Legal Knowledge about What?

We assume—in contrast to many "legal realists"—that law is a part of reality. Law exists because people believe in law, but law is not identical with beliefs. Law supervenes on human beliefs, preferences, actions, dispositions and artefacts. Moreover, the morally binding personal interpretation of the law supervenes on two things together: on the individual's knowledge of legal institutions and on moral obligation. The first supervenes in its turn on mutual beliefs; the second supervenes on motivations and dispositions of the individual, provided that she is morally sensitive and rational. Personal interpretation of law converts into social law, if other persons on the basis of overriding reasons do not contest it. Morally binding social law supervenes on moral motivation that is triggered by institutions that supervene on mutual beliefs.     

Future of European Integration. A Scenario Approach.

<正>Ladies and Gentlemen,The project of European Integration initiated after the Second World War is one of the greatest political, social and economic concepts, which arose in the history of civilization. Today, more     

The Price-Wage Mechanism in Poland: An Endogenous Switching Model

This paper proposes a two-equation price-wage model that enables to test whether the inflationary pressure on wage rate is only present when the rate of inflation is greater than some threshold value. Since the likelihood function for this model is very nonstandard, we develop a small-sample Bayesian approach to estimate its parameters. Our empirical results for Poland, 1962–1993, give support to the hypothesis of the price- wage spiral with a positive threshold value of inflation.     

Topics in macro-modelling of East European countries in the period of transition

Central and European former Centrally Planned Economies (CPEs) entered a period of transition towards market economies. The evolution is marked by a transition from shortage- to demand-determined economies, associated with the abandonment of price control and the introduction of tight wage control. Stabilization programmes (in Poland from 1990), implementing tough deflationary fiscal and monetary policies, brought about the suppression of hyperinflation. The high adjustment costs — deep recession, high rates of unemployment — are characteristics of the early '90s. The deregulation of the public sector and the building of the private one commenced, and will be a long-lasting process. To meet the changes in economic regimes and mechanisms, the existing models had to be adequately respecified and new models constructed. The large W-5 macromodel for Poland, which covers the final and intermediate demands, had to be extended to introduce the market adjustment mechanisms and, more broadly, the financial flows. To meet the needs of short-term financial policies, new quarterly models had to be built, as, for instance, the WK macromodel for the Polish economy. The paper discusses the major problems of the models' specification under the data constraints.     

Satellites and the Security Dilemma

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the linkage between satellites and the security dilemma. There are currently over 2000 satellites in Earth orbit with various applications ranging from observations, remote sensing, telecommunications, to navigation, among other uses. This multitude of possible usages cause uncertainty concerning intentions and fear in the international system, which leads to security build-ups. This paper first looks at the dual-use nature of satellites and by giving examples, explains what exactly is meant by this. Second, it delves into the theories behind the security dilemma, especially analyzing the differences in theory between offensive and defensive weapons. And third, it builds on the theory concerning the security dilemma to examine how exactly satellites and their dual-use applications affect the dilemma.     

Multisectoral econometric models of the centrally planned economies and the disequilibria

The paper provides a systematic analysis of the properties of large econometric macro models built for the Centrally Planned economies of the '70s and '80s. A specific typology of macro models is introduced, distinguishing between the demand and quasi-demand determined systems on the one hand and the supply and quasi-supply determined systems on the other, and also between complete and incomplete models specifying only one side of economic activities (i.e. generating either demand or supply). It is shown that, under the command type economy, the incomplete, fully supply determined systems prevailed, generating production and showing its allocation. The economic reforms of the '80s, which aimed at a slow transition towards market economies, brought about a tendency towards constructing complete quasi-supply determined systems (especially for Poland and the CSRS). Since, in principle, they were built for shortage economies, the model builders had to allow for unobservables (final and intermediate demand, capacity utilization) and, on the other hand, for an increasing role of the financial phenomena (including prices) and financial policy instruments. A summary of the applications of macro models in forecasting and policy simulations is provided and new tendencies associated with regaining economic equilibria and approaching the market mechanisms emerging in the period of transition are shown.     

Modelling wages in centrally planned economies: The case of Poland

The main idea developed in this paper is that rising excess demand for the labour force results in higher growth of wages over the ‘notional’ rate of growth. The rationale is that employees change their jobs searching for higher wages, and employers are willing to offer higher pay in order to get additional workers. This relationship is highly nonlinear, and can be regarded as an extension of the idea known as the Phillips curve to the area of ‘negative’ rate of unemployment. Additionally, one can observe that if the disequilibrium intensity in the labour market is small, its changes cause stronger reactions of wages in strategic branches than in the remaining sectors of the economy. It is similar to the situation of excess demand for labour. If there is a high rate of unemployment, reductions of wages affect more branches of secondary importance for the economy. The empirical investigation is based on Polish data covering the time period from 1964 through 1984. As excess demand for labour is unobservable, a proxy is used as an indicator of disequilibrium. It is introduced to the equation explaining the rate of growth of average wages, in addition to the rate of productivity growth of labour and the rate of inflation. Estimates are derived for 10 industry branches and sectors of the economy. The results confirm the initial hypothesis.     

The Higher Power of Religiosity Over Personality on Political Ideology

Political Behavior - Two streams of research, culture war and system justification, have proposed that religious orientations and personality, respectively, play critical roles in political...     

The Role of Genes and Environments in Linking the Need to Evaluate with Political Ideology and Political Extremity

Understanding the origins of political ideology and political extremity at the individual level is becoming increasingly pressing in the face of polarization in the political domain. Building upon the motivated social cognition model of political ideology, we propose a motivated cognition approach to the study of political extremity with the need to evaluate as a key epistemic motive that contributes to political extremity. Moreover, we hypothesize that the link between the need to evaluate and political extremity may rest largely on shared genetic effects. This hypothesis builds upon existing biology and politics research, which has convincingly demonstrated that genes influence the direction of ideology, but has been largely silent on the role of genes in political extremity. To test our hypothesis, we consider several types of ideological, affective, and partisan extremity alongside conventional measures of political ideology and the need to evaluate in a behavioral genetic framework. Using a twin study methodology, we show for the first that the need to evaluate is heritable, that its phenotypic relationships with ideological extremity and strength are rooted in shared genetic influences, and, unexpectedly, that the relationship between the need to evaluate and some forms of political extremity is largely environmental. In examining the genetic and environmental components of the covariation of the need to evaluate with political ideology and right wing authoritarianism, we find limited support for shared genetic influences. Taken together, these results illustrate the value of adopting a biologically informed motivated cognition approach to the study of political ideology and political extremity.