The study is focused on defining the position of the Slovak economy in terms of its technology and knowledge intensity catching up with the EU countries' level. The differences between economies are quantified by a share of more or less technology and knowledge intensive segments on total employment, value added and foreign trade. Analysis indicated that Slovakia comparing with EU 15 markedly lags behind in the development of knowledge intensive services and henceforth it keeps a considerably higher share of low and medium-low tech industries; the most remarkable differences have been discovered in the share of high technology manufactures on exports. Therefore, supporting of technology catching up has to become an important part of fulfilling the convergence objectives of Slovakia.
Neither twilight nor renaissance: the author argues, that the failure of the central - directive command planning of the Soviet type cannot overshadow the benefits or sometimes even necessity of development planning. Survival and/ or continuity of planning experience, while getting rid of counterposition 'planning versus market' is becoming particularly valid vis-a-vis contemporary challenges which national and international comunities are facing nowadays. He is referring to such questions as the distant time - horizons in a lot of activities, both micro - and macroeconomic, as well as those having global dimensions; to the badly needed planning in the R&D sphere; to the corporate planning; to the activities in the natural environment conservation and preservation etc. In many cases the analysis is illustrated by the problems and practices of the European Union.
Broadly defined innovation and creativity are, nowadays, the key factors of economic growth. They are the main driving force of development. Since there is a positive correlation between innovation and an economy's efficiency or its attractiveness for investors, implementation of novel and creative solutions can help achieve enhanced business results. Innovation and creativity are instrumental in creating a sustainable competitive advantage in the global market. The ability to create, implement and promote innovation depends largely on the available resources and on the state innovation policy. In the coming years, Poland is going to face the problem of low level of innovation, as well as the dearth of innovation factors. Among the weaknesses of the Polish innovation system are: inefficient utilisation of human capital, low expenditure on R&D activity, considerable dependence on budgetary financing, weak self-innovation ability of small and medium-sized enterprises, poor cooperation between businesses and research institutions, and the mismatch between research activities and the needs of the manufacturing and service sectors. The low level of innovation hampers economic growth and threatens sustainable development. In view of the above, there is a need to define the directions of innovation policy of the state and to improve the conditions for innovation in Poland.
The planning policy evaluation and verification of the assumed policy impact on the economic development is the main purpose of HERMIN model construction. Preparation of the National Development Plan (NDP) of Slovak republic (NSRR), co-financed by the European Union funds, was the main cause for construction of HERMIN model of the Slovak Economy. The construction and estimation of this model is discussed in the first half of this paper while the second half consists of the evaluation of three variants of the Slovak National Development Plan and the policy implications. As previous studies have shown, the main question of NDP is not the magnitude of the reallocations but its structure. In this respect, the results of this paper seem to be consistent with the other empirical findings.
The paper discusses the impact of fluctuations on the development of socio-economic systems. It is analyzed the approaches to classification of fluctuations in economic systems. It is examined the role of fluctuations in the bifurcation and the adaptation mechanisms of socio-economic systems. At the point of system bifurcation even the slightest fluctuations caused by random circumstances can dramatically change the direction of future development. In redesigning the system to a different level of sustainability it is the fluctuations that play the role of ensuring multi-variability of development.
Economic development of the Regained Territories in the first ten years after the war proceeded under very complex political and social conditions. The damage and devastation of those areas as well as the migration of people hindered enormously the incorporation of these lands into the Polish economic organism. The situation was additionally complicated by the post-war chaos and limited possibilities of the state, which at the time did not possess adequate financial and material sources that could be allocated for rebuilding. Although in the years 1945-1949 several plants started to operate, production was mainly developing in bigger centres where the equipment and machinery retained from smaller plants were accumulated. On the other hand, in the country, despite intensive efforts, not all of the arable land was managed. There was a great need for machinery and livestock, and the items that survived and were managed by settlers were not sufficient. At the end of the 1940s it was clearly shown that the government ceased to be actively involved in the idea of integrating the areas in question with the rest of Poland. It was then confirmed by the main assumptions of the six-year plan, which did not take into account the peculiarities of the Regained Territories. Proportionally smaller funds were appropriated for the development of these territories in comparison with the sources designed for other areas in Poland. Unfortunately, the opportunities for the reconstruction of the plants which survived the war were not used, and the maritime economy and the Odra (Oder) river navigation were badly neglected. The six-year plan also had a negative impact on agriculture in the areas that were annexed after the war. The rural crisis caused by collectivization was much deeper here than in other parts of Poland. This merely resulted from unregulated property relations, weak social bonds among the settlers and general lack of people. The crisis of the collectivization policy in 1956 required much bigger funds to be allocated to the Regained Territories than to other parts of Poland for the restoration and rebuilding of individual economy.
