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Period furniture styles, from Antiquity to Rococo, were characterized by the constant use of ornament as a way to connect visually and intellectually to Nature, as did Art in general. The evolution of furniture design in the last hundred years was marked by the almost total disparition of ornament. The thesis that form should originate solely from function, lead to the crisis of Modern Architecture. Innovation in furniture design faces today a number of challenges, which originate in part from the limitations set forth by the dominant artistic doctrines as well as by economics. In the end, one can argue that the functionalist approach, completed by the overuse of a minimalist vocabulary and the constant push for low production costs contribute substantially to the aridity of artistic expression in contemporary furniture design. The aim of the research project is to develop a design and eventually to produce a finished piece of furniture, in total opposition to the dominant minimalist trends of today, starting from the symbolism of the Ram in the Arts, in order to explore if such an approach could lead to a freer artistic expression. The paper focuses on the methods used throughout the design process.. An already researched body of symbolic representation of the Ram in period furniture styles is used to generate the first conceptual sketches which in turn lead to the design development phase and shop drawings. The actual making of the finished product in briefly presented as well. The intent of the whole exercises was to custom made a piece of furniture starting from a design based on animal symbolism, in order to find out if such an approach today, will enhance the artistic expression. By looking at the finished product it appears that the artistic expression is free, liberated from the coercions set forth by the conditions described above. The paper shows that creating a personalized piece of furniture starting from a symbol is possible. This lets us to believe that the same exercise can be extended to other symbols borrowed from the animal and vegetal worlds, in order to enrich contemporary furniture design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minimum wage is a tool for regulating the labor market that, over the long term, causes controversy in the areas of both economic theory and practice. The goal of this paper is to present and analyze key theoretical economic approaches to the functioning of the labor market and the tools used to regulate it. These regulatory tools significantly influence the labor market's allocative efficiency, and we generally consider the institution of minimum wage to be fundamental part of this trend. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on the way it functions economically and non-economically, its consequences, and the concepts used when establishing it. We focus our attention primarily on analyzing the institution of minimum wage in the Czech Republic. However, its wider implications from global and European perspectives are also of interest to us. How does the evolution of minimum wage in the Czech Republic affect employment, unemployment, and the labor market? Does the institution of minimum wage in the Czech Republic tend to have positive or negative economic impact? How do Czech companies perceive the situation of an increase in minimum wage? Our goal for this paper is to find relevant answers to these questions. In addition to theoretical and statistical analysis, our conclusions are based on the results of an empirical survey we conducted, which targeted both private sector companies (spanning different sizes, fields of business, and regions) as well as public sector employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethics and economics are scientific disciplines that we generally consider to be both independent and equivalent. Although at first glance it seems to be logically impossible to connect ethics and economics in any way, distinct attempts to integrate these two academic fields have been made over the course of the historical development of humanity. Interest in this problematic can be seen on many levels - from purely theoretical (research in the area of integrating ethical and economic thinking) to entirely practical (implementing ethical principles into daily economic practice). Distortion when dealing with the relationship between morality and actual economic life had already been inscribed in the human mind when the theoretical perception of the relationship between ethics and economic theory occurred. And, it is precisely economists who tend to be blamed for the substantive underestimation of economics' moral dimension. Therefore, let us ask precisely why should ethics have something in common with economics and contemporary economics with ethics? Is it at all possible to speak of the presence of ethics in economics? Where is interdisciplinarity implicated? The concept of our paper is based on a positive answer to these questions. Although these sciences traditionally differ in their subject matter and research methods, there are a number of crossover points that entitle us to perceive these disciplines as mutually related. The goal of this paper is to document the significance and influence of ethics during the period of the formation of economics as an independent scientific discipline on the basis of qualitative analysis derived from literary sources and by comparing and reconstructing the findings that were acquired. By working through the literature, we concluded that ethics codetermines a cognitive foundation - the paradigm of economic science - and represents an important source of their internal divergence in the historical development of economic theory. From the methodological perspective, solving the problem as defined presumes that an interdisciplinary approach, including philosophic and historical arguments, is a necessary tool for revealing the ethical sources of economics, their nature, significance, and the practical scope of their expression within economic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first decades of the 21st century are characterised by an urgent need of changing of the fundamental paradigm of managing and using of resources. The globalisation of the economy, in the "age of Capitalocene" is resulting in increasing social inequalities, the pollution of the ecosystem and the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources that ultimately endangers human existence. The focus of this paper was on the process of economic localisation as a driver towards a more responsible economic model. The aims of the paper were to consider the limitations of the dominant economic concept, to discuss the concept of economic localisation and to analyse the process of economic localisation in Croatia. The empirical research was aimed to map different grassroots initiatives related with economic localisation developed in the last decade in Croatia. The main criteria were their contribution to the transition towards sustainable economy. The research has shown different initiatives at the local levels that are already contributing to a creation of more resilient and sustainable local communities. Although those initiatives currently have small impact at the national level, they are clear indicators of potentials that sustainable economy in Croatia could have. