Volume 6 (2018): Issue 2 (December 2018)

Business administration argues that means-end-analysis in the interest of firms does not need to take the interests of other actors into account. Its implicit or explicit reason is that there is a harmony between firm goals and the interests of other actors. This study objects from a critical rationalist perspective that such harmony hypotheses are not empirically confirmed. Because of this, actors are not truly free to pursue their own interests. Instead, this study argues that actors on markets are allowed to pursue their own interests as long as they consider the legitimate interests of other actors at the same time. The study goes on to show how business administration should analyze means-end-statements that try to realize this market value.

In this paper, we attempt to estimate the development of the Greek public debt for the period 2018–2022. In order to achieve this, we analyze three different fiscal scenarios that are based on the official data available, together with our estimations that are based on a specific conceptual framework that we develop. The three scenarios are based on a different mixture of Gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates and budgetary surpluses of GDP. The analysis concludes that the numerical outcome is almost the same in all three case scenarios. However, the third scenario is the best since it leads to higher growth, GDP, and less austerity measures, and thus making public debt sustainable in the long run. The third scenario also provides the best combination of the trade-off between austerity and growth. We conclude by discussing some policy measures.