From the end of the seventies Chinese economic achievements attracted the whole world's unflagging attention. The sources of the long-lasting development success are many while the specific conditions of modern Chinese uniqueness should be searched even in many thousand of years of shaping a different civilization. Thus, to some degree it concerns also separate elements of the current strategic and tactical concepts, and especially the dynamic economic growth philosophy on the market terms - with only some aberrations, at the same time keeping the authoritarian political system that liberalizes itself insignificantly and slowly. After many years of rapid growth China gained export surpluses not only when it comes to the traditional consumable articles but also in the area of electronics, certain industrial appliances etc., which shows the gradually growing industrial versatility. With strong development of its own scientific-research area, it is also important that foreign direct investments from many world countries, including Taiwan, enter the Chinese market in record quantities. Chinese development dynamics already caused significant prosperity growth in some regions, however, chosen parts of the rural economy stay outside the area of the intensive growth. One also has to notice that the extremely quick growth creates potentially different kinds of threats to the economic balance and structural transformation in China.
The article provides an attempt to answer the question to what extent, under conditions of the Belorussian economy, Polish experience can be used within the scope of development and trends in activities of the sector of small and medium-sized enterprises. This question is essential inasmuch as this sector is especially significant for the economic development processes so that an appropriate policy towards the sector in question can contribute to acceleration in economic growth and, at the same time, it can help to meet social and economic challenges, e.g. of providing new jobs for people and promoting resourcefulness in society. The authors present the level of development of small and medium-sized enterprises in Belarus. Basing themselves on the Polish example they highlight both the advantages and possible threats that may result from that potential. The main threat can be low stability of this sector in Poland reflected by high percentage of enterprises which had withdrawn from business.
The main aim of the article was to research the relationship between human capital, real capital, in- vestments in human capital and the level of economic development in Podlaskie Region. The realization of this aim was enabled by the use of a soft model which was estimated by means of partial least square method. The results of modeling showed that both human and real capital were positive and statistically significant correlated with the level of economic development of Podlaskie Region. Furthermore, human capital was stronger related to the level of economic development than real capital. Moreover, the relationship between investment in human capital and the stock of human capital was positive and statistically significant.
Based on the analysis of interregional cooperation between St. Petersburg and Ukraine, the authors propose the concept of the creation a «Center of Economic Development» between Ukraine and the North-West Federal District. The constituent parts of which are the targets, the solution of which will go to establishing a long-term inter-regional cooperation. Stages of implementation and expected impact from the creation of the center.
The economic development of the states may be described by the various criteria or indicators. The values of some criteria may be higher for some particular countries, while the values of others may be better for other states. Some of the criteria values are maximized, others are minimized. In this complicated and often conflicting situation it is hardly possible to determine which countries have a higher level of the economic development and are considered as the leaders and which are lagging behind. Even some integrated criteria used for evaluation, e. g. annual gross domestic product per capita cannot reflect all aspects of a state development. The application of the multiple criteria of the evaluation methods may give an unbiased view of the economic state of the particular countries. The data obtained in multi-criteria analysis of the economic development of the states show the effectiveness of this approach to the studying complex processes mainly because it can provide an unbiased view of the actual economic situation.
The aim of the paper is to identify the factors of the changes in economic development, in competitiveness of advanced economies, in the structure of labour force, as well as implementation of the information and communication technologies, which led to the changes in the position of science and research. In a conclusion the paper pays attention also to the impact of these changes on formation of economic policy in the advanced countries.
Entrepreneurship is multidimensional phenomenon and there is the lack of its uniform measure, in paper three were presented three single measures of entrepreneurship, the indicator of quality of firms' sizes, the indicator of quality of economic sector, the indicator of firms' saturation in economy, and one synthetic indicator, the indicator of entrepreneurial quality. In presented paper, the relationship between entrepreneurship's measures and the level of economic development in Polish regions was investigated. The influence of entrepreneurship, measured by single and synthetic indicators, on the level of regional development is positive. Better shaped structure of entrepreneurship leads to higher level of economic development. Among single measures, the indicator of quality of firms' sizes has the most important influence on the level of economic development.
