The question of mathematical social theory revisited: Some methodological considerations

Methodologically, the most advanced social science discipline is considered economics, especially its neoclassical version. A number of practitioners in the other social sciences, especially sociology and political science, perceive economics as a scientific exemplar in methodological (and theoretical) terms. This methodological exemplar has been, particularly in the last decades, attempted to emulate by some of these social scientists. The outcome of this emulation, by adopting and extending its methods, of neoclassical economics in parts (but not all) of sociology, political science, and elsewhere has been rational choice theory as a general social paradigm. This paper tries to show that many misapplications of the methodology of neoclassical economics in rational choice theory have ensued from such methodological emulation. That neoclassical economics does not necessarily contain or lead to a mathematical rational choice model is the core argument of this paper. The paper fills in a gap created by the current literature’s focus on the methodological bases of mathematical rational choice theory in neoclassical economics.     

EU Enlargement: Economic-Cultural Perspective and Cross-Country Comparison

Globalization is constantly changing the appearance of the modern world. The most intense processes of integration are taking place in Europe in the framework of the European Union (EU) enlargement. Though the formal process is more or less concluded, the subtle and informal ones still have a long way to go. Social structures (institutions, organizations, norms, etc.) and actions depend on the cultural environment in the narrowest sense of the word: human perceptions and values. This poses the basic question whether the economic-cultural orientations of the new EU member states are compatible with imported social structures. We have done an empirical research using Hofstede's cultural dimensions and European Values Study database for 26 European countries (23 EU member states, 2 candidate countries, and Northern Ireland as a separate entity). We have also compared the differences and similarities by applying the Ward method (cluster analysis) on our 10 constructed variables.     

Synergy evaluation of non-normalizable dose–response data: Generalization of combination index for the linear effect of drugs

The study of drug synergy plays a prominent role in the search for drug combinations with beneficial interactions. Firstly, in this process, the drug-effect response of individual parts and the mixture needs to be derived. This function is usually well described by Hill (or other logistic or sigmoid) curve. Due to its boundedness, it allows the measured data to be normalized. The normalized data can then be processed by interaction analysis using the Loewe, Bliss, or other models to evaluate possible synergy or antagonism of two or more drugs. However, sometimes, the drug-effect responses observed in pharmaceutical research do not appear to be bounded. Theoretically, the drug-effect curve cannot grow to infinity, but it may be impossible to determine its upper bound within the observed region. In this case, standard models cannot be used, since they assume that data are normalized. The approach of this article bypasses the need to normalize the data, allowing its broader application and usefulness in finding potential synergies in pharmaceutical research.     

Reexamining economic sociology: Beyond rational choice reductionism

The article aims at reexamining the origins and character of economic sociology by comparison with rational choice within the history of economic and social ideas, particularly neoclassical economic and classical sociological theory. Some suggestions for a rational choice approach to economic sociology are particularly curious in that they tend to conflate the distinct characters and origins of these two disciplines throughout this history and have in turn provided an impetus for this reexamination. Modern rational choice theorists display a predilection for reducing economic (and, all) sociology into an economic approach to human behavior, with many economic sociologists evincing some degree of lenience or benevolence vis-à-vis such tendencies. Both tendencies do not seem justified in light of the different nature and origin of economic sociology and rational choice in the history of social and economic ideas. Since the current literature lacks coherent attempts at specifying the nature and historical roots of economic sociology versus those of rational choice, the article contributes toward filling in this hole.     

Collective‐unconscious apologetics of plutocracy and oligarchy: Chicago economics' ideological preferences revealed by the sociology of knowledge

The article places and analyzes the Chicago school of economics within the framework of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge or ideas that posits and documents social determinants of ideas and ideologies. This framework reveals the Chicago school as the explicit or implicit ideology and utopia of plutocracy, oligarchy and aristocracy in the sense of apologetics of these social classes and/or systems, thus being the class form of ‘apologetic economics’. Specifically, first, Chicago economics reveals itself as the collective‐unconscious apologetics of plutocracy, oligarchy and aristocracy. Second, it appears as the ‘collective‐conscious’ apologetics in this respect. In addition, it come close to the mostly covert collective‐unconscious or conscious apologetics of theocracy and fascism. The article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the social, in particular class, factors of Chicago and related schools of economics and generally of economic ideas, theories and policies by applying Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, especially its emphasis on the collective unconscious as the source of ideology.     

Biased estimation of a variance

Summary Let , whereX _i are i.i.d. random variables with a finite variance σ² and is the usual estimate of the mean ofX _i. We consider the problem of finding optimal α with respect to the minimization of the expected value of |S ²(σ)−σ²|^k for variousk and with respect to Pitman's nearness criterion. For the Gaussian case analytical results are obtained and for some non-Gaussian cases we present Monte Carlo results regarding Pitman's criteron. This research was supported by Science Fund of Serbia, grant number 04M03, through Mathematical Institute, Belgrade.     

The impact of Serbian public relations on economic indices

This study presents the research results whose aim was to examine and define dependences and the impact of public relations on business effects (economic indices are taken as representatives of business effects). Serbian companies were the object of this research. The data were collected by polling 100 managers from 100 companies. Multivariate regression and correlation were applied in order to determine the observed dependences. The research results confirm the existence of a significant direct relation between public relations and economic indices.