Octavian-Dragomir JORA
Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti
Iberia and Siberia are separated, alphabetically, by little more than a consonant; civilizationally, they may evoke two radically different ways of ordering the human world. Long before Adam Smith, in Salamanca – with Coimbra as its remarkable Lusitanian addendum – late Scholastics were already asking questions about property and prices, money and inflation, interest and exchange, trade and war, while refusing to separate economic reasoning from the moral nature of human action. This was an economics born not in the service of Caesar, but in the search for Truth: an austere science of freedom, responsibility and natural law, developed precisely when Iberian caravels were turning geography into geopolitics and discovery into commerce. Centuries later, Siberia would become an almost inverse metaphor: immense space subjected to political command, natural wealth detached from private ownership, human movement subordinated to the designs of power. The comparison is intentionally audacious, but perhaps revealing. From Salamanca and Coimbra runs a stubborn intellectual thread: society is not raw material to be engineered, and man is not an “accidental statistic” or a “dependent variable” in somebody else’s aggregate equation. Between Iberia and Siberia lies more than a continent. There lies a perennial question of political economy: is order something power imposes upon human beings, or something free human beings are capable of discovering among themselves?
IBERIA, SIBERIA AND THE ECONOMICS OF FREEDOM [IBERIA, SIBERIA ȘI ECONOMIA LIBERTĂȚII]
Sorin-Nicolae CURCĂ
Academia Română
In their functioning, economic systems integrate coordination mechanisms aimed at reducing uncertainty and ensuring predictability. As interdependencies intensify and information flows accelerate, economic shocks tend to produce effects not merely locally, but also on the relationships among agents, the distribution of possible states of the system, and the functionality of coordinators.
Keywords: work, informational entropy, economic shocks, uncertainty, systems theory, economic networks, systemic risk, information dynamics
JEL: C02, D83, D85, E32
On the Informational Entropy of Economic Shock
Florin DĂNESCU
Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti
This study investigates whether European banking sector legislations after 2014 display structural patterns compatible with indirect forms of hybrid pressure on financial intermediation. The analysis is framed by two major reference points: the global financial crisis of 2008 and the increasing use of financial instruments as tools of geopolitical coercion following the annexation of Crimea.
Keywords: banking sector, critical economic infrastructure, indirect hybrid pressures, legislative convergence, financial intermediation, systemic vulnerability, Central and Eastern Europe
JEL: F51, F52, G21, G28, H56, P16
The Banking Sector as Critical Infrastructure in the Logic of Hybrid Conflict: Post-2014 Legislative Convergence in Central and Eastern Europe and the Case of Romania
Alexandru POPOVICI
Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti
The music industry has undergone profound transformations in recent decades, evolving from a traditional model centred on physical products to a globalized digital economic system. Although often viewed exclusively through the lens of cultural policies, music has become a strategic economic sector, contributing significantly to job creation and the stimulation of innovation.
Keywords: music industry, GDP, employment, creative economy, digitalization, economic impact
JEL: E01, J21, L82, O34, Z11
The Contribution of the Music Industry to GDP and Employment: A Comparative Analysis
Mohammed AL-NASSERY
Universitatea Naţională de Apărare “Carol I”
This study analyses the major implications of the ongoing war in the Middle East across four interconnected dimensions: economic, humanitarian, political, and security-related. It argues that the conflict extends beyond direct military confrontation to affect energy markets, supply chains, regional stability, and global food security, while increasing inflation and weakening growth.
Keywords: Middle East war, economic implications, humanitarian crisis, regional security, geopolitical transformations, energy security, food security, cybersecurity, regional stability, supply chains
JEL: F51, F52, F59, H56, Q34, Q54
Implications of the War in the Middle East: An Analysis of the Economic, Security, Humanitarian, and Political Dimensions
Mihai LĂCĂTUŞ
Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai din Cluj-Napoca
This paper examines the relationship between GDP per capita, income inequality, and happiness, starting from the idea that economic growth remains important, but cannot fully explain social well-being. Based on a comparative analysis of 60 countries 2016-2020, the study examines how GDP interacts with indicators such as human development, peace, corruption, and the Gini index.
Keywords: GDP per capita, income inequality, well-being, happiness economics, Gini index, human development, social progress
JEL: I31, D63, O47
GDP as a Means, Not an End: Inequality as the Missing Variable in Fiscal Policy Design – A 60-Country Analysis of Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being
