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This analysis of leading research programs in comparative economics also assesses their actual and potential functions in the economist's toolkit. Among the explicitly comparative programs are those having taken a traditional approach to Comparative Economic Systems (in particular the versions of T. Koopmans and J. Montias or of E. Neuberger and W. Duffy) and the recent approach via a Comparative Institutional Analysis (A. Greif and M. Aoki). Among the implicitly comparative programs are those having to do with German "Ordoliberalism" (initiated by W. Eucken) and, more recently, French regulation theory. Comparative economics is analyzed from the perspective of Eucken's "great antinomy" with its controversial implications about the nature of economic knowledge. The issues date back to the late 19th-century Methodenstreit, even though an adequate response to them is still on the agenda. Most modern economic theory depends very much on the ceteris paribus clause. To decrease this dependence, economics should take the comparative research strategy seriously. A methodological analysis of comparative economics turns up a few overlooked but crucial epis- temological points (in particular the heuristic function of ideal-types) essential to economic inquiry. Comparative economics is indispensable for bridging the gaps between theoretical and empirical inquiry, and between the science and art of economics.

Comparative analysis of the Tunisian and Moroccan economic and social systems. Growth, industrialization, trade, foreign investments, and cost and standard of living.

La RDC est membre de près de la moitié des organisations africaines d'intégration, parmi lesquelles la CEEAC et la SADC. À travers cette réflexion, l'auteur compare les niveaux d'intégration atteint par les deux organisations, en fixant les regards sur la place qu'occupe la RDC dans chacune d'elles. Partant d'un faisceau des critères dont celui du commerce, de la capacité productive, de la macroéconomie et des infrastructures ainsi que de la libre circulation des personnes, cette réflexion a eu pour objectif de montrer la position de la RDC dans les deux structures. Sur le plan de la comparaison, il apparaît que les deux organisations, la CEEAC et la SADC poursuivent sur le plan purement textuel, les mêmes objectifs. En revanche, dans leur état actuel, le processus d'intégration au sein de la CEEAC paraît balbutiant, plusieurs objectifs proclamés n'étant toujours pas réalisés. Au sein de la SADC, malgré certaines contraintes, le processus d'intégration a progressé de quelques avancées, en particulier l'opérationnalisation de la ZLE. A cause de cela, cette étude montre que les deux CERs sont inégalement intégrées à ce jour. Au sein de ces deux CERs, la position de la RDC nécessite un rattrapage parce qu'elle est devancée par plusieurs autres Etats membres. La RDC n'affiche pas un bon score selon les critères d'intégration retenus au sein de ces deux CERs. L'analyse de quelques indicateurs d'intégration régionale réalisée par différents organismes montre que la CEEAC et la SADC, deux CERs auxquelles participe la RDC sont à des stades d'intégration différents aussi bien en suivant le schéma global en cinq étapes qu'en se fondant sur l'indice multidimensionnel établi par l'UA depuis 2016.

Kotarbinski's Praxiology and its Application to Economies.
The works carried on over a period of fifty years in the field of praxiology (or efficient practice) by the Polish philospher and logician Tadeusz Kotarbinski are brought to our attention in this article. Practical Essays and The Theory of Efficient Action are examined in the light of the possible application of praxiological standards and estimations in the field of Economics and national planning.
The term "praxiology" first appeared in 1897 in an article by Alfred Espinas, entitled "The Origins of Technology" and was later developed by von Mises, Oskar Lange, Raymond Aron, etc. In spite of this, the concept of praxiology (or the study of human behavior in given conditions) has remained somewhat obscure.
For some time praxiological methods were employed in the West in developed countries as a means of evaluating results in different fields of activity, namely Economics. Kotarbinski considered Praxiology as a general methodological approach and as such, applicable in evaluating economic activity. He applied the f «lowing aphorisms to this type of application: "Between two actions of identical value under given conditions, the most economical is the least costly; for two actions incurring identical expenditures, the most economical is the most productive". He also established a distinction between cost economy and productivity, to be considered as two aspects of the dynamics of Economics.
' In short Kotarbinski's praxiology attempts to discover the abstract rule for efficient action. He considered that in its application, the scope of Economics is more limited than that of Praxiology in that it seeks to create conditions where the most rational methods will be used to satisfy material needs, whereas Praxiology has vaster ambitions. From this it follows that specifically economic evaluations can result from general praxiological evaluations and that praxiological standards are applicable to economic decisions.
According to Kotarbinski, the general function of praxiological standards, values and categories is: (1) to clarify concepts, (2) to apply the logical norm to a given situation and (3) to justify mutual propositions between two scientific spheres (in the case in point, Praxiology and Economics). Efficiency standards according to Kotarbinski are linked to the objective and subjective probability of attaining a given goal. Finally, the author recalls that the standards for efficient planning are: (1) applicability or pertinence to the problem, (2) practicability, (3) economy, (4) precision, (5) unification, (6) continuity, (7) flexibility and (8) rationality.

