It was late 2018, when the Slovak government approved the free lunch program for all children attending elementary schools. The supporting argument was that this measure is outreaching to poor kids who had not been targeted by previous lunch subsidies.
Although we must admit the existence of inequality, why do we get so irritated by it? What is that 16-year-old missing to understand? It is the knowledge that inequality isn’t caused by someone biting a bigger chunk off a single global pie.
The Slovak government’s intention is to lower the market power of large international retail chains. Unfortunately, the alleged problems are mostly made-up. Instead, the “retail chain tax” may end up raising the food prices and wrecking havoc in Slovak retail.
The history of ship navigation on the shores of England shows us that when explaining events we need to take a look not only on the market failures, but also on the state failures. These played a bigger role than the textbooks’ authors might expect.
Bureaucracy Index was introduced in Slovakia in 2016 by Institute of Economic and Social Studies (INESS) to emphasize the amount of red tape a small entrepreneur has to overcome on a daily basis. It is based on a straightforward methodology, using an analysis of a model company.
In 2016, Institute of Economic and Social Studies decided to establish and commemorate the International Bureaucracy Day. We chose the date of September, marked by the birthday of Ludwig von Mises, author of the brilliant analytical book Bureaucracy.
The most important figure of the Slovak economy in the last 5 years has been the trend in unemployment. This rate had been decreasing since the first quarter of 2013 and had dropped to almost a half in the first quarter of 2018. The unemployment rate fell from more than 14% to nearly 7%.
With a sample of 4,000 Slovak students, the Economics Olympiad revealed the most serious weaknesses in economic education of young people. Memorizing is believed to be a long-term problem, but knowledge useful only as a part of quiz shows remains a crucial element of the Slovak education system.
Mankind has made unbelievable progress in the last one hundred years. From horse carriages to moon landings, from typhus epidemics to molecular genetics, from conservative patriarchate to gay marriages. One thing does not change though – the suspicion, or even hate towards merchants.
INESS organized the international conference “Do Regulations Kill Inovation? on June 19, 2018, focusing directly on the sharing economy, its potential for the future, and regulatory environment issues. The conference was attended by over 100 participants.