Determinants of economic development in different countries are analyzed in the paper. According to the literature, the analyses of variables and factors underlying the different pace of economic growth in different countries reveal the complexity of processes driving different countries towards higher level of economic development. In the article the degree of dependencies between the level of economic development and various attributes including macroeconomic factors and human capital is measured in the years 1965 - 2003. Comparative analysis of World Development Indicators database published yearly by the World Bank is conducted on values of 695 attributes in 208 countries. The occurrence of missing data, motivated to use a set of tools for data exploration WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis). Thus in addition, the problem of the applicability of data exploration tools for analyzing real data arising from economic processes was investigated.
This paper develops a model to analyse economic performance under different political regimes. An 'oligarchic' society, where political power is in the hands of major producers, protects those producers' property rights, but also tends to erect significant entry barriers for new entrepreneurs. Democracy, where political power is more widely diffused, imposes redistributive taxes on producers, but tends to avoid entry barriers. While taxes in a democracy are high and distortions caused by entry barriers low, an oligarchic society achieves greater efficiency. But because comparative advantage in entrepreneurship shifts away from the incumbents, the inefficiency created by entry barriers in an oligarchy deteriorates over time. The typical pattern is one of rise and decline of oligarchic societies: an oligarchic society may first become richer, but will later fall behind a similar democratic society. The author also discusses how democracies may be better able to take advantage of new technologies, how intra-elite conflict in oligarchies may cause a transition to democracy, and how unequal income distribution may keep inefficient oligarchic institutions in place.
The author's initial observation is that alongside the accelerating increase in the weight of the service sector in the macroeconomic structure of the developed countries, there has been a still more important transformation of the sector's internal structure. This transformation can largely explain the new characteristics of the sector. The problems of measurement of the service sector make it worthwhile to approach its productivity by indirect means. The article augments the traditional indices of labour and all-factor productivity with indices of factor application, and argues from this that there has been an alteration in the effect of productivity on this sector, which is changing rapidly in its structure, its factor-application indices and its role in the economy. The author sets out to illuminate the structural transformation in terms of change in the demand for services. Breaking down total demand for services into its constituents (intermediate use, final use, investment and exports) shows that the structure of demand has shifted away from final use towards intermediate use and investment.
A knowledge-based, or 'new', economy is now regarded as a universal remedy for ensuring effective development and increasing welfare levels. A knowledge-based economy focuses on human knowledge, creativity and the ability to realise these ideas in production processes, in other words, on human capital. The objective of the article is to highlight the genesis of a knowledge-based economy in the history of developed countries and to define the spheres that are considered the main driving forces in these 'new economy' countries. The article presents an analysis of the distinctive features of modern economic cycles, the impact of housing and food price increases on consumer prices and on country development, as well as growth trends in global financial markets in the first half of 2007. The authoress concludes that in terms of general growth, the impact of knowledge-based products and services cannot be denied; however there is no reason for regarding products with high added value as the sole development guarantee of all global members. The 'new' economy just supplements the 'old' one - this trend in the global economy has lasted for centuries; historically, innovative ideas are extremely rare - usually products are merely improved, not created completely anew.
Despite its split territory, Kurdistan is experiencing, especially its Iraqi part, a significant economic growth. It is possible thanks to the financial resources coming from the petroleum export and the international developmental support. The article presents the rapid reconstruction of the regional agriculture and infrastructure, that were devastated during the civil war
A framework for understanding the interconnections of technological and institutional changes is offered by a theory that rests on the technological-economic paradigm. For harmony between the new technology and the institutions develops only through a slow process of institutional transformation. The technological change of paradigm in the American system of institutions has brought far better adaptation to the info-communication revolution than Europe's has. The study presents in two fields - the labour market and corporate organization - how the leading post-socialist and West-European countries alike have faced the problem of providing an institutional system suited to the consequences of the info-communications revolution.
Almost two decades have passed since Latvia made the transition from a command economy model. Latvia has become a natural member of the global economy, and as such it must reckon with external impact on its economic, social and cultural spheres. The aim of this paper is to outline the changes which have taken place in conditions of economic development and their impact on subsequent development. The paper analyses general growth trends in Latvia since 1990, signs of economic overheating in Latvia after joining the EU, impact of global financial stress on Latvia and some other countries, and seeks answer to the question - Does Latvia have growth potential?
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