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of evaluation of strategic development plans for cities with more than million population in Volga Federal District of the Russian Federation. Integral ranking of the strategic plans is made by combining the results of accessibility of strategic documents for stakeholders, availability of communication channels and readability of these documents. The studies have shown that that on all three criteria city Samara is the first, followed by Kazan and Perm. City Ufa is on fourth place and city Nizhny Novgorod is the last. Most of the strategic development plans are freely available. Any interested person can easily find strategy documents on the Internet. The opportunity to make suggestions, comments and adjustments also exists in most cities (except Nizhny Novgorod). Text of the strategic documents is convenient and understandable for all cities except city Ufa, according to the Flesh's readability index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper authors present the assessment of ecological well-being in large Russian cities, situated in the Volga Federal District. Comparative analysis is made for five cities of the Volga Federal District of the Russian Federation for the period 2008-2015, based on data published annually by the Federal Service for State Statistics of the Russian Federation, namely the statistical yearbooks "Regions of Russia. Main socioeconomic indicators of cities". To assess the ecological well-being of inhabitants, statistical data is standardized by introducing normalized indices. The procedure of normalization is reduced to two formulas in different cases: direct (positive) and backward (negative) exponents. Further, the integral index of the ecological well-being of the population is calculated according to normalized ecological indicators. Results show that the worst situation is in city Kazan and city Ufa. Perhaps it is due to the large number of industry in these cities. Both cities are the outsiders in ecological well-being among the cities with population more than one million inhabitants in the Volga Federal District. The best ecological indicators were in city Perm for the 2008-2015 years. City Samara and city Nizhny Novgorod occupy the middle positions for both ecological indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than a decade, the liberalisation of the European energy markets has been on the agenda, this liberalisation being highly motivated by expected efficiency improvements. The competitiveness of the European economy and the welfare of its citizens can be enhanced through a more efficient supply of energy. The liberalisation of the energy market should lead to improvements in productivity, a more competitive pricing and greater efforts to support and develop innovation. This paper will provide an overview and some empirical evidence on frontier efficiency measurement in the European energy market, in order to develop and validate the assumption that the liberalisation of this market is a step forward towards efficiency. Moreover, by taking into account the large number of energy operators and the dependency to large suppliers, such as the dependence on the Russian gas, will be taken into account for a proper and accurate understanding of the subject in hand. Even if important steps have been taken across Europe to obtain the liberalisation of the energy market that should be supported by alignments in terms of prices, a greater transparency and the right of European citizens to choose the supplier of energy they prefer, it cannot be affirmed that the practice in this field has assimilated al the theory and the progress that has been done in this field. This research paper will also try to stimulate thinking about the effects that are generated on the energy market by liberalisation, what the European Union would become if this process is complete and what impact would this have on the actors that operate on the energy market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses descriptive statistics of various financial key performance indicators to depicture the situation of the sample of 200 Czech production and agriculture cooperatives from year 2006 to 2010 when financial crisis stroke. The sample is segmented using the area of operations and the setting of the decision making rules, as the then Czech commercial code (valid 1991-2013) was dispositive legal norm. Among the indicators belong ROA, Quick ratio, debt ratio and dynamics of assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition of the Russian economy to innovation strategies of development has set conditions for the development of the infrastructure of innovative entrepreneurship, project environment and project management. By introducing innovations, small-sized innovative companies and heavy players aim at providing national and global competitiveness. Various investment sources are used to develop and promote new technological solutions and innovation services. Their choice depends on the content and size of a project, a company's strategy and other factors. Currently, experts observe a sufficient amount of available investment resources on the Russian innovation market. However, an inefficient implementation of investments still remains a vital problem. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the main causes of this problem and to propose its possible solutions based on the research done. The paper systematizes the types of investors and sources of innovative companies financing depending on the stage of their development. The peculiarities of large projects, in particular projects of creating territorial innovation clusters in Russian regions, are revealed in the paper. Small-sized innovative companies should choose a source of financing by balancing the concepts of the "innovation lift" and the "investment lift" taking into account the degree of risks. In this connection the paper proposes a company's investment strategy matrix. Since large innovation projects in Russia are mainly financed by the government, the paper pays special attention to the investment strategy based on the state-private partnership. The main task in effecting government investments is to provide their efficiency. The effectiveness of investments can be seen in economic and social indicators of the development of industry, society and the region as a whole. The paper expresses the author's view on the government investment effectiveness, a possibility of using benchmarking to analyze the efficiency of territorial innovation clusters. The study of the state-of-the-art foreign experience facilitates searching for effective investment strategies and stimulates investment project commercialization. The author has analyzed the best foreign practices and presents the conclusions that are based on them. The following research methods are used: observation, expert evaluation, generalization, benchmarking, comparative analysis and data visualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influence of globalization permeates all areas of human activity, it is the matter of technology and human knowledge transfers. Thus it is obvious, that European Union's membership enables rapid development of merger states. Under the economic activities of companies in the international environment, exchange of goods and services becomes an integral part of their economic life and brings necessity for the proper measurement of imported assets, as their value will have a subsequent impact on the reported financial position and performance of the company. This paper deals with the initial inventory measurement. The first part of the contribution is a literature search on the topic and reviewing the current level of knowledge of the issue. The second part of the paper brings a comparative analysis of selected impacts on the inventory measurement and it is primarily addressed to the impact of the chosen methodology of the currency rate's conversion in Czech legislative conditions - in this case the Czech crown and Euro - when the inventory (namely merchandise) is imported. This problem is illustrated in a case study of an existing merchandising company; current methodology used by the firm is compared with other options, results are discussed from their impact on financial reporting point of view. Secondarily, the issues of