2001. Vol. 2. No. 4

The paper suggests to analyze the production markets as social constructions. The author criticizes the stylized version of the pure competition. In any market every production firm learns to find its own special niche, which is different in the production volumes and the production quality from their rivals.  The decisions are taken on the basis of the rivals’ actions which are taken as the market signals. The markets reproduce themselves as molecules, formed by the atoms – production firms. Moreover is molecule has linear ordered atoms. Ordered niches comprise markets in the flows of intermediate products. The overall system and signal mechanism is described with the help of mathematic models. Next the author shows the main results which could be received with the help of equilibrium model and its impacts from the initial way.  The paper ends by the analysis of the possible changes of orientations in the flow and its evolution in time. 

“The new institutional” theories are widely spread in social sciences. Despite the considerable contradictions in these theories, they all claim that social institutions give rise to local social orders and that they are social constructions.  They tell us how the power groups set up the interaction rules and provide the situation of unequal resource distribution. While appearing the institutions limit the actors’ actions and at the same time encourage the further institutional construction. This paper criticizes these theories focusing on the lack of attention to the role of social authorities and actors in the process of the institutions’ creation. The author gives an alternative approach to the institutional dynamics, based on sociological understanding of the rules, resources and social skill.    

The paper is an attempt to apply the institutional theory of D. North to the description of the practices, formed in Russian economy around the inflorescent of the economic legislation.  The main attention is given to the problem of formal rule observance and transaction costs of this observance. The research is based on 60 interviews with small entrepreneurs and self-employed in Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk and Saint-Petersburg, including those working in the informal sector only in 1999-2001 and 100 interviews with entrepreneurs, self-employed and housekeepers in Moscow, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk and Saint-Petersburg in 2000- 2001.   

The author discusses Weber’s interpretation of the research approach to the process of how the religion influenced the new type of economy and the new socio-cultural system. This approach is compared to the way of how this idea was considered in Russia in the same period of time. The classic papers written by Bulgakov were taken into consideration for this purpose. While we compare these approaches we take Marx’s publications as “intellectual mediator” as both Bulgakov and Weber debated with him. The paper focuses on the proposed ways of analysis of the impact of religion on the modernization, which is mostly considered in the context of rationalization.