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This article summarizes the main distinguishing characteristics of the interactions between economic agents in individualistic and collectivist cultures. A brief systematization of the debate in the literature on the relationship between culture and economic development is proposed and the productivity for the economic analysis of a good knowledge of the peculiarities of national cultures is substantiated. The review necessarily includes evidence and arguments for the existence of mechanisms through which deep aspects of culture influence economic performance, e.g., through the formation of beliefs and preferences – as demonstrated by the effects of social capital. Some of the apparent contradictions in the hypotheses presented can be resolved by considering the scope of the group to which the collective identity and perceived shared responsibilities extend. This leads to the main conclusion of the analysis that the kind of collectivism that hinders economic development usually consists in loyalty to a narrow social group.

This article systemizes the newest research results in the contemporary field of the economic analysis of social status related to the formation of effective institutions and economic policies. The psychological effect of adaptation to the current consumption levels and the prevailing importance of relative to absolute wealth reveal the possibility to explain and forecast human behavior in a rationalistic economic perspective in situations that are usually studied in sociology. Taking into account the effects of the competition for status allows a more thorough and realistic analysis of the forms of socioeconomic organization, the implications of planned economic policies and the role of existing institutional structures for the subjective wellbeing of a society's members.

Mancur Olson (1932-1998) became famous with one great idea: the failure of collective action. Since interest groups provide their members with public (collective) goods with corresponding externalities, he assumed that free riding as a rational individual strategy would be a ubiquitous problem hampering the realization of efficient collective action in the provision of such goods. This remarkable idea – the application of methodological individualism and the assumption of rational individual behavior in the analysis of interest groups, provided a fertile ground for theory building in all social sciences, most notably in political science. In the field of economics, Olson's ideas contributed to the establishment of the Public Choice Theory and became a prerequisite for fundamental research in experimental economics – on public goods, voluntary contribution mechanisms and games such as the prisoner dilemma. The present paper briefly discusses his two best-known books.

Joan Robinson (1903-1983) is an outstanding Cambridge economist in a variety of aspects. Being a member of the inner circle around Keynes and discussing with him drafts of the "General Theory" in the early 1930s, she became an ardent defender of Keynes' original ideas. Her first major work is the "Theory of Imperfect Competition", which became the standard model for depicting real markets as compared to the model of perfect competition. Her work on Marx reintegrated part of his ideas into economic thought while rejecting ideological Marxism. Due to her favoritism of left ideas, her disputes with neoclassical or orthodox economists, and her advocacy of communist regimes after the Second World War, Robinson is also regarded as one of the most controversial economists of her time.

A briefly summary is given of the path-breaking ideas of Gordon Tullock (1922-2014). Tullock can be considered one of the founders of public choice. He initiated a new way of thinking and applied rational choice theory to the political and juridical system. His ideas of rent-seeking behavior, majority voting, bureaucratic inefficiency, constitutional design, and the transfer of the public good problem to political decisions have become cornerstones of economic thought.

A short summary is made of William Baumols' contributions to economic theory. Baumol (1922-2017) had a vivid interest in many different areas within the field of economics and substantially improved (in co-authorship) the quality of the research on the theory of environmental economics, industrial organization and entrepreneurship. The focus of the present paper is placed on his work on entrepreneurship. The institutional framework of a society makes its entrepreneurs either productive or unproductive and in some cases even destructive. This logic implies that economic policy can be used in order to make entrepreneurs become productive for a society and thus to induce growth, wealth and development.

We provide a short introduction into the concept of Constitutional Economics. This approach is a subfield within Public Choice Theory. Public Choice and Constitutional Economics are closely related to the name of James Buchanan who, together with his colleagues, initiated Public Choice Theory in the 1950's and Constitutional Economics in the 1980's. The latter emphasizes the choice of these rules, e.g. the constitutional framework of a society that structures social order. The choice of rules is modeled as acts of exchange in the political process.

The life path of Irwin Fisher, one of the most famous economists of the 20th century, who in his lifetime was described as a genius, is briefly described. Along with his seminal contributions to economic theory, he was among the pioneers in topics related to mathematics, statistics, food security, health care, political stability, and peace. His theoretical and applied contributions are still part of economics textbooks. A brief overview is given of Fisher's writings, which played a significant role in introducing the neoclassical tradition to the United States in the late nineteenth century. The model of temporal (intertemporal) choice, which is an important link between general equilibrium theory, the theory of money, the theory of investment and the theory of consumption, is analysed in more detail. The main reasons why Fisher's works have not lost their relevance in our times are given.

