Articles

On April 28, 2017, INESS in cooperation with Austrian Economics Center organized in Slovakia Free Market Road Show, a part of a series of conferences and panel discussions that tours all over Europe – from Scandinavia to Montenegro, from Spain to Ukraine. Over 400 experts participate overall, presenting aspects of key economic questions in 45 cities, involving the audience in a vital discussion on economic and public policy questions.

Chinese steel is a typical strawman for U.S. politicians. Employment in the U.S. steel industry fell dramatically indeed. There were around 780,000 employees in the sector in the late 1960s and the industry was producing 115 million tons of steel. Today, there are less than 100,000 employees.

According to the results of a representative population survey carried out by “Spinter Research” on behalf of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, 48% of Lithuanians wish their children pursued a career in entrepreneurship. Yet, the same group associates entrepreneurship with risk, innovation, and hard work.

Equally promising is that many politicians have clearly understood what clever solutions are: connecting the already existing services, using of the current state of knowledge, putting pressure on solutions implemented through open online platforms, encouraging interactions with citizens, among others.

In recent weeks, Prague City councillors have found a new hobby – they verbally attack the popular Airbnb sharing platform, which brings annually more than 700,000 foreigners to the Czech Republic. However, the arguments used to support an immediate regulation of Airbnb are definitely not based on rational analysis of the topic.

Lithuanians seem to have gotten used to governmental promises just as to the changing seasons. The only difference is that spring is bound to come eventually, while the government fails to deliver.

At first glance, the beginning of 2017 did not bring any significant changes in the Hungarian politics. Fidesz still leads confidently, having almost an absolute majority. Moreover, power relations between the liberal-left parties are stable. However, we may also notice a number of new tendencies.

Forced solidarity creates a contradiction – the working class taking care of themselves seems to oppose the interests of the pensioners, while helping the pensioners more would result in a greater burden on the workers. The pursuit of solidarity leads to a conflict of interests.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would make an excellent magician. While he diverts people\'s attention with one hand, he steals with the other. Often literally.

We may recently often hear that something is a \"Putinesque measure\". However, in Hungary, the governing party Fidesz, lead by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is really using Putin’s solutions as its point of reference. Let’s see how similar Orbán’s and Putin’s methods are.