transportation costs as a component of the acquisition cost in the appointed company are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade significantly determines the level of economy output. The volume of international trade, in comparison to produced output, might be expressed as the openness of economy. Openness is the most obvious aspect of globalization. This gives the researchers a wide range of research questions. Theoretical and empirical papers usually deal with the impact of openness on macroeconomic development of countries, regions or economic areas. Openness of economy is reduced by three main barriers - imperfection in flows of goods, factors of productions and ideas. However, it is very difficult to measure and quantify these imperfections. Even those, that are available, e.g. tariff and non-tariff barriers are of poor quality and limited by time period. Since the Slovak Republic ranks among the most open economies, paper deals with the analysis of openness of Slovak economy and with relationship between openness and the growth in Slovakia. The paper also analyzes different options in openness measurement and analyzes the degree of openness of Slovakia, as well as European Union members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modality in scientific texts has been investigated from various angles and has been found to be indicative of stance and dependent on various factors, such as discipline, culture and context. Cross disciplinary studies point out that, in English, the epistemic use of modals in scientific texts exceeds the deontic use, given the communicative purposes of such texts, i.e. the production and transfer of knowledge. The present paper explores the use of modal verbs in a corpus of scientific texts on Economics written in Romanian. Quantitative data are extracted related to the two main modal verbs in Romanian, a trebui (must) and a putea (can), with their respective modal values, as well as the patterns in which these verbs occur and the lexical verbs they co-occur with. The modal a putea has the highest nominal values, with a trebui the second. Epistemic meanings, expressed mainly by a putea, are found to be the most frequent in the corpus, often in repetitive structures. Deontic expressions - mainly forms of a trebui, though comparatively fewer, have high counts for a scientific text expected to be descriptive and reflective rather than normative, possibly indicating an epistemological orientation towards the normative position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent financial crisis, which turned into a global economic recession, showed once again the dangers posed by the propagation of financial turmoil beyond national borders. The paper develops a critical review of the existing literature on this topic while trying to identify fresh approaches that may facilitate a better understanding of how and why crises become contagious. Furthermore, it provides a brief analysis of S&P 500, FTSE 100, NIKKEI 225 and AORD stock market indices with the aim of observing the effects of financial integration, as well as spotting potential contagion episodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on copyright aspects of disclosure of digitalized works within the European digital library Europeana project. The purpose of the online platform mentioned above - a platform that collects cultural treasures of libraries, museums and archives from all member states of the European Union - is to make European scientific and cultural heritage available for the general public. Digitalization and disclosure of the content of the library web portal is connected with many copyright aspects. This paper focuses on the legal framework, within which can the cultural memory institutions make copyrighted works available for the public. The basic prerequisite for the dissemination of a work is its copyright qualification for disclosure. This is the reason why the backbone of the Europeana digital library consists of public domains, whose intellectual property rights have expired. European digital library also has to solve the problem of possibility of online dissemination of copyrighted works and also deals with orphan works and out-ofcommerce works, because it is complicated to make them available for the public. This is why this paper focuses on the possibilities for orphan and out-of-commerce works' disclosure without breaking copyright laws. Due to the cross-border dissemination of copyrighted works, this paper also reflects the need for copyright protection in accordance with national, EU and international regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Considering the dynamic development of modern societies, over the recent years European states have been allocating more and more attention on mediations as an alternative means of dispute and conflict resolution, including conflicts in public and private law. European states have been both passing new laws and statutory acts and accepting new social norms pertaining to mediations, which has called for debates in societies. Following these tendencies in legal developments, the Republic of Latvia is currently investing efforts into the development of the institute of mediation. The normative base is being formulated and applicability of practice as a new practice in Latvia is being considered. Various models of mediation, including controversial ones, are being discussed within the framework of debates on a new national draft law proposal On Mediation. Results. The paper claims that current mediation tendencies are correlated with the expansion of delegation of authority by the subject of the civil society. In particular, these tendencies include a) the expansion of a spectrum of implementation of various methods of defence of violated rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of natural and legal persons, b) the increasing deployment of extrajudicial, reconciling and alternative methods of argument and conflict resolution, including corporate conflicts, and c) the increasing deployment of new technologies of mediation in court proceedings. The paper addresses the development of priorities, role, types, models, technologies and applications of mediations, discusses main aspects of the Latvian draft law proposal On Mediation and analyzes opportunities and problematic features of mediation existing in public law, and in particular with reference to the criminal procedure, as well as in civil and commercial laws of Latvia. Conclusions and recommendations. The development of private and integrated mediation in public and private law of Latvia should proceed considering a) the complexity of transformation of the current legislation, b) development of uniform criteria regulating the mediator qualification procedure, c) analysis of law-enforcement practice of European states, d) training of qualified professional mediators and e) development of the legal culture in the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Czech Republic new non-profit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were established and replaced the previous centrally-controlled state organizations since 1989. Currently, over 100 thousand are registered there. Since this time NGOs are developing together with their mutual cooperation with profit organizations. It forms social pillar in corporate social responsibility concept. The cooperation is supported indirectly by state with tax base reduction in case of financial gifts provided to NGOs. The cooperation between profit organizations and NGOs is important for all. NGOs need it for their financial stability. It is required part of their financial sources portfolio. The aim of the paper is research impact of various forms of companies' support of NGOs and its positive effect to companies' business. First, companies cooperating with NGOs were chosen. Then, their