Positive economic incentives: New behavioral economics and successful economic transitions

The core hypothesis of this paper is that, despite adverse economic effects of custom, tradition, command economies and their aftermath, implementation of well-considered macroeconomic policies has rapidly generated successful economic transition-and conversely. The hypothesis has been tested for Russia, East Germany, selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and in the Western Hemisphere. Key factors of behavioral economics have helped to explain results that are often different from those of neo-classical analysis. It has been shown that relations between the presently evolving global economy and national macroeconomic policies have had fundamental effects on the propensity of economic entities to utilize positive incentives for optimal economic outcomes.