Editorial

Welcome, REPE reader,

REPE is in the middle of its 4^th volume and this is the mid-year issue No. 2, scheduled for July/August.

REPE has just received a listing in the Italian ANVUR indexing system for academic journals. This is a major step forward for the journal, as ANVUR has some international authority in the field. The REPE editors, coeditors, and associate editors, together with Springer and with EAEPE, are heading now toward different steps forward: an application (1) to the Clarivate Emerging Sources Citation Index—ESCI in the near future, becoming more attractive then to a broader array of authors and papers, and (2) to increasing the number of issues per year to the regular four in the foreseeable future.

This also is the third REPE issue embracing independently submitted papers, among the otherwise many special issues. The scheme so far has been that each No. 2 in a year is such a “regular” issue.

This issue has an array of article formats, with all, of course, having equally been subject to the regular review process.

For the first time, we managed to get an EAEPE keynote, Ève Chiapello’s keynote of the EAEPE Naples 2022 conference. It is about financialized capitalism and the impacts of financialization in social and environmental areas and on related social circles and activists’ groups.

Also, we have a set of “regular” research articles covering; first, the theory of value in a biophysical and entropy framework (Jing Chen, James K. Galbraith); second, an article on “markets” and “market policies,” in this case, China’s recent antimonopoly case against Alibaba’s Ant Group and against the entire IT-sector (Ricardo Siu); third, on multidimensional modeling of socio-economic life (Adrian Byrne); four, on the innovation state and social justice (Theo Papaioannou); five, on the transition toward a forest-based bioeconomy (Antje Klitkou); six, on a post-Keynesian analysis of growth drivers in emerging capitalist economies (Benjamin Jungmann); and seventh, on the “demographic dividend” in sub-Saharan Africa (Mesfin M. Woldegiorgis).

Finally, we present another paper in our “rubric” Country reports and country-related analyses that we had started two years ago with an invited paper by Lynne Chester on Australia’s environmental problems, their bushfires, and the lacking political response. Although that was a kind of analytical “country report,” it turned out thereafter to be one of the most visited and downloaded papers of REPE. So we invited another “country report,” which this time is more a country-anchored theoretical analysis: Smita Srinivas’ invited paper on India and “European” (Eurocentristic) Evolutionary Political Economy, a contribution on further developing evolutionary political economy against the foil of the “global south,” in this case, the foreseeable second largest economy of the world, India. This “series” will have to be continued, and we would hope to have some “country-anchored” analysis on China, the USA, Russia and other countries, soon.

REPE has launched a “strategy” discourse last year, after having made some experience as a new journal, having left its “baby-phase.” We had an online conference with our associates last May and a discussion with a number of members of our International Advisory Board in 2022 and 2023, some of them being journal editors themselves, with highly appreciated advice. We started a discourse at the EAEPE 2022 Naples conference with a session named “REPE meets its authors and readers.” This will be continued at the EAEPE conference in Leeds, September 2023.

The reviewers of 2022 were acknowledged in issue 1–2023 already, but Leeds will see for the first time a REPE award for the best reviewer(s) handed over. And as usual, we will award the best REPE paper(s) for 2022/3, as selected by a Best-Paper-Committee of our International Advisory Board.

Finally, this is the time to say good-bye … for me … as REPE’s Editor-in-Chief. Having done this service for the Forum of Social Economics (ASE, at Taylor & Francis) for seven years, and for REPE for more than five years now, with more than a year preparation work and four years of actually publishing the journal, my “founding editor” term will end in Leeds and I decided not to step up for another five-years term. It was a great time that I enjoyed very much, with a very good team around me, including the Springer people. But I am “in that age” … and have a number of other editing projects (no journals!) on the plate, still. I hope to be able to continue serving REPE as a future member of its International Advisory Board, organizing supporting discourse there.

We welcome Silvano Cincotti, experienced in the coeditors’ team from the very beginning, as the next Editor-in-Chief! He will continue the strategy discourse and realize a number of ideas already discussed ... and will shape REPE further.

Enjoy this REPE issue! And don’t forget “RCSER”: read, cite, submit, guest-edit and review for/to REPE! Thank you!

Wolfram Elsner

Editor-in-Chief

Keynotes, invited and featured papers

EAEPE Keynote, Naples 2022:

• 1 Impact finance. How social and environmental questions are addressed in times of financialized capitalism

Ève Chiapello

Regular research articles

• 2 An entropy theory of value, with reflections on the Arrow–Debreu model

Jing Chen, James K. Galbraith

• 3 Evolution of market power in China’s economic reform and its anti-monopoly policy: The case of Alibaba and Ant Financial Group

Ricardo C. S. Siu

• 4 Multilevel modelling approach to analyzing life course socioeconomic status and understanding missingness

Adrian Byrne

• 5 What kind of innovation state matters for social justice? Learning from Poulantzas and going beyond

Theo Papaioannou

• 6 Systemic intermediaries and the transition towards forest-based bioeconomy in the North

Antje Klitkou

• 7 Growth drivers in emerging capitalist economies: Building blocks for a post-Keynesian analysis and an empirical exploration of the years before and after the Global Financial Crisis

Benjamin Jungmann

• 8 Drivers of demographic dividend in sub-Saharan Africa

Mesfin M. Woldegiorgis

Country reports and country-related analyses

• 9 India and ‘European’ Evolutionary Political Economy

Smita Srinivas