ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, INVESTMENTS, FIXED CAPITAL AND ECONOMICS AND POLITICS OF TRANSITION

The Central board of the Croatian Economic Association decided at its session on 15 February, 2005 to denote two anniversaries this year. The first anniversary relates to denotation of the seventieth anniversary of the journal Ekonomski pregled published by the Croatian Economic Association. The second anniversary relates to denotation of the eightieth anniversary of the birth of Dragomir Vojnić who has been the editor-in-chief of the journal Ekonomski pregled for over twenty-five years. The author of this paper had even earlier done research on scientifi c work of Dragomir Vojnić, as one of the most prominent Croatian economists. Dragomir Vojnić is one of the renovators of the Institute of Economics, Zagreb in 1952. This Institute belongs to the oldest economic institutes in this part of Europe. It was established in 1939, and the journal Ekonomski pregled in 1935. Dragomir Vojnić is the senior research fellow (emeritus) in the Institute of Economics, Zagreb and the full professor (emeritus) at the Economic Faculty, University of Zagreb. He is the member and associate of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, first, and later on of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. From 1972 to 1990 he was the president of the Federal Economic Counsil. From 1973 to 1993 he was director of the Institute of Economics Zagreb. The scientific work of Dragomir Vojnić relates to two complexes. These are: (1) Economic development, investments and fixed capital; (2) Economics and politics of transitionAmong twelve published books, six of them relate to the
first, and six to the second complex of research. In the field of economic sciences he published over 150 articles in the country and abroad. He was very active in international scientific collaboration. As director of the Institute of Economics, Zagreb he especially collaborated with the Vienna Institute for Comparative International Studies, Institute for International Economic and Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and Institute for Comparative Studies of the Florida State University. This collaboration has been well presented by 21 books in English, published by PRAEGER, New York and MacMillan, London. Dragomir Vojnić was very reform-oriented, and participated actively in scientific preparation of reform and transition. Along to very active participation in reform events in our country, he actively participated in preparation of reform in some other countries as well. Here we think of Russia where he directly participated in the attempt of Hruschov to introduce the self-management in 1962, and at the end of the ninetieth in the attempt of Gorbachov to introduce general pluralization and democratisation. In a long series of Vojnić’s works especially mentioned should be one of the most recent which was under the title «Market – damnation or salvation» published in the Ekonomski pregled, in Croatian and English. The paper concentrates on the complex of sustainable development in the light of market and democracy contradictions. The main Vojnić’s messages are that sustainable development can be realized only by combination of the invisible hand of Adam Smith (i.e. market) and the visible hand of John Maynard Keynes (i.e. active economic policy). That means that sustainable development in all three segments (economic, social and ecological), along to the combination of the mentioned doctrines, demands a far stronger role of solidarity. For the course of sustainable development the most responsible are those most developed: USA, European Union and Japan. The United Nations which has for this purpose already started the corresponding reforms, must have a decisive role in that. Sustainable development with a special emphasis on accelerated decrease of the world poverty must be the fundamental task of not only of the XXIst century but of the forthcoming years as well.