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European thought is often said to be a gift to the rest of the world, but what if there is no gift as such? What if there is only an economy where every giving is also a taking, and every taking is also a giving? This book extends the question of economies by making a case for an \"economy of thought\" and a \"political economy.\" It argues that all thinking and doing presupposes taking, and therefore giving, as the price to pay for taking; or that there exists a \"cost of living,\" which renders the idea of free thinking and living untenable. The argument is developed against the Enlightenment directive to think for oneself as the means of becoming autonomous and shows that this \"light,\" given to the rest of the world as a gift, turns out to be nothing.

The purpose of this paper is to present the multidimensional dependencies between the budgetary solvency and debt of Polish rural communes on one side, and the residents’ standards of living on the other. Local government units’ budgetary solvency and debt (one of the key components of their financial condition) are important determinants of their efficient functioning oriented at addressing the needs of local communities as much as possible. The literature on the subject reveals a cognitive gap in the research into the standards of living and ways of driving social well-being, which is manifested in the dearth of empirical studies on how the components of local governments’ financial standing impact residents’ standards of living. Due to the multifaceted nature of the categories under consideration, a canonical analysis procedure was carried out to identify the linkages between them, and three statistically significant canonical roots were identified. This study demonstrates that if the values of variables relating to budgetary solvency and the debt levels of Polish rural municipalities (communes) are known, they have the potential to explain over 29% of the variance in the set related to the residents’ living standards. Hence, the components of local governments’ financial conditions are important, yet not the sole determinants of the population’s standards of living. The findings from such analyses could be used indirectly, e.g., by local authorities in the context of creating their development strategies and selecting measures designed to transform the socioeconomic structure of territorial units in accordance with what their residents need.

The main concern of this book is to determine when the gap in living standards between the East and the West emerged. Why did Europe experience industrialization and modern economic growth before China, India, or Japan? This is one of the most fundamental questions in Economic history and one that has provoked intense debate. The established view, dating back to Adam Smith, is that the gap emerged long before the industrial revolution.How did the standard of living in Europe and Asia compare in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? This book proposes an answer by considering evidence of three sorts. Firstly, economic, focusing on income, food production, wages and prices; secondly, demographic, comparing heights, life expectancy, and other demographic indicators; and thirdly, a combination of the economic and the demographic, investigating the demographic vulnerability to short-term economic stress.

The link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and competitiveness has been examined mainly at the business level. The purpose of this paper is to improve conceptual understanding and provide empirical evidence on the link between CSR and competitiveness at the national level. We draw on an eclectic-synthetic framework of international economics, strategic management and CSR literatures to explore conceptually whether and how CSR can impact on the competitiveness of nations, and test our hypotheses empirically with a sample of 19 developed countries over a 6-year period. Our evidence suggests that CSR can make a significant positive contribution to national competitiveness, as measured by national living standards. We also find that countries with a relatively low innovation record can benefit more, as compared to highly innovative countries, by implementing nationwide CSR-based positioning strategies.

One of the key elements of well-being of rural residents is the development of rural social infrastructure. Measures for the development of rural areas often do not take into account the opinion of rural residents themselves, which leads to their dissatisfaction. The level of cohesion and collectivism of the rural community plays an important role in identifying problems and finding solutions, including the use of common resources of the territory. This article makes an attempt to apply Elinor Ostrom’s theoretical considerations to the investigation of rural communities in Russia. The experimental part of the study was carried out in small settlements of Stavropol Krai and Krasnodar Krai in South Russia. The hypothesis about the possibility of forming self-governing rural communities, independent in determining the rules for the use of common resources and participating in the implementation of development policies for their territory, was tested. The surveyed residents very rationally selected directions for the social and everyday development of their settlements that allow them to obtain maximum benefit from their implementation. Continuing such research will make it possible to clarify true preferences of rural residents regarding social standards and make timely adjustments to the state policy of rural development.

We describe the theory and practice of real GDP comparisons across countries and over time. Version 8 of the Penn World Table expands on previous versions in three respects. First, in addition to comparisons of living standards using components of real GDP on the expenditure side, we provide a measure of productive capacity, called real GDP on the output side. Second, growth rates are benchmarked to multiple years of cross-country price data so they are less sensitive to new benchmark data. Third, data on capital stocks and productivity are (re)introduced. Applications including the Balassa-Samuelson effect and development accounting are discussed.

Why do living standards differ so much across countries? A consensus in the development literature is that differences in productivity are a dominant source of these differences. But what accounts for productivity differences across countries? One explanation is that frontier technologies and best practice methods are slow to diffuse to low-income countries. The recent literature on misallocation offers a distinct but complementary explanation: low-income countries are not as effective in allocating their factors of production to their most efficient use. We provide our perspective on three key questions. First, how important is misallocation? Second, what are the causes of misallocation? And third, beyond the direct cost of lower contemporaneous output, are there additional costs associated with misallocation? A summary of our answers is as follows: Misallocation appears to be a substantial channel in accounting for productivity differences across countries, but the measured magnitude of the effects depends on the approach and context. Researchers have not yet found a dominant source of misallocation; instead, many specific factors seem to contribute a small part of the overall effect. Beyond the static cost of misallocation, we believe that the dynamic effects of misallocation on productivity growth are significant and deserve much more attention going forward.

Zohran Mamdani says he will fix New York City's problems by taxing the rich to fund a fairer city. But there's a problem with that plan, as our Wall Street editor, Mike Bird, explains.

The book provides a foundation of knowledge on the social and environmental underpinnings of mental health and mental illnesses for clinical and policy decision making, with a goal to improve the mental health of individuals across diverse communities and the mental health of the nation.

The goal of this paper is to report a study that tested the moderation effect of materialism on the relationship between household income and satisfaction with standard of living (SOL) and subjective well-being. Through a study among 5240 employed members of a representative survey panel in Germany, we found that household income has a positive influence on satisfaction with SOL (as hypothesized), which in turn has a positive impact on subjective well-being (as hypothesized). We also found that the positive income-SOL satisfaction relationship is negatively moderated by happiness materialism (as hypothesized) and that happiness materialism is positively associated with frequent SOL evaluations based on ideal expectations (also as hypothesized). Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.