The EU’s Most Influential Economic Policy-maker: Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank

This article assesses the legacy of Mario Draghi as president of the European Central Bank (ECB) from 2011 to 2019, with particular reference to the Greek’s sovereign debt crisis. Most macro-economic indicators improved over the course of Draghi’s tenure at the ECB, including inflation, budget deficits, yield spreads among euro-area borrowers and unemployment. Draghi played a decisive role in turning the tide on the crisis of confidence that afflicted the euro area and threatened the survival of Europe’s single currency in the wake of Greece’s sovereign debt crisis. Yet the ECB’s unconventional policies prompted sustained controversy and contributed to a low level of trust in the central bank among people in the euro-area member states. The focus of controversy has been on possible asset-price bubbles and ‘hidden’ transfers between euro-area member states. When and how to normalize its policies is a major challenge for the ECB, as it is for other major central banks that adapted similar policies in response to the global financial crisis.

The Role of Intellectual Capital in Overcoming the Slowing Economic Growth in Indonesia

Intellectual capital is one of the important factors that play a major role in various economic activities. However, its position in overcoming economic problems in Indonesia is still not too much considered. Based on this, this study aims to describe the role of intellectual capital, especially the Human Capital dimension, in overcoming the economic slowdown in Indonesia. The type of this research is qualitative. Research data in the form of secondary data is collected through documentation studies of data related to human capital and Indonesia’s economic growth, as well as the results of previous studies that have relevance to the topic of this study. The data is then analyzed using qualitative methods. The results of this study are: 1) Intellectual capital has a fundamental role in overcoming the economic slowdown in Indonesia. One dimension of intellectual capital, namely human capital, can have a diverse role, both as a factor of production and as an economic policy maker, so that its existence and quality determine the success of the strategy formulation and its implementation to overcome the economic slowdown in Indonesia; and 2) The role of intellectual capital, especially human capital, can be realized if Indonesia changes its development paradigm to become more oriented towards the development of human resources quality.

Die Bedeutung der Komplexität ökonomischer Strukturen für die Wahl wirtschaftspolitischer Strategien / Complexity in Economic Structures and its Importance for the Choice of Economic Policy Strategies

As well interventionist as ordo-liberal strategies have a long tradition in German economic policy. Interventionism is not only supported by Keynesian economics but also by the neo-classical approach. In contrast to the common view in neo-classical mainstream - as comparative-static analysis method - in this paper scientific isolation of economic phenomenon will be rejected. The economic system is very complex. Therefore economists have to discuss appropriate methods to analyse economic policy strategies.In this paper the problem of complexity in society in common and in economics strictly is discussed. It can be shown that complexity and nonlinearity are main characteristics of dynamic economic processes. An additional problem - resulting from the characteristic of complexity - is the existence of a constitutional lack of knowledge. No one in society, neither a scientist nor an economic policy maker, is able to collect all the necessary knowledge. Therefore interventionist strategies in economic policy are weaker than ordo-liberal ones. Because of the necessity of adaptation-flexibility in dynamic economic systems an “Evolutionary Economic Policy”, characterised by ordo-liberal insights in the importance of economic and political order and evolutionary views on economic processes as discovery procedures, are advocated.But why interventionist strategies are so successful in economic policy - not only in Germany? By using a neo-classical model of institutional competition, including transaction costs etc, the dominant position of interventionist strategies cannot be explained. Therefore in this paper an analysis, basing on systems theory and the ordo-liberal idea of interdependencies of orders, is used to show the complexity in real society according to the choice of strategies in economic policy. It can be shown that dependencies with the political subsystem are mostly important for this dominant position of interventionist strategies. As Hayek predicted a long time ago, a rise of the welfare state occurred in the western world. But interventionist policies are also supported by the formation of a mainstream in economics, dominated by the neo-classical theory, and by cultural factors, by internal institutions and path-dependency.The result of this analysis is a paradox: Complexity in society and especially in economics requires ordo-liberal strategies in economic policy. But at the same time the existence of complexity in society is main argument for the problems relative to the introduction of such strategies, which are more adaptive and thereby more useful in economic policy. Hopefully nowadays by the pressure of international institutional competition, called “globalisation”, ordo-liberal and evolutionary strategies will be supported more.