customers or potential customers were asked in questionnaire about their knowledge of the cooperation and its influence to their decision of buying products. Hypothesizes was set, that financial supporting in form of sponsorship is the most effective type for a company's cooperation. While NGO is financially supported, company pays for advertising. The qualitative research gives us information which kind of supports or cooperation between companies and NGOs has the highest efficiency. These results could be important for management of profit companies as well as for NGOs. They can use it within their fundraising activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the presented paper is to illuminate the current situation regarding assigning homework at secondary schools in the Czech Republic and to ascertain secondary school students' attitudes to economics subjects homework. The importance of homework given from Economics as a subject at the selected secondary schools is discussed using the results from questionnaires completed by secondary school pupils (N=239) in the South Moravian region in the Czech Republic. The data analysis of the pilot study of 15 items and 1 additional open question item introduces the frequency, forms, evaluation and in general the pupils' attitudes to homework in Economics. The clearest finding of the research was that although pupils do not have excessive homework, they lack the motivation to process them. The homework types and forms do not develop the pupils' personality, and moreover 61% of the pupils are not motivated to do the homework. According to the findings 23% of the pupils also copy homework from classmates as a way of cheating. The alarmingly low level of pupil engagement with homework is strictly connected with the sense of the assigned homework, even though the pupils consider that the homework is useful for their academic achievement. Research has also shown that some pupils lack feedback. One suggestion to improve the current situation is to give pupils greater motivation and focus on the usefulness of homework for their future career. For economic subjects, applicability is considered essential to change the pupils' attitudes to homework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays there is a belief that economic security theory as a branch of economics is in the process of development. This article summarizes scientific theories and knowledge about the implementation of public security tasks. The paper shows the impact of clas-sical school on the formation of modern economic security theory. It also describes the-ories explaining the most effective ways of achieving economic growth and develop-ment. The purpose of this research is to justify terminology on the basis of scientific theoretical analysis on the problems of economic security theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the methods of teachers of business academies (secondary schools) in terms of development of economic and financial thinking based on a questionnaire survey from 2015. Identified procedures implemented in teaching are compared with the contents of the most used textbooks for secondary schools in the Czech Republic, which are designed to teach courses of Economics and Accounting. The authors come out of the research focused on the textbook evaluation of Economics and Accounting in the Czech Republic (Králová, 2014, Fialová, 2015) using relevant research methodology (Průcha, 2009). The comparison of current practices of teachers and content adjusting of textbooks with the emphasis on the development of thinking should uncover the need for additional teaching aids which will enable to integrate both subjects at the level of interdisciplinary relations. 34 business academies out of 60 addressed took part in the research filling the surveys in the Czech Republic. Data are processed on the basis of descriptive statistics. Research has proven that teachers by their own procedures integrate subject Accounting with Economics at the level of interdisciplinary relations in all years of study through the use of curriculum of the subject Economics within the teaching of Accounting. In the exposure teaching phase teachers do not only present facts, but lead students to inference and logical thinking. Almost a third of respondents believe that the Accounting textbook lacks coherence with the subject Economics. At the same time the majority of teachers stated that textbooks are lacking examples for the development of economic and financial thinking. 81% of respondents are interested in new teaching aids to support thinking and integrating of both subjects. Teachers' responses show that textbooks do not contain sufficiently examples for the development of thinking and creativity. This fact is in harmony with the evaluation of textbooks carried out up to now and it is evident that the need for further teaching aids leading to the integration of Economics and Accounting and the development of students' thinking is big and desirable to support economic education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity is widely acknowledged to be the trigger of innovations and urban development after recognition of ideas by R. Florida, R. Landry and others on creative city and creative class though the latter notions are nowadays criticized for unsustainability issues they raise (Kirchberg & Kagan 2013). Moreover, these ideas put the main accent on macro-level of analysis, i.e. economic effects of creativity in the cities; however the micro-level of creativity - grass-rooted interactions of real creative actors - which is the immediate context for ideas generation and active involvement into the city life - is often left out of attention. In this paper, we regard sustainability in creative cities in frames of newly developed perspective linking the latter with "participatory, bottom-up, intergenerational approaches" (Kagan & Verstraete, 2011: 16). In particular, we consider sustainability as an outcome of artists' activity who are embedded in the city space. The designated micro-level of sustainability emergent through creativity becomes valuable in the urban contexts characteristic of post-soviet region with no stable policies of cultural development and literally no 'creative cities' as such. Absence of governmental support for artistic initiatives conditions variable adaptation tactics within the creative actors, which result in grass-rooted sustainability in contemporary city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovations are now very often inflected term. The company is aware of the necessity of their implementation, customers are calling for greener products, and companies are trying to implement environmentally friendly activities. Enterprises uphold the principles of environmentally suitable behavior, some of them are trying to use these approaches in production, others in most of their activities. Concept of innovation raises in many of us the idea of technological inventions that are the result of long efforts, activities and research work of scientists. However, innovation can be the result of operations of any enterprise, which was implemented in order to succeed in the market. These innovations can be oriented to products or business processes, or procedures, as well as marketing practices. The area of innovation is developed quite extensive, whether in Slovakia or abroad. The reason is the need for innovation in today's industry, and in all spheres of human activity, as well as customer requirements. The cooperation between enterprises of different industries is important in developing eco-innovations and may produce new, interesting and creative solutions. The partnership between companies from different industries allows access to new knowledge and its transmission creates fertile ground for innovation. Green innovations can take different forms; the