Jürgen Wandel

• SGH Warsaw School of Economics

How can against the background of multiple crises in the European Union (EU) and the war in Ukraine prosperity be secured for all, while mitigating not only distributional but also security and environmental concerns? What is the role of the state and what is the role of the market in these efforts? The book attempts to give answers to these questi...

The war in Ukraine threatens global food security. At the same time, the European Union plans to advance the green transformation of its agro-food sector, which implies lower agricultural output. Drawing on public choice insights, the article discusses if the war has the potential to revise the greening ambitions for EU’s agro-food sector, especial...

What can economic policy do in today’s unstable environment characterized by multiple economic crises, ongoing geostrategic transitions at the global level and by new challenges brought about by ecological changes as well as technological and market disruptions? This book provides Polish and German perspectives on this question focusing on general...

The war in Ukraine threatens global food security. At the same time, the European Union (EU) plans to advance the green transformation of its agro-food sector, which implies lower agricultural output. Relying on the political economy literature, this study examines if the war can thwart the greening ambitions for EU’s agro-food sector. For this, it...

The global and European economy have been operating under increasingly unstable conditions for a considerable period of time. Initially prompted by the global financial and eurozone crises, they were later joined by the migration crisis, the turmoil of Brexit and the Covid pandemic as well as technological disruptions, calls for a green transformat...

The European Union (EU) has been struggling for years with multiple crises such as the eurozone crisis, the migration crisis, Brexit and economic stagnation. The COVID-19 pandemic has become an additional challenge that not only requires considerable efforts from the member countries of the EU in economic, political and social terms, but also makes...

In the wake of the economic fallout triggered by the various lockdown measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the European Union reacted with unprecedented fiscal and monetary measures. Drawing on a robust political economy framework this study discusses the appropriateness and potential effects of this response focusing on the knowledge...

Germany’s industry-based export oriented economic model has come under mounting pressure for upgrading and adapting to demand shifts as well as structural and technological changes. The paper reviews the challenges Germany faces to sustain international competitiveness and its policy implications. For this it draws on insights of the Hayek-Kirzner...

30 years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union marked the beginning of one of the greatest social experiments in recent history in this part of the world - the transformation of a planned economy into a market economy and from totalitarianism to democracy. Where do united Germany, Poland and Europe stand 30 years...

Individual freedom is a central European value and is regarded as an essential driving force for economic development. The article analyses the current state of individual freedom in Germany, the cradle of the social market economy. The arguments developed by Friedrich August von Hayek in his bestseller “The Road to Serfdom” serve as the analytical...

Thirty years after the collapse of the centrally-planned economies in Central and Eastern Europe market skepticism and calls for a strong involvement of the state in the economy are back in fashion. This paper attempts to shed light on this puzzle by reviewing the economic transition in East Germany and Poland in a comparative retrospective. It exa...

Niniejsze opracowanie stanowi wynik projektu badawczego zrealizowanego w ramach Instytutu Gospodarki Światowej SGH w Warszawie, którego celem było przedstawienie chińskiej Inicjatywy Pasa i Szlaku (BRI), motywów za nią stojących, głównych jej składowych oraz obecnych i potencjalnych przyszłych skutków. Realizacja tego projektu przypadła na okres pr...

A neglected aspect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) is their protectionist potential. In times of a stagnating World Trade Organization (WTO), growing economic nationalism and skepticism about the merits of free trade and trade agreements, the paper examines to what extent recently signed RTAs really promote genuine free trade or rather foster s...

Deutschland und Polen sind wirtschaftlich eng verflochten. Deutschland ist für Polen weiterhin der mit Abstand wichtigste Handelspartner. Ebenso festigte Polen als siebtwichtigster Handelspartner Deutschlands weiter seine Position noch vor der Schweiz, Spanien und Russland. Ob und inwieweit dieses positive Bild durch aktuelle Entwicklungen in der E...

This article discusses the prospects for an ordoliberal reform of the European Union in order to tackle its multiple crises. It shows what an ordoliberal European Union would have to look like and examines the constraints its implementation faces. Three reasons are identified that make an ordoliberal reform of the EU at present unlikely. First, in...

This paper analyses the scenarios of the EU’s post-Brexit economic order and the role of Germany in shaping it from an ordoliberal perspective. The analysis shows that the ordoliberal view would necessitate a flexible Europe of different clubs based on a free and open single market rather than an ever closer union. Nevertheless, Germany seems unlik...

