engleski

Economic Policy Today: Political Rhetoric or a True Reforme

The cornerstone of every economic policy topic or debate is the state. To achieve the main macroeconomic goals – (sustainable) economic growth, full employment and quality of life enhancement – modern states try to coordinate and balance underlying economic factors such as (highly) educated and skilled labour force, technology level and participation in international flows and trade, using economic policy as the main tool for such coordination. Economic policy has always been a very complex, not linear nor simple, process, regardless of the country under analysis or discourse. The multi-dimensional globalization process, which has significantly affected and influenced the structure of societies, development trends and economic movements, delineates the current world we live and create in, making also economic policy analysis and decision making even more challenging. All modern states, no matter of the level of development, are faced with a number of economic problems and effects of the today’s globalized world, such as the effects of various economic and financial crises, liberalization and deregulation processes, and convergences to economic associations, as well as the problem of slow growth of national economies, high (or over) indebtedness, unemployment etc. All of these make maintaining economic stability and macroeconomic balances a difficult and delicate task for the state. Defining (supra) national economic policy, monetary and fiscal in particular, is therefore a complex and up-to-date task for policy makers as well as other participants in the decision making process, emphasizing how much ruling economic policies seek to create a consistent economic policy that builds a better system of social relations. On one hand, in some states economic policy decisions are made solely by politicians and there is no doubt that in these cases (macro)economic decisions are primarily decisions of political nature. On the other hand, in some states politicians and experts make economic policy decisions jointly. Economics is a science and scientists can influence economic policy decisions, i.e. corresponding socio-economic and political events. This book represents a modest contribution to the thinking on economic policy in the context of political economics, i.e. to the thinking on all the available economic instruments and tools in the field of monetary and fiscal policies, as well as policies of capital markets and microfinance. Within the book, all the contributions are authors’ presentations of their own views on various aspects of economic policy. Authors put forward they thoughts on today’s issues in economic policy trying to show how much of it is about true changes and reforms and how much about political decisions in the name of economy. We hope that the book will find its way to the readers and encourage them to be independent in economic thinking about the complex world of mutual relations of economic policy and political rhetoric.

Economic Policy; Financial Regulatory; Fiscal Policy; Banking; Finance; Microfinance

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