main idea is, however, according to most authors, positive change for the environment. This change, whether in terms of products, processes or different business processes is now sorely needed. The paper deals with the innovation process and the implementation of innovative projects that focusing on eco-innovative products should meet certain criteria specific to green products. Whether it is the innovation of products, services or methods or processes, there is a need for the inclusion of specific requirements in the form of environmental benefits but implementation must be profitable for the companies to undertake this eco-innovation. Various approaches of eco-innovative projects can yield different results. The research carried out in Slovakia showed us a positive approach of Slovak SMEs to green innovations but the results show a relatively small percentage of the implementation of these innovations, despite many efforts. The reasons are mostly financial, personnel, legislative or resulting from the factors of the external environment that in Slovakia negatively affect businesses. Innovation as a stimulus of current economy and positive change in our society is that the economy needs, but conditions for SMEs are not appropriate and sufficient in order the innovative processes to be implemented in necessary and sufficient way. Another barrier in the development and implementation of innovations or green innovations is the lack of cooperation of subjects such as scientific and research institutions, universities with the business sector. Contribution seeks to outline possible solutions to these problems, which would strengthen the implementation success of eco-innovation processes in Slovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on developing sustainable and attractive tourism destinations under the impact of national and international future trends in tourism, of which we herein analysed the high demand of customer-tailored service packages and the continuous changes in tourists' needs for a 'totally different' tourism product. In this regard, our purpose was to identify the main revival strategies to be used for a tourism destination which lost in time its attractiveness but still preserves its potential of natural and artificial resources. To reach such goal, we designed a research methodology made up of two parts, a piece of descriptive research presenting the dynamics of a tourism destination and a piece of quantitative research centred on identifying customers' attitudes regarding their past experiences with that tourism destination. Thus, we chose as a tourism destination the beautiful area represented by the North-Western part of Moldavia (the counties of Suceava and Neamţ) in Romania that in our view shall represent one of the top tourism attractions in our country, nationally and internationally as well. The main findings highlighted by our research were that in general, for old tourism destinations which lost their profitableness in time, there is a more tremendous need of focus and differentiation strategies aiming at emphasizing the tourism attractions of the area than of diversification strategies trying to design new products which need time to be developed and promoted. Furthermore, the strategies herein presented shall have a wide application field for all such areas needing revival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the essential role of creativity in building the knowledge-based economy, organization and management. Firstly, some theoretical views on the subject were summarized. Secondly, some of the results of a research carried out in Romanian universities and companies were presented, the purpose of this being to determine the use of creativity management in economy. Questionnaires were given to three categories of respondents: academics, PhD students and managers. Finally, the results proved that the creative potential of human resource is not enough used in Romanian economy. Therefore, building a knowledge-based economy is difficult. In order to achieve performance and competitiveness, the management of Romanian organizations will have to use the employees' creativity more efficiently in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latest development of the insurance motor insurance in the central and eastern Europe denote a preoccupation of the insurance companies for the specific risks arising from underwritten policies. Based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Romanian insurance market, the paper is presenting potential tendencies for the future development of the market, with severe implications on the risk management procedures of the insurance companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tax evasion and tax avoidance distort competition, deform business environment and influence efficiency of taxation. The states may affect the size of shadow economy and thus the amount of tax evasion by their activity as well as by the harmonization of tax legislative at international level. The paper investigates a statistical dependence concerning the relationship of the shadow economy and tax evasion. It is estimated that more than three-quarters of total tax revenue loss in the EU accounts for tax evasion linked to the existence of the shadow economy. Increased use of electronic payments and limiting cash transactions could eliminate the size of shadow economy and amount of tax evasion. This fact confirms statistical dependence between the number of electronic transactions per capita and the size of the shadow economy. Intensifying fight against tax evasion and efficient tax collection are therefore the key factors to ensuring a long-term sustainability of public finances in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visegrad group is the group of counties that recently entered European Union. They are going through the massive demographic changes. In this article we were investigating its contribution to the insurance market changes. From the methodological prospect we used covariance and correlation matrices to find out whether there is a relation between each determinants and insurance market, then we used logistic regression model to find out significance and after that we tested the model by the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) Test and the Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) Test for the stationarity. T-test, Fisher test and R2 test were performed as well. Demographic determinants used in this research article were urbanization level, average age of population, index of vitality, share of the woman population, share of working age population. We found significant relations between changes of average age of population and urbanization level with insurance premiums, which is the main determinant of the insurance market changes. This paper has the very important findings for the insurers, because it gives coefficients of importance to each determinant. The most important fact that we found out how the insurance premiums are changing in Visegrad group countries. We can see also some differences between these states which can be productive for the insurers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, Romanian academic education financing is at a crossroad. The effects of the regulatory changes occurred in 2011 with the adoption of the new National Education Law, as approach of harmonization with the European standards in the area, are still strongly felt. Even though significant progress has been made towards permanent modernizing budgetary resource allocation methodology for education, the percentage of GDP distributions to support this priority area is below the minimum of 6% provided by the applicable law. Therefore, Romanian public institutions of academic education are currently facing a strong budgetary pressure caused by the chronic underfunding