The Republic of Kazakhstan’s agricultural development strategy relies on capital subsidies as a main engine for boosting competitiveness. This approach under-estimates the knowledge and incentive problems inherent in state-guided management of sector development. Based on unique farm-level data, we examine the financial constraints actually perceiv...

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the wheat production developments in the Eurasian region and assesses the potential contribution of the region to domestic and international food security. In particular, the book covers policy and institutional developments of the agricultural sector in Eurasia with a special focus on the horizontal issue...

Germany’s role in the eurozone crisis is a subject of debate. Does Europe’s largest economy act pragmatically and lends a helping hand to the crisis countries or does its fixation on aus-terity and structural reforms prevent their discovery? This article discusses this question using the business cycle theory of the Austrian School of Economics as...

The EU’s current ten year strategy “Europe 2020” aims to set out a vision of a European social market economy for the 21st century that will promote economic growth with social and ecological attributes. This article analyzes the roles ascribed to the government and the market and the extent this role allocation is suitable to enhance growth of the...

The article discusses the claim of European Union's current ten year strategy "Europe 2020" to set out a vision of a European social market economy for the 21st century and to what extent this concept is suitable to enhance growth in the European Union. It is argued that a crucial weakness of the concept of a social market economy is its elasticity...

The paper analyzes the political economy of Germany’s energy policy in the context of Europe’s growth strategy “Europe 2020” and the impact on Poland. It is argued that Germany’s accelerated transition to a low-carbon energy system (the so called Energiewende) is highly ignorant of the knowledge requirements to bring about an economically efficient...

Mainstream economics built upon neoclassical insights into the Pareto-efficiency qualities of perfectly competitive markets believe that the beneficial functioning of competition is not secured spontaneously but must be supported by state action. Economists from the Austrian School of Economics have been pioneering and trenchant in questioning this...

This paper examines the nonprofit sector from the perspective of the Austrian school of economic thought. In contrast to the traditional market failure approach, the Austrian school locates the role of the nonprofit sector in the facilitation of the spontaneous order and the utilization of local dispersed knowledge about the societal needs through...

The article analyzes the latest developments in Germany’s agro-food sector and its foreign trade relations with special emphasis on Poland. It is shown that the sector is still only of mi-nor importance both for the national economies and the foreign trade of both countries. While Germany remained a classical net importer of food products, in Polan...

Der vorliegende Beitrag führt in Form eines Überblicks in die aktuelle wirtschaftliche Entwicklung in Deutschland im Zeichen der globalen Finanz- und Eurokrise, deren möglichen Ursachen und zentralen Herausforderungen ein. Es wird zunächst die aktuelle wirtschaftliche Lage in Deutschland im Vergleich zu den europäischen Nachbarn skizziert. Danach w...

Against the global debate on socially responsible agro-investment, we explore the conditions, patterns, and impacts of recent agricultural recovery in Kazakhstan’s northern grain provinces. Vertically and horizontally integrated agroholdings brought outside investment and management to this region. With stable employment in agriculture, real consum...

This article analyses the reasons for the prevalence of agroholdings in Russia's Belgorod oblast', focusing on the forces driving their emergence and persistence. It draws on both case study evidence and a unique farm-level dataset for 2001–07. It argues that, despite notable evidence for government support, political economy factors alone cannot e...

Mainstream economics built upon neoclassical insights into the Paretoefficiency qualities of perfectly competitive markets believe that the beneficial functioning of competition is not secured spontaneously but must be supported by state action. Economists from the Austrian School of Economics have been pioneering and trenchant in questioning this...

The paper questions from an Austrian perspective the hypotheses that enjoy widespread support in mainstream economics that business groups are a symptom of imperfect competition and a threat to competition with negative impacts on social welfare. For this, an Austrian theoretical framework is developed and then applied to analyze the interaction of...

This article reviews the outcome of the transformation of a centrally planned into a market economy over the past two decades in the case of agriculture in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. It focuses on the question of how transition progress in the region's agriculture can be evaluated and compared adequately. The article presents a set o...

Against the rising global concern of how to achieve sustainable output expansion in food, we document the main outcomes of post-Soviet agricultural recovery and restructuring in the Kazakhstan grain region. Together with an expansion of cropland area and increasing capital input, real agricultural value added has almost doubled within the recent de...

