Economy

The brief message of the report regarding the effectiveness of the banking supervision in Bulgaria is unambiguous: yes, the supervision has demonstrated weaknesses, and yes, the CCB management has circumvented and violated the regulations and the good banking practices.

Last month one of the greatest and most extraordinary economists of our time – Douglass North (1920–2015) – departed. He left enormous inheritance of insights that will be considered and re-considered for a long time, and its entire meaning is yet to be discovered and realized.

At the beginning of his speech, CEPOS President attacked the popular myth of Denmark being rich thanks to the welfare state. As he demonstrated on number of charts, Denmark was first rich, and only then could afford the welfare state.

Let’s be honest. Governments remember deregulation in their talks with businesses or during election campaigns. But they do not pay nearly as much attention to deregulation as they do to expanding regulatory obligations, increasing taxes, or telling people how to behave.

The \"green mechanism\", which will become actually effective on 1 January 2016, should work. No sooner than next year we shall see, though, whether it will function effectively and meet the expectations of the majority of players.

Cash payment restrictions would increase individual and corporate expenses and would cause payment inconveniences. How would one be expected to make larger payments at weekends when interbank transfers are not made? A forced „banking“ of cash reduces competition among payments methods.

There are those who view markets as functional (albeit imperfect) tools for economic decisions and those who think markets always fail at this task. Add to that the intricacies of the energy sector, and the discussion about markets in the energy sector becomes an argument between economists and engineers written down by lawyers.

It is settled that provisional application of Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) between Ukraine and the EU will start since January 1, 2016. In a response, Russia is expected to increase trade barriers vis-à-vis Ukrainian goods.

How to tax small businesses? In recent months, this question has become the centre of heated discussions in Ukraine. The main topic of the discussions is the future of the Simplified System of Taxation, Accounting and Reporting (or Simplified Tax System, STS), which may be reformed as part of the government\'s tax reform.

Today, when we talk about increasing the export capacity of Ukraine, we can hear about the need to focus on exporting the high-tech products, products with high value added and a high level of processing - it seems very attractive because all of the above are important \"export benchmarks\" which should be strived for.