  Views:

  80

  Within the theoretical frameworks of standard human capital theory countless analyses have been carried out into investment decisions, in which the examination of the uncertainty of the costs and benefits of education were mostly disregarded and an assessment of the option opportunities was often omitted. In this essay we tried to review one of the extension opportunities of the theory of standard human capital and the option approach of human capital investment. We looked for an answer to the question of what kind of models have been developed for the interpretation of education as an option and for the determination of the option value of the investment. In the study we have highlighted the fact that a decrease in uncertainty in human capital investment is as good an incentive for investing in more education as the public subsidization of education.

  JEL classification: C6, D8, I2, J2

• Equilibrium analysis of a semi-mixed duopoly – the production-in-advance case: Játékelméleti modell – a készletre történő termelés esete

  63-74

  Tamas Laszlo Balogh

  Views:

  116

  We investigate a mixed duopoly where, according to the ownership structure, a private firm and a partially public firm are present on the market of a homogeneous good. The private firm is assumed to be a pure profit maximizer, while the other firm maximizes social welfare in proportion to its state-owned shares. We assume that production takes place before sales are realized. After an introduction to some important results in the field of mixed duopolies, we determine the Nash equilibrium prices and quantities for all possible orderings of moves in the framework discussed. We show that a pure Nash equilibrium exists only if certain conditions are satisfied, and illustrate our findings through a numerical example. Furthermore, we determine the equilibrium of the timing game, i.e. we investigate whether a simultaneous or a sequential ordering of decisions would arise on the market, if the ordering of moves was an endogenous variable.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) Classifications: D43, L13