This paper discusses the achievements of the transition process in the respective agri-food sectors of Central and Eastern European countries and identifies challenges for further development. Twenty years after the beginning of transition, countries that have carried out relatively rapid and far-reaching reforms show better economic performance th...

This paper challenges the uselfullness of the cluster-based development strategy to diversify and increase the competitiveness of Kazakhstan's economy, regarding the case of the country's agro-food sector. For this it refers to insights of the Austrian Market Process Theory. It is argued that already the theoretical foundations of the cluster conce...

This paper challenges the argument that embedded informal institutions have played a primary role in the formation of Russia’s agro-food business groups. We put forth an Austrian theory of entrepreneurship to confirm the validity of our assertion perceiving Russian oligarchic behavior as entrepreneurial. The theoretical framework encompasses main...

This Country Brief presents an overview of Kazakhstan’s economy, explains some of the challenges the country faces, and outlines possible directions for economic policy. This brief’s recommendations emphasize the role of competition as a discovery mechanism, entrepreneurship as the economy’s driving force, and the importance of the appropriate inst...

Kazakhstan is a major success story in Central Asia, having experienced double-digit growth rates between 2000 and 2007. The country has made significant market-oriented reforms and large amounts of foreign investment. However, following the maxim adopted by many successful countries in Southeast Asia, 'First the economy and then politics,' politic...

С перехом к рыночным отношениям в Российской Федерации возникла необходимость приспособить обучающую программу аграрных вузов и включить в ее дисциплину "учение о сельскохозяйственных рынках". Данная статья показывает, что до коллективизации сельского хозяйства в начале 1930-х годов в России существовала традиция по этому предмету, связанная с знам...

The paper provides an overview of the institutional arrangements on the micro level that have evolved in the agro-food sector of Kazakhstan in the course of transition. Emphasis is laid on more complex arrangements like agroholdings and clusters, hitherto mostly unknown in the agro-food sectors of established market economies. It is shown that agro...

С перехом к рыночным отношениям в Российской Федерации возникла необходимость приспособить обучающую программу аграрных вузов и включить в ее дисциплину "учение о сельскохозяйственных рынках". Данная статья показывает, что до коллективизации сельского хозяйства в начале 1930-х годов в России существовала традиция по этому предмету, связанная с знам...

The paper discusses the accelerated emergence of agroholdings in the Russian Federation. It is argued that the foundation of these highly integrated structures I due to the special (macro-) economic and institutional condition of the transition process in Russia. Moreover, it is shown that agricultural enterprises which are part of an agroholding w...

By means of the transaction cost theory, the study identifies the motives for vertical integration or coordination in the Russian agrofood sector and assesses the forms of vertical integration developed so far. One can distinguish between state-initiated integration forms and such initiated by the economic agents themselves. Whereas the aim of the...

Based on the analytical framework of the structure-conduct-performance paradigm of the theory of industrial organisation, the paper analyses those economic conditions that determine the degree of competitiveness in the Latvian dairy and milling industry. The analysis is based on information from milk and grain processing enterprises acquired throug...

Based on the analytical framework of the structure-conduct-performance paradigm of the theory of industrial organization, the paper analyses economic conditions that determine the degree of competitiveness in the Lithuanian dairy and sugar industry. The study is based on information from milk and sugar beet processing enterprises acquired through a...

Part of Lithuania's inheritance from the centrally planned economy of the former Soviet Union is its inefficient food processing sector, which bears much responsibility for the low competitiveness of domestic vis-à-vis imported food products. This harms the food industry itself as well as the entire agricultural sector. Consequently improvements...

It is the objective of the present study to examine the competitive processes within the Polish meat processing industry during the first six years of transformation empirically. In particular, two questions were posed: How did the intensity of competition develop in this sector since the beginning of the transformation process? What are the factor...

The food industry is one of the most important sectors in the Latvian economy. However, due to its close links to agriculture, the structural crisis in the processing sector is the main obstacle to increasing output, productivity and profitability in the entire agricultural sector. Based on the structure-conduct-performance framework developed by t...

Das Ziel der Arbeit ist es, (1) die Entstehung integrierter Strukturen im russischen Agrar- und Ernährungssektor seit Transformationsbeginn zu erklären, (2) deren Funktionsweise zu analysieren, (3) ihre Entwicklungsperspektiven und (4) ihre volkswirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen abzuschätzen. Nach der Systematisierung der Integrationsformen, die seit T...