Maryann O. Keating and Barry P. Keating
John Paul II’s vision of the social economy provides moral guidance to those seeking it. At the same time, it provokes market oriented free enterprise economists by its apparent…
Abstract
John Paul II’s vision of the social economy provides moral guidance to those seeking it. At the same time, it provokes market oriented free enterprise economists by its apparent lack of market understanding. Section one attempts to demonstrate how his vision expressed in Laborem Exercens conflicts with conservative free market economists. Section two deals with the moral logic embedded in conservative economic thought and suggests how John Paul II’s vision outlined in his three encyclicals on the social question enhances this perspective.
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Barry Keating and Maryann Keating
Public private partnerships (PPPs) centralize decision making into a hybrid type of firm, consisting of a government entity with a private firm, that is either a profit‐seeking or…
Abstract
Purpose
Public private partnerships (PPPs) centralize decision making into a hybrid type of firm, consisting of a government entity with a private firm, that is either a profit‐seeking or non‐profit entity, that initiates, constructs, maintains, or provides a service. The PPP model recognizes that both the public and the private sectors have certain comparative advantages in the performance of specific tasks. PPPs, grounded in cost/benefit analysis, have been used in Australia for decades and are presently being introduced in the USA as a form of innovate contracting. This paper aims to evaluate PPPs as a potentially transferable model for the delivery of public services. PPP firms are evaluated in terms of capital asset management, productive and allocative efficiency, transfer of risk between the public and private sectors, rights to the residual, and the public interest. A case study comparison of Fremantle Ports (Australia) and the Indiana Toll Road (USA) is employed to demonstrate PPP design and function.
Design/methodology/approach
A description and evaluation of public private partnerships (PPP) is presented and two original and primary case studies are reviewed.
Findings
A PPP functioning as a monopoly provider of a common pool public asset approximates economic efficiency when user fees cover virtually full cost. Identifying optimal output and quality assessment is more challenging in the case of social goods in which the public goal is subsidy minimization and clients cannot assess quality. Best practices are helpful; they guarantee the PPP process, but not the outcome. All PPPs, in whatever country or industry, are vulnerable to bureaucratic expansion whenever they are given access to subsidized loans underwritten by taxpayers.
Originality/value
The two case studies in this paper are 100 percent original; they were examined in person by the authors, and the managers of the two entities were interviewed in Indiana (USA) and Fremantle, Western Australia.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how the social question, die soziale Frage, is treated in the periodical literature of English language economics.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the social question, die soziale Frage, is treated in the periodical literature of English language economics.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines every reference to the question in the most important English language economic journals.
Findings
Considering that more than a century has passed, there are few references. By 1900, Anglophone economists virtually lost what little interest they ever had in the social question. Continental European economists have always made up the vast majority of those concerned with the social question. There has never been agreement about what the social question is or how to remedy it. It has always been defined very differently at different times and within and among countries. The political, social, economic and cultural contexts are important determinants of discussions about it and policies to address the social problems to which it refers. In order for a social question to be translated into social reform, specific parts of it must become social problems. Political, cultural and social changes in Europe require entire new ways of thinking about social reform. Reasons for this are discussed.
Originality/value
The paper offers insights into how the social question is treated in English language periodicals.
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John Paul II's views on economic systems have been construed differently by some commentators who have been seeking approval for their own views rather than searching for the…
Abstract
Purpose
John Paul II's views on economic systems have been construed differently by some commentators who have been seeking approval for their own views rather than searching for the meaning that he himself intends to convey. John Paul is labeled by many as favoring capitalism, and by others as supporting socialism. A few have been scrutinizing his statements in hopes of finding support for a “third‐way.” In this paper, John Paul is quoted at length to represent his views more accurately.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper originated in a collection of essays on the theme of John Paul II's vision of the social economy that was published by the International Journal of Social Economics in fall 1998. This author is indebted to the contributors to that collection for many insights into John Paul's vision. Eight topics are covered: consumption, distribution, capital investment, work as such, leisure, labor, development, and market economy versus command economy. This paper uses many more direct quotes than is customary in scholarly work, but there is no other way to proceed and remain faithful to John Paul's vision of the social economy.
Findings
John Paul's writings on economic affairs are significant for what they teach about the premises employed in economics. His own philosophy of the human person reinforces the four premises of personalist economics more so than the premises of the mainstream and challenges the mainstream at its foundations in the philosophy of individualism.
Research limitations/implications
John Paul speaks to a wide range of issues and questions central to economics and economic affairs. It would be presumptuous to represent this paper as a thorough examination of everything that John Paul has said, written, and means in this regard.
Practical implications
This paper attempts to highlight some of the key arguments that John Paul II has set forth on eight centrally important economic topics, comparing and contrasting his pronouncements with the views of mainstream economists on the same topics.
Originality/value
This paper draws on the insights of 20 professional colleagues specialized in range of subdisciplines in economics, holding faculty positions at major universities in the USA, Italy, and Canada, and with a strong interest in understanding the social economy. The concluding section states John Paul's vision of the social economy in terms of 13 most important arguments.