2004-05-06
ESTADO versus MERCADO. Numa economia de mercado a importância do Estado e do mercado como duas instituições coordenadoras de actividades económicas tem vindo a ser repensada. Apesar de ambas as instituições terem potencialidades para incentivar a criação e desempenho de organizações economicamente relevantes, os pontos fracos de uma nem sempre são anulados pelos pontos fortes da outra. A este propósito, o Professor Roger Backhouse, da University of Birmingham, Reino Unido realizará amanhã pelas 14:30 na Faculdade de Economia do Porto um seminário intitulado “The rise of market economics: economists and the role of the state since the 1970s” que se resume: "Since the 1970s, economists have become more sceptical about the role of the state in the economy, preferring instead to adopt market solutions. This change has affected not just policy-making but economic theory itself. This paper explores different ways to explain this phenomenon. The one favoured by most economists is that there has been progress in the subject - that economists have learned from their mistakes. Other explanations that have been offered are the rise of rational choice liberalism, out of the Cold War struggle with communism; the effects of academic entrepreneurs who built up organizations to support market-oriented economics; the influence of wealthy individuals and funding bodies who have put money into free-market economics; and ideology. These explanations are discussed, focusing on the United States, though with some reference to Europe, and the paper attempts to show the way in which these various explanations overlap and interact with each other".
