Book: Growth versus Security. Old and New EU Members’ Quest for a New Economic and Social Model; Palgrave Macmillan, 2008
A book edited and co-authored by Wojciech Bienkowski, Josef C. Brada and Mariusz-Jan Radlo was published by Palgrave Macmillan late in the year 2008. Authors explore, among other things, how EU and its members states use US experiences to build and modify their own economic model.
“European Union member states have always sought to share a common vision of an economic and social model that would be a blueprint for all states to follow and one that would make Europe both prosperous and different from other parts of the world. For many European countries this blueprint has traditionally been the European Social Model. This is a social system based on a high level of social protection, social dialogue and public services to cover activities vital for social cohesion. Economic and political developments since the 1990s have made the blueprint less clear and attractive.
The crisis in the Western European welfare state and the economic reforms stemming from this crisis have led to changes in the economic and social models of the EU member states, giving rise to debate on the viability of the European Social Model. This issue has become increasingly complex and dynamic following successive eastern enlargements of the Union.
This book examines whether the recent economic, social and political developments in the European Union and its member states require the Union to revise its belief that Europe can effectively compete with the United States and the emerging economies. This volume brings together a wide range of policy experts from both old and new European Union member states, as well as from the United States, and presents their insights, observations and research on this key issue. This book is an essential companion for all interested in the debate surrounding the future of economic and social models in Europe.” (Quotation from the book cover).
Professor Steve H. Hanke, Ph. D. (Johns Hopkins University) writes in his foreword:
“Growth versus Security is an apt title for a volume of essays that is focused on many of the same issues that engaged classical economists. While dressed in modern attire, the policy prescriptions offered by the authors in this volume have the same look and feel as those proposed by the classical economists.
This leaves us with a problem of benefit-cost calculus that was observed and commented on by Frank Knight in ‘Anthropology and Economics’ (Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 49 No. 2, April 1941): ‘The problem of change versus stability presents a major issue of policy on which the study of primitive society might conceivably throw some light. This is the question of the gains and losses involved in individual economic liberty, in comparison with a greater stability which, in theory at least, might be had through a greater emphasis on the folk wisdom presumptively embodied in the traditions of the past, enforced by authority’.
It also leaves us with the problem of public opinion, because it is public opinion that determines the benefit-cost calculus and, therefore, the direction of economic policy. (…)
Hopefully, this volume will enlighten public opinion and tilt the public’s benefit-cost calculus towards liberal economic policies that promote economic growth and prosperity.”
Information about the editors:
Wojciech Bienkowski is the Director of the US Economy and Transatlantic Relations Institute, Professor of Economics and the Dean of the Business School at Lazarski University, Warsaw. He also serves on the supervisory boards for the Environmental Bank and the Polish Agency for Foreign Investment. Professor Bienkowski served as an Advisor to Poland’s Minister of Economy in 2006 and 2007.
Josef C. Brada is Professor of Economics at the W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, USA. He has served as Principal Advisor to the Minister of Economy of the Czech Republic as well as advisor to the governments of the Macedonian Republic and Bolivia.
Mariusz-Jan Radlo is Associate Professor at the Warsaw School of Economics. In 2004-2007 he served as Vice President for Research of the Polish Lisbon Strategy Forum. He is a co-founder of the SEENDICATE, an advisory group based in Warsaw.