Alexander Gerschenkron was among the most influential twentieth-century scholars of economic history and economic development. His collection of essays, Economic Underdevelopment in Historical Perspective, occupies a key place in the global literature on economic history. Two of Gerschenkron's major ideas that influenced the evolution of development theory beyond its original European context are systematized here. First, the calculation of the growth rates of the Soviet Union, which posed a challenge to economists at the time. The miscalculations discovered about the Soviet economy are known today as the Gerschenkron effect. Second, some aspects of his central theory of economic underdevelopment are pointed out in relation to industrialization and catch-up processes.

This article tackles two methodological problems. The first one concerns the definition and age boundaries of the youth population. It is still actively discussed in the literature and ambiguously solved in research and policy actions. The second problem is related to the measures of youth unemployment, which allow for manipulations through skewed usage of only one deliberately chosen measure or through comparisons of multiple measures with no account of their different content. Directions for a detailed empirical analysis of youth unemployment in Bulgaria are inferred. In the concluding part an alternative ranking of EU-28 countries is suggested based on an aggregate handling of three youth unemployment measures in the age interval 15-29 years. It differs decisively from the popular Eurostat ranking, based only on the youth unemployment rate.

Although the European business environment induces important premises and assures conditions in determining economic growth and social well-being, the determinant and existent connections between the evolution of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), business demography characteristics and the European socio-economic model have been scarcely studied in recent years. The dimensions of the European socio-economic model design a very specific framework in developing business demography and assuring a favorable environment for future SME development. The main aim of the manuscript is to investigate the evolution of the European SMEs sector and the perspective of business demography evolution to converge with exigencies of the European socio-economic model. In order to argue the research objective, eight specific and representative business demography variables were employed, from 12 European Union member states (EU-MS), during 2009-2017. Further, the SMEs' performances, determined by changing the economic functional paradigm, were assessed. For proving this, an econometric model was designed considering labor productivity as an endogenous variable. Our preliminary analysis shows considerable differences in business demography indicators and SMEs development among all five socio-economic sub-models of the main European socio-economic model, proving a tight connection between European socio-economic models and SMEs' performance and arguing the necessity of a paradigm convergence. Within some sub-models, there is clear evidence of clustering and convergence in terms of business demography and SMEs future development.

Nearly 50 years ago, Mark Granovetter initiated a fundamental critique of economic theory. His critique was the starting point for the New Economic Sociology (NES). Particularly, he criticized the emerging theories of New Institutional Economics (NIE), focusing on the ideas of Oliver Williamson (1932–2020) who was one of the most prominent representatives of this school. In this paper we address this critique and Williamson's response to it. Williamson argued from the perspective of transaction cost economics, while Granovetter focused on the social embeddedness of individuals. The impact of this debate on economics has resulted in an increased research interest in the role of institutions and social networks. However, both lines of thought did not bring economic and sociological theories together. NES established as a subdiscipline in Sociology. Its central concept of embeddedness continued to attract interest but proved to be of little empirical applicability. NIE, on the other hand, has become part of mainstream economics.

Frank Knight (1885⎯1972) was an exceptional social scientist and a prolific writer of many reviews and comments on topics in economic theory, philosophy, and ethics. In economics he is best known for his work on uncertainty as a cause for entrepreneurial profit in competitive markets. This is only one of his many contributions that put the market and the price mechanism at center stage. In contrast to many other neoclassical writers, he vehemently criticized the market as a guiding principle to form a society since the market is unethical. Knight considered the economy as a social system and the economic approach as one among many others in social sciences. Knight is a founding father of the Chicago School of Economics. Several of his students became Nobelists.

Heinrich von Stackelberg introduced several fundamental concepts to economic theory. His contributions to the analysis of market structure are the best-known ones. Since the 1930th his theory of the instability of markets is a cornerstone of theoretical economics. If firms make dependent and independent decisions in an oligopolistic market structure, the outcome is rarely a stable equilibrium. The concept of Stackelberg-leader and Stackelberg-follower is immanent in many real-world business situations. However, only after the emergence of game theory and linear programming the full potential of Stackelberg's contributions has become apparent. In cost theory and the theory of monopoly, he provided some of the basic principles that became part of economic textbooks. First-semester students of economics and business administration are studying these theories even 80 years after Stackelberg introduced them. In this comment, we refer to his two major works on market structures and cost theory.

George Josef Stigler is known as the scientist who strongly influenced the formation of the Chicago School of Economics. He promoted the idea of expanding price theory beyond the boundaries of economics and developed it into a universal model for the analysis of human behaviour, known as the economic approach to human behaviour. His research inspired the Public Choice literature and the Economic Theory of Law. Besides, Stigler made numerous contributions which nowadays are integral parts of economic theory. In this essay we summarize some of Stigler's outstanding contributions, particularly his work on information economics and the economic theory of regulation.