Ideas New and Old Among Soviet Economists.
There is some overlapping in Alec Nove's suggested classification of Soviet economists, since each of the authors might be listed under several different headings. The analysis is based on broad categories of subject rather than on individual writers, the distinction being drawn between pure and applied economics. Soviet studies in pure theory, which covers the mathematical school and Marxist political economy, has made little progress over the past fifteen years, and the general level of achievement is regarded as poor, judged by international standards. However, in the field of applied economics, where empirical work is directed towards the solution of practical problems of economic policy, considerable progress has been made, and it is here that western economists are most likely to find matter of interest to them, for example in analyses of income, investment, employment, behaviour of firms, etc.

consequence of collective ownership of the means of production, the reasons for this "causality" are far from obvious. By the same token, although the market was presented by Marx and the traditional Soviet political scientists simply as the result of private ownership of the means of production, such hypotheses are refuted by the facts and by the defenders of market socialism.
Having described the existing situation Mr. Lagasse attempts to explain it;. is the market really, as Stalin affirmed, the result of the duality of socialist property? Does it not rather stem from the division of work expressed by autonomous accounting or from the scarcity of resources, as opposed to the endlessly growing demands of the socialist society? The appearance within the enterprise, which is unified state property, of a sort of "partial ownership" tends to indicate that the above argument is well grounded.
In all societies where there is interpénétration of law and economics, the dialogue between man's laws and those of economics is of vital interest. The Soviet experiment demonstrates that if the former exist, the latter can neither ignore nor abuse them.

Gather knowledge to 'try to put into perspective what, at first sight is incomparable', such is the ambition of the collective work directed by Margaret Maruani, Labour and kind in the world. The state of knowledge. The book is a continuation of a previous album, released in 2005 and also coordinated by Mr. Maruani. Compared to the latter, it proposes to cross the university looks issu.es National varied research traditions, in a resolutely comparative and multidisciplinary perspective: besides sociology, which relevant majority of forty-four contributions, history, science of education, economics, demography, geography, law or neurobiology is empowering the reflection in a third articles. After having presented the structure and the main contributions of the work, we will return on reflection paths and extensions that could justify. Adapted from the source document.

The transition of ex-socialist economies has been a particularly rich field of research for testing the soundness and limits of the presuppositions, hypotheses and normative statements underlying various currents of thought in economics. Following an overall view of major approaches to transition issues used over the past decade, the nature of post-socialist economies is brought under consideration. For more than ten years now, many studies devoted to these issues have taken capitalism to be the immediate, inevitable prospect for ex-socialist economies. But there is a logical and practical possibility for economies of an unprecedented type to emerge that cannot be reduced to either socialism or capitalism. A grid for specifying contemporary economic systems is proposed and then applied to former socialist economies in an attempt to decipher their nature. Although some of them have attained capitalism, others cannot however be said to be capitalistic. They constitute sui generis economic systems, qualitatively distinct from both capitalism and socialism.

