Abstract: The article presents a summarized characteristics of neoclassical economics methodology, its components, and expressed views. The identified core features of economic methodology are: apriorism; deductivism, a priori deductivism; axiomatic/postulate method; axiomatic-deductive theory building; mathematical formalization; the concept of true theory, typical for neo-classics; instrumentality; theory testing through predictions of its effect, automation, reduction and methodological individualism; ignoring the community and natural environment. Conclusions are made that (1) the leading impact factor for neoclassical economics growth is a priori and axiomatic deductivism in particular (and not methodological individualism, as commonly accepted) and (2) the primary reasons for the development of neoclassical economics in the second half of the 20th century till now, as an instrumental and not an explanatory theory, and its discrepancy with reality, are mainly due to the methodology. A question is raised: what kind of theory – instrumental or explanatory – should be taught in universities and dominate in the expert, macro-management and public space?

Abstract: In recent years we have witnessed profound institutional changes in the character of central banks and in their monetary policies. These transformations are the result of a number of factors, most notably the crisis that began in 2008, as well as the large-scale processes of digitalisation of money. The place and specific mechanisms of the financial stability system, including of the lender of last resort (LOLR), are also evolving. In this context a review of the historic development of the LOLR could be particularly useful.

This article aims to present the first steps of the LOLR in Bulgaria in the years of the Great Depression and the banking crises related to it. The various institutional forms of the LOLR in Bulgaria are described in sequence. The role of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), as the LOLR in the systemic crisis and the rescuing of Credit Bank in 1931, and the theoretical discussions among Bulgarian economists about the LOLR have been examined

Abstract: The actuality of the topic of circular economy is dictated by the need to find a solution to contemporary environmental, economic and social problems. The study's main objective is to trace the development of the concept of circular economy and derive a modern definition of the notion. In this regard, the leading indicators for measuring the success of circular activities at the company level are analyzed, summarized and evaluated. A literature review on the evolution of the circular economy concept is carried out, based on which definitions and main characteristics of the circular economy concept are derived. Practical tools for measuring the success of the transition to a circular economy at a firm level are presented. The study concludes with some general recommendations on the future development of circular economy policies and the measurement of their results.

Abstract: The application of advanced pricing algorithms is becoming an increasingly common practice in the real economy. On the one hand, this is associated with improvements in the efficiency of firms, but on the other hand, it may pose a threat to market competition and thus have undesirable consequences for consumers. This article keeps track of the current interdisciplinary discussion on the possibility of pricing algorithms to achieve colluding behaviour. This possibility seems not only theoretically possible but also ever more practically feasible. At the same time, policy instruments are, at least for the moment, limited and pose new challenges to competition authorities.

The Covid appeared in November 2019 in China and was declared a “pandemic” in March 2020 by the World Health Organization. It surprised the whole world: all countries are affected, airborne at high speed, mutant and playing with measures against it, insensitive to nationalities, the richest are by far more affected than the poor, and victims by the millions. It has forced life to withdraw from its usual spaces of deployment, except for places where the macabre accounting of the disappeared is rampant.

In a context of such disarray, and if we agree with Robbins (1932, р. 15) that “Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses”, it may be useful to question the force of the laws, rules and other theorems stated by such a science in the face of a pandemic whose severity index, which reaches a maximum of 5, is equalled only by that of the Spanish flu of 1918-1921. To do so, we use an analytical methodology in that by briefly revisiting the ideas of the last six of the twelve seminal thinkers identified by Yueh (2019) (Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek, Joan Robinson, Milton Friedman, Douglas North, and Robert Solow), we attempt to discuss the resilience of their ideas (or the permanence of the relevance of their findings) in the light of the pandemic. The result indicates that not all ideas are immutable.

Over the last few decades we have witnessed dynamic demographic changes around the world, in the European Union (EU) and in Bulgaria in particular. These are related to the decline in the population (depopulation) and its ageing (most often measured by the share of the population aged 65 and over in the total population), as well as migration. As early as the 1980s, the rate of natural population growth in Bulgaria began to decline, but for the first time in 1990 a negative natural growth rate was registered (-0.4‰), and in the following decades it was quite low - around -5‰. Today, Bulgaria is among the EU countries where these processes are most dynamic and even dramatic. As a result of the two factors (natural increase and migration), the population in Bulgaria is decreasing from nearly 9 million in 1988 to about 6.5 million in 2021.