phenomenon, both as a result of lower allocations from the state budget, as well as a result of the decreasing number of students paying tuition fees. In this context, in the present paper we aim to highlight the evolution of indicators of profitability and risk, through an applied research carried out on the example of the University of Craiova as public institution of academic education. We will also analyze the correlation between these indicators using the statistical program SPSS. The analyzed interval covers the period 2009-2013 and has as center of gravity the year 2011 as a significant moment through the adoption of the new National Education Law. The investigative approach is based on the accounting and financial information disseminated by the university analyzed through the annual summary reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the strong impact of European Union law on domestic tax legislation, the aim of this paper is to assess whether such an impact and to what extent may be identified regarding the domestic procedural tax regulation. Despite general application and acceptance of principle of procedural autonomy of Member States, we are of the opinion that the above mentioned impact in this sphere is somehow underestimated. By use of the methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison and historical method, we would like to identify the actual impact of EU in this sphere and confirm or disprove the hypothesis that procedural autonomy of Member States cannot be interpreted as a full autonomy due to a significant impact of EU bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a research among elite leaders of right-wing extremist organizations operating in Central Europe. This research primarily dealt with a process the activists' identity has been constructed, especially in relation to personal experience and reflection of social changes since the fall of the socialist totalitarian regimes to present day. One of the research questions explores how they perceive their own freedom, freedom of others and how they understand the concept of freedom in general. A method used in the research was a narrative interview with leaders of extremist movements and parties in Central Europe (former German Democratic Republic, The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary). Narrators were telling their life stories and then were asked, how they reflect contemporary society, especially their own freedom, freedom of others, trust in society and what pros and cons they find in the context of contemporary society. The results showed that the narrators perceive their negative life experiences as formative and the question of freedom as important. They described themselves as open in their minds and hearts, but unfree in mundane life, because they had to follow the rules set by contemporary political, law and social system. They also consider current society to be unfree. Analysis of the interviews showed that the leaders of extremist scene consider freedom as a relevant value based on their specific interpretation. Understanding how they comprehend freedom, how they experience it in their lives and how they appraise freedom of others is important for comprehension of the attitudes and the principles of right-wing extremism and also for further analysis of their mobilization potential in the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authors interpret a category of livability as a combination of social, economic and environmental resources and reserves, ensuring prospects of macroeconomic system sustainable development. Paper provides a number of aggregated indicators, which allow estimating the livability of macroeconomic system. On their basis classifications of analyzed set of objects are constructed, which allows to get qualitative conclusions on comparative livability estimations. Results of comparative estimation of livability of 15 countries' economies belonging to three groups according to level of socio-economic development - developed market economies, emerging market countries and underdeveloped countries are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial services industries and public authorities are facing many challenges after the last global crisis, the worst economic and financial crisis since the 1930s, which erupted in 2007-2008. This crisis entailed tremendous changes in the regulation and supervision of financial institutions. On the one hand the main aim of these changes is to restore public confidence and to prevent or at least reduce the public costs of such crises in the future. On the other hand it is always important to understand the impacts of strict regulations to the banking sector and society at large. This article reviews the current challenges in financial services both to public authorities and financial institutions. The purposes of this article are twofold. Firstly, to provide a theoretical discussion of the role of banks in society, the importance of banks in financial systems and an analysis of reasons and objectives of the strong public regulation of credit institutions. Secondly, to review current international thinking about requirements to the regulatory framework to ensure a stable financial sector and outline the main practical impacts on banks and their customers. The article highlights a number of important areas that should be kept in mind to achieve and effective and efficient financial services regulation framework and a reasonable balance between financial stability, financial development, economic growth and public/private costs and benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has documented that women display more risk-averse choices than men do in many decision domains, including portfolio choice. Using a laboratory experiment, we study gender differences in portfolio allocation between a fund of risky assets and a safe asset. We find that men invest more into the fund than women do, consistently with the literature. We further investigate the effect of a loss limitation on net return from the fund investment. Using within-subject design, we find evidence that men increase their risky investment in the presence of the loss limitation, whereas women do not. We conclude that women are more risk tolerant over losses than men are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the main economic trends in the performance of the agricultural sector of ten new Member States in Central and Eastern Europe (CEEC) after joining the EU in 2004 – 2007. The study is carried out applying the methods of economic analysis including trend test methods and a comparative analysis. The authors have used data that are comparable across the EU countries and have been processed according to the unified methodology of the Economic Accounts for Agriculture (EAA). Specifically, the EUROSTAT provides the main source of statistical information for the time period 2003 to 2018. The following indicators have described the development of the agricultural sector: agricultural output, total subsidies, factor income and labour use. To provide further clarification of quantitative empirical findings, the review of literature gives an insight into theoretical aspects of the implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the CEEC, outlines its similarities and detects the major differences. Empirical findings show how the implementation of the CAP has differently influenced the CEEC whose level of agricultural development was disparate prior joining the EU and still remains different afterwards. The study concludes that the membership of the EU gave powerful stimulus to agricultural production in almost each new Member State. Over the last 15 years, both the main indicators of agricultural development and the growth rate in the CEEC have exceeded ratios in the EU-15. On the other side, employment in agriculture in the