Mainstream economists have formulated many norms and prescriptions that, to a large extent, were carried over into the economic policies applied by Russian governments from 1992 till the August 1998 crash. But contrary to what is often pretended nowadays, there was never a consensus about these recommendations; and many academics even criticized them. By placing these norms and prescriptions in the context of Russia's recent economic history, we easily distinguish between what was predicted but did not occur and what occurred without having been predicted. This exposes standard economic theory's theoretical and methodological shortcomings. This theory has proven incapable of producing a both realistic and logically coherent conception of money. Its microeconomic assumptions either run counter to the facts or have no theoretical grounds. Last but not least, the explicit or implicit methodology it uses cannot meet up to scientific standards. The Russian economy's recession reveals a deep, far-reaching crisis in standard economic theory and its methodology. It also shows the need for stricter scientific criteria in applied economics. Happenings since the crash have delivered further proof: the expected hyperinflation never materialized, and the experts who had loudly proclaimed the merits of a Currency Board just were wrong.

Prospective Consumption and Living Patterns in Present-day French Research.
Classic projections are limited by the object of the prevision itself and deal more in expenditures for consumption than in behavior or the notion of change itself, according to Professor Kende. There has been a conceptual evolution in the object of the study — living patterns and behavior having become the important factors. Present research in economics also relies on Sociology, adding new dimensions (spatial, temporal and behaviorist).
From a strictly methodological point of view, projection, as such, is not a science (since it studies the non-existent — what is to be) but a form of reflection on the manner in which the factors are combined and interact. It calls upon other sciences, namely the Social Sciences and is, in a way, one of their principle «consumers». The author criticizes the use of models and quantitative methods for prospection.
In conclusion he notes the importance of a recent study made by the CREDOC, «Living Patterns for 1985» focused on the forces of change and inertia which will affect French behavior and living patterns for the next ten years. In Kende's opinion the most valuable studies approach the essential problems by concentrating on tendencies in an abstract but precise manner.

Migratory experiments and shared territories. The analytical stakes of borders.
This article compares the way in which migrating borders have been understood in the respective works of the two authors and those of other migration specialists. This juxtaposition is mostly based on a comparison between the approaches of Roulleau-Berger and Pian which emphasise the socio-spacetime frameworks of migrations and the rationale (or attempts) of bypassing state borders. This comparative perspective invites us in the second section to consider the different concepts of transnationalism in social sciences from a fresh angle. And finally in the last section, the analysis focuses on the effects of the border institution from the standpoint of interethnic relationships (Tersigni). Beyond the legal dimension, this does indeed seem to produce foreigners as an anthropological fact. The aim is to highlight the complexity of the relationship between borders, instruments of control and the position of the social stakeholders concerned. The report is divided into different scales of territories, and also different registers, notably time, economics, politics and identity.

Regional Policy in the USSR: Theory and Practice.
This article examines spatial problems in the Soviet Union in terms of four main aspects which dominate both the theory and the practice of Soviet regional policy:
— The importance of the role of the state;
— The predominance of the sectoral principle;
— The close relationship between politics and economics, and the contradictions which arise between administrative and economic boundary lines, all combine to lend Soviet iegional policy its particular characteristics.
At the same time, the size and growing impact of territorial considerations on economic development have compelled the Soviet authorities to give increasing attention to the need for a more efficient regional policy which will take account of the complexity of the problems now arising. The grave regional imbalances (between the west and the Asian areas) which reflect different levels of regional development, require a considered economic policy designed to make allowance for the diverse historical, economic and socio-cultural patterns of each region.
Set against the totality of the problem, succeeding attempts, from the period of Khrushchev onwards, reveal the disparity between aims and the measures taken to implement them.
As regards regional development, the greater scope acquired by republican and regional authorities over the last two decades is still offset, either by lack of success of the plans themselves, or by difficulties often arising as a result of obstacles created by the central authorities.
At the same time, the models elaborated by various centres in this area of research remain for the most part, theoretical and ill-adapted to implementation at the practical economic level.
These various limiting factors, which are both technical and operational, reflect a contradiction which is rooted in the Soviet system itself.
The predominance of sectoral planning over regional planning is simply an expression of the logic of state centralization which culminates in complete economic and political control. Thus the surface weaknesses and contradictions which manifest themselves, are inherent in the nature and operation of the Soviet system itself. More objectively, the overall effects of these weaknesses arise from the inability of the central planning authorities to plan a long-term policy of economic growth, and to determine its form and scope.