Lack of jobs remains the key problem of the Slovak economy despite the currently declining unemployment rate. Government policies keep coming up with new labour market measures but these often prove ineffective, generating only temporary jobs by selectively supporting chosen jobseekers.
The modern debate on inequality is, in practice, a discussion about the morality of capitalism. To simplify this debate by presenting two opposing worlds – a capitalist society where skills and effort lead to inequality, and a socialist society where the state can secure equality – may be a good learning experience, but leaves aside the challenges that we face in the modern world.
Just like every year, INESS released the Bill for Government services few days ago. Although such information should be ideally provided by the government itself, Slovak government is somewhat reluctant to inform the society on costs of the functioning of the state. This is precisely why INESS decided to take up this task.
New Economic School – Georgia has the pleasure to invite you to Summer University. This years’ edition devoted to the topic of Public Choice: The Necessity of Limiting of Government Power will be held in Bakuriani, Georgia, on August 8-14, 2015.
The real problem of the minimum wage concerns a very different group of people. Yet you will not see these people in newspapers or TV and they are not part of government negotiations at all. They are the unemployed people. Hence, what economists argue as some “redistribution problems” between employers and employees is not at the core of issues with minimum wage.
Iceland does not have much chance to go wrong. The current system is sufficiently large a disaster to require trying something else. They experienced capital controls, hyperinflation and there are financial crisis on average every 15 years. The currency suffers from chronic degradation. It would be nice to take a chance on an experiment in a country where the changes of a poorly performing financial system cannot be impeded by too powerful bankers and politicians.
The Slovenian experience with privatisation has been marked by two phenomena. First, the Slovenian State did not exit enough business – there was widespread failure to privatise. Second, the privatisation campaigns that were undertaken suffered from several severe problems – there was widespread privatisation failure. Both phenomena were related even though the precise relationship can be modelled in several ways.
European ideal is not – to my mind – “being the first“ at any costs. Europe does not need to conquer anybody – these times are over and the fundamentally colonialist subconscious idea of Lisbon Strategy has faded into our Medieval past.
Unlike in the EU, where SMEs are among Horizon 2020 priorities, in Ukraine the role of SMEs in innovation and S&T development is underestimated on the policy making level.
The ongoing conflict and economic downturn have taken a toll on Ukrainian businesses across the sectors and sizes. For them, the current political and market uncertainty would make a zero-growth scenario look like a positive development, which, however, is not yet in sight.