new Member States has reduced more rapidly than in the old ones, and the speed of reduction differs to a great extent. This study contributes and facilitates the analysis and formulation of agricultural policy both at national level and in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance of this study is due to the need to improve the methods of industrial policy formation.The development of industrial policy is the area of strategic management of the state and economic entities. The application of mechanisms and instruments of industrial policy should be based on the principles of regulation, coordination, promotion of the most priority areas of activity. Due to the limited resources of any kind, as well as the type of tasks to be solved, the problem of selecting priority options comes to the fore. In the case of industrial policy objectives, such options are industries. Thus, the assessment of the attractiveness of industries is an indispensable component of industrial policy. However, works devoted to assessing the attractiveness of industries are clearly not enough. The aim of the study is to develop an approach to assessing the attractiveness of industries. Developing the methodology for assessing the attractiveness of industries, the authors used methods of logical analysis, methods of portfolio analysis in strategic management, methods of paired comparisons. The strategic characteristics of industrial policy have been identified, which is the rationale for using strategic management tools of companies in another area of management - state management of industries. By analogy with portfolio analysis, the authors propose to use the tools of strategic analysis of companies in relation to industries, the totality of which can be viewed as a kind of "portfolio". The analysis of matrices used for strategic management in business is carried out. The limitations of their application have been revealed.The feasibility of using the strategic management tools for industrial policy purposes is justified. The possibilities of modernization of strategic matrices in the formation of industrial policy are determined. The authors matrix approach to the evaluation and selection of industrial sectors is proposed to formulate measures of state support. The novation of author's approach consists, first, in using the methods of portfolio analysis in a new area - management of industries, i.e. the scope and objects of analysis are expanded. Secondly, usually in assessing the attractiveness static indicators of the current state are used. However, solving strategic problems, it is necessary to take into account the prospects of the analyzed objects. Therefore, authors suggest using the second axis of the matrix for dynamic indicators - indicators of the development of industries, reflecting the rate of change in static indicators. Thus, the evaluated objects will be positioned on the plane in the coordinates of current and dynamic indicators. This approach will allow authors in further studies to develop schemes for the formation of management impacts for certain quadrants of the matrix. The proposed methodology for assessing the attractiveness of industries will improve the effectiveness of decisions taken in solving investment, social and other problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main goals of the state economic policy is to increase the level of the human wellbeing. Population is an important part of any economy, demographic policy is an important part of economic policy. Nevertheless, the directions of this policy differ significantly in all the countries depending on the prevailing conditions. In some countries, programs aimed at population growth are the priority, in others the policy is focused on population regulation. Over the past 50 years, the world's population has increased 3-fold. If in 1950 the total number of people was 2.6 billion, at present it is more than 7.5 billion people. In this connection, the issues of the possible Earth overpopulation and developing programs for overcoming this challenge arise. For the first time, Thomas Robert Malthus wrote about overpopulation in his book "Essay on the Principle of Population" (1798). Subsequently, scientists involved in the study of demography disputed his conclusions and wrote about the absence of the threat of overpopulation. Thus, J. Simon believed that it is possible to provide a decent standard of living for the population of any size with the sufficient technology development; S. Kapitsa believed that, after fluctuations, the size of population stabilizes at a figure of 12-14 billion people. In addition to the above mentioned, there is one more circumstance that makes the issue of demographic policy more acute and links the economic and demographic policy into a single whole. In accordance with the pace of technological innovation, the labour requirements is gradually decreasing. After a certain period of time, there will be a situation when a part of the population will be unemployed. In this regard, there is a need either to develop new types of activities that would promote employment of the population or to form a social security system that will provide unemployed population with the necessary goods and services. The main objective of this work is to analyze demographic trends and to study their impact on the state economic policies in Russia, the G7 countries, China and India. To achieve this goal, economic and statistical methods, methods of comparative analysis as well as other methods and approaches applied in the works of foreign and Russian researchers were used. As a result of the research, the demographic trends of development were analyzed and their interrelation with the main macroeconomic indicators in different countries was assessed. The research of the relationship between scientific and technological advance, labour productivity and employment requirements exemplified by Russia contributed to the assessment of the amount of the unemployed able-bodied population and the construction of the situation development forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consequences of resent economic crises and economic resilience of administrativeterritorial units of Russia are considered. We define resilience as the ability of a regional economy to withstand, absorb or overcome internal or external economic shock. We have chosen to use the gross regional product, employment rate and percent of population with incomes lower then living wage as primary indicators of resilience. All territories are divided into four types in accordance with their ability to withstand shock or recover from initial decline. A number of factors that may be associated with observed levels of resilience: sectoral composition and export-orientation of regional economies, urbanization level, and availability of adaptive workforce with higher levels of skills and qualification, is considered. The findings can support policy-makers at different administrative levels in making the economic structures in Russian Federation and its regions more resilient to economic crises and a sudden economic downturn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investments undoubtedly have a significant impact on the national economy. They contribute to economic growth, to reducing the unemployment rate and they also positively affect other macroeconomic indicators. Foreign companies bring with them not only foreign capital that they invest in the host country, but also new technology, modern and more effective production and management methods, classic standards of business conduct, new jobs as well as opportunities for domestic suppliers. Investment incentives for foreign investors are thus among the important public spending programs. The provision of investment incentives means not only an increase on the expenditure side of the public budget