6th RESEARCHING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES

13-15 April. The efficiency of government has a significant bearing on a country’s economic development and economic growth. Excessive bureaucracy and regulation, a lack of transparency are certainly the main reasons for a slow progress in building full market economies in many transition countries. Liberalization of trade and prices came fast, but institutional reforms in many areas often faced opposition from various sides. The state in free market economy should enforce market freedom and sustain depoliticised socio-economic relations, as Adam Smith argued, free economy fall into ‘bloodshed and disorder’ ‘unless the state civilizes its conduct by means of law, police, and fabrication of the moral sentiments of the system of private poverty’ (Werner Benefeld, 2016:37). Ordoliberalism is a concept best describes the crucial role of the state as the concentrated force of economic freedom. That is essential for entrepreneurship and economic development in transition countries. This provide a departure point of the next REDETE forum taking place in Banja Luka.

Proposing topics

•  How do we get the balance between the role of the state and the role of private capital in supporting entrepreneurial activity? 
• Governments managing the "leaky bucket" - efficiency versus equality
• How can SMEs particularly micro-businesses in transition economies compete in the global marketplace? Is public support an answer or should they develop self-reliance or use a mixed multi-agency approach?
• Thus leading from that, has insufficient attention be paid in transition economies to the success of entrepreneur-owned co-operatives in countries like Germany, Austria and Ireland  – collaboration over competition?
• To what extent are we looking at future longer-term challenges to the stability and growth of our entrepreneurial sectors? Some unpleasant environmental challenges could be looming – global warming could trigger massive migratory shifts and the spread of endemic disease. In addition there is the linked possibility of larger scale environmental disasters in the developed economies – heat waves, floods, etc. For example it is clear that the world re-insurers simply could not cope with a more frequent number of global disasters.
• How do we move away from a reliance on complex financial instruments to finance business activity, towards simpler and more basic credit/savings or other microfinance models?
• How best do we harness intellectual assets in the form of research that brings together theory and practice in a synergistic process? For too long we have relied on theoretical modelling based on conceptualised data gathering which we then seek to find some methodology in its application to real-world situations.

We shall have again a selection of distinguished scholars as key notes and special guests

Participant (attending / paper presenting author): 200 EUR
Publishing only (without attending / presentation): 150 EUR
Doctoral students: 120 EUR