Latinescul “medium” este astăzi una dintre cele mai tranzacţionate vocabule de pe Pământ. Mereu, oamenii au schimbat cuvinte înainte de a schimba lucruri. Iar vorbele au avut mai mereu o libertate semnificativ mai ridicată de circulaţie decât lucrurile pe care ele le denumesc. Bogăţia istoriei şi geografiei lui “medium” este dublată de bogăţia polisemiei şi a familiei lui lexicale. Ştiinţa economică nu s-a ţinut departe şi deoparte de circulaţia acestui cuvânt. Vorbim de ştiinţa acţiunilor umane săvârşite într-un “mediu” material guvernat de legica rarităţii, a acţiunilor umane al căror “miez” este acumularea avuţiei şi aflarea bunăstării, a acţiunilor umane al căror calcul de oportunitate se face în “mijlocul” de schimb generalizat social (moneda). Mai mult de imperialismul limbii latine, imperialismul raţiunii.

Rapid fall of communism was a surprise to Romanian economists. They lacked any theoretical guide to explain such a historic event and allow them to analyze economic and social processes that followed. Neither political economy of socialism, neither Keynesian nor neoclassical theory have allowed the Romanian economists to predict, explain or solve the real economic problems.

I made reference to the mythological Antheus to remark that the economy is better to have roots to increase its robustness, to protect it from adverse shocks. What would these roots be? Some are of an institutional nature and they determine the quality of public policy, the ability to respond to shocks; the institutions’ power can be related to a company’s history, to its organizational and political culture.

In this paper, our main objective is to emphasize the difference between the old and the new EU member states (EU-15  versus EU-12 or NMS ) as regards the dependence on the Internal Market in the field of trade in goods. Conversely, we are trying to find out which European countries are most outward oriented, starting from the hypothesis that there is a “trade split” between the EU-15 and the NMS.

Inflation is mainly a monetary phenomenon, but it has important consequences on the real economy, mainly because the price system does not meet anymore its role of proper allocation of resources. In most of the developed countries, inflation started to be kept under control by the monetary authorities, leading thus to the feeling that stability has been achieved for the purchasing power of money.

Environmental concerns are becoming increasingly popular and nowadays find their place on the policy-makers agenda. The basic question that arises in these circumstances is whether environmental theses are consistent or not with the economic theory. Environmental issues must go through the filter of economic analysis, and policies have to be evaluated based on the generated costs and benefits.

In the present article, we identify the corporation as a pluri-personal consistent “aggregate”. We treat the shareholders - managers tension as irrelevant, focusing on situations in which the “corporate” actors (the shareholding-managerial aggregate) gain in integrum social privileges, rights on undue third party resources or, on the contrary, are prejudiced in integrum by third parties.