or a decrease of the income side of the public budget (due to tax credits), but it usually leads - as our research demonstrated - to a start of the influx of revenue sources for public budgets, already in the short or medium term horizon. The aim of the research was to develop a methodology for measuring the fiscal effectiveness of provided investment incentives in the process of their implementation, to determine what the effects are on the income side of the national budget, and for this purpose construct an indicator of fiscal effectiveness whose functional and explanatory power would need to be tested in practice among the recipients of investment incentives. The fiscal effectiveness of investment incentives was constructed as the share of outputs (in the form of revenues from taxes, social and health insurance, fees, savings on the expenditure side of the budget) on a unit of inputs (income tax credit, financial support for a created job, subsidy to cover the costs of employee retraining, administrative costs of collecting taxes, subsidies on the technical equipment of an area on which production is to be located, subsidy on the price of land). With regard for business plans, fiscal effectiveness was assessed for a period of 5 years from the approval and receipt of the investment incentive in a set of industrial enterprises in the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global energy landscape will evolve significantly in the coming decades, creating new opportunities for international trade and economic growth. Because few countries have energy and all countries need energy, trade in energy (and especially oil) has been crucial to fulfil global energy needs. There is more trade internationally in oil than in anything else. This article has as its purpose the establishment of the theoretical reasons for the connection that exists between the international trade regime and the energy trade. It will mainly focus on presenting the historical relationship that exists between trade and energy consumption, being brought into attention the global challenges that may arise at the intersection of trade, energy, and their influence upon the environment. Trade, energy and the conservation of the environment are each hugely complicated, not being mentioned the fact that being brought together, they are vital for the entire world. Therefore, the energy industry has a lot at stake as trade and environment rules are adopted and interpreted. All the challenges that can appear are discouraging but they are compounded in the absence of a focused, predictable and logical legal framework. The energy industry cannot supply the world's energy needs if the rules to which they are subject are loose, conflicting, insubstantial or constantly changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging phenomenon is recorded not just in highly economically developed countries but it is felt even in the less developed countries. The aging of the population affected the Czech Republic as well. Over the last 20 years there has been quite a dramatic change in the age structure of the population. Population aging brings with it the need for a wide range of changes in the functioning of society in areas that are significantly affected by the age structure of the population. The main areas are the funding of the pension and health care system. The growing number of the older persons increases the required volume of provided health care and cost for this care. The financial requirements for the payment of pensions will grow in the same way. The consequences of these facts will have an impact on the economy of the state. Under the influence of changes there is a real need to reform pension insurance and health care system. Population aging is a process that changes the functioning of society. The question remains which way the countries solve this problem and the impact of these demographic changes. What is the certain fact - this is a historically unprecedented event that affects the functioning of all social systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of the '90s, in the U.S. economy, shortly after the technology stock market bubble bursts, thousands of companies' balance sheets have been subsequently corrected for accounting irregularities, even for fraud. Not many people were aware that the stock market bubble and accounting scandals may have common roots. The unimaginable destruction due to the credit bubble of the period between 2007-2009 have confirmed this opinion, and placed the accounting scandals of the early years of 2000 in a new light as well. The common roots might have been the distortion of financial system's operating conditions and also that of the stakeholders' interests. This study highlights the similar systemic problems that underlie these two phenomena and seeks to investigate their common roots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metonymy of public finances stability, framing the European Union (EU) member states budget deficit and public debt into the limits set by the Maastricht Treaty, is closely supervised by the European Commission in the excessive deficit procedure (EDP notification). To prevent the risk of exceeding the annual targets that could means substantial penalties for Government and even exclusion from EU, at national level is compulsory the medium term fiscal and budgetary strategy. An efficient way of monitoring compliance of programme objectives that is actually laid down by law, it is represented by the implementation of automatic mechanisms for reporting granular information of budgetary indicators. In this perspective, policymakers could react on time taking into account the up-to-date reports and also the specificities of the fiscal framework, the position in the economic cycle and not finally the European regulations in the field, Government Finance Statistics (GFS) manuals, the public sector accounting standards and the national accounts rules, which are in process of update and alignment with the new statistical needs in the context of nowadays economic realities. What are the assumptions for Romania? Which is the contribution of each subsector of public administration into the final results of deficit and debt? National approach of GFS has to converge to the new standards issued by Eurostat. Estimated figures bring differences for final data and this fact shows that it is required the real-time transposition of Government sector components into the statistical format harmonized at European level, which involves financial resources, qualified personnel, time and political decisions. GFS is much more than budget deficit and public debt, it provides data on revenues, expenditures and transactions on assets and liabilities for the central, local and social security subsectors of Government, it means flows, stocks and relationships between institutional units, it shows the net wealth of the public finance and could be named radiography of fiscal policy implementation. Budget deficit and public debt is a resultant of the GFS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, scientists from different countries examines the factors affecting the competitiveness of high-tech industries. Much attention is paid in the literature to scientific and technical progress and the effects that it receive from developed countries. In developing countries, the effects of new technologies arise very late. This is because developing countries do not have sufficient technological capabilities and dynamic capabilities. The development of these countries is due to borrowing of new technologies and knowledge from developed countries. In this article, we try to level the theoretical data to identify the factors that most strongly influence the activities related to the borrowing and production technologies technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]