ECONOMIC THOUGHT OF FRIEDRICH LIST, GUNNAR MYRDAL AND JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, AND ITS APPLICABILITY IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES

Abstract

The neo-liberal policies of privatization, trade and capital markets liberalization, deregulation and minimizing the role of the state have led in transition Balkan countries to deindustrialization, GDP stagnation and high unemployment, having for its consequence a dramatic depopulation. This refers us to the need for searching for different, successful development policies in the past. The aim of the paper is to explore the economic thought of three great economists, the critics of classical and neoclassical economics, who have had an important influence on economic theory and policy in the past: German economist and politician Friedrich List, the founder of German Historical School, who was considered to be the main ideologist of capitalist development of Germany; Swedish Nobel prize winner Gunnar Myrdal, who had a major role in the creation of the Swedish model of welfare state; and famous British economist John Maynard Keynes who greatly influenced the prosperity of Western economies in the decades after the Second World War. The research results show that current problems of transition economies could find many solutions in the ideas of List, Myrdal and Keynes.