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• Development aid as a global public good – a case study

  86-97

  Boglarka Horvathne Angyal

  Views:

  93

  This study introduces a new concept to the analysis of development aid. Aid is regarded as a global public good where donors benefit from the advantages of aid without rivalry and exludability. The public-goodnature of aid is a logical explanation for the deficiencies of the international aid regime, especially the suboptimal supply of aid and the free-riding of donors. The concept of aid as a public good raises the question whether there are any actors who could produce this global public good. The study analyses whether nongovernmental organizations are able to fill this gap in the international aid regime. The model is introduced through a case study: aid in Afghanistan in general, and the activities of the NGO Hungarian Baptist Aid in the country.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classifications: F590, H410

• Mobilizing Social and Organizational Resources in Project Type Cooperation: A Case Study in Networking in Interactive Media Firms

  25-40

  Csaba Mako

  Peter Csizmadia

  Views:

  108

  The paper aims at the identification and interpretation of specific coordination problems faced by project-based work organisations using the example of an interactive portal development for a leading
  Hungarian economic weakly. The study provides a brief overview of the most important theoretical approaches concerning project-based work organisations and the characteristics of the new or interactive
  media sector, which may act as a new model in the fast growing knowledge economy. The interactive portal development is typical of the so-called studio-model of project-based firms (PBF) characterised by
  the novel and singular character of the product or service and by the uncertain and fluid nature of the necessary knowledge and skills. The study calls attention to the project manager’s key role in combining
  formal and tacit skills and in the coordination of actors’ behaviour which is driven by different logics. In addition, the authors stress the importance of the client’s key role in designing and developing the
  interactive media service.

  JEL classifications: L86; M54; Z13

• Examination of Management of TESCO Hungary's sustainability and community activities

  1-25

  Judit Tessényi

  Norbert Katona

  Views:

  52

  In their fifth sustainability management case study, the authors examine the focus, organizational processes, and operation of TESCO's responsibility and community activities in Hungary. On the one hand they executed analyses of publicly available company reports and internal documents, while on the other hand, they conducted semi-structured interviews with internal and external experts who play a key role in the added CSR activities. In addition to the descriptive presentation of the activities, the authors' work points out that there are many crutial organizational conditions for the effective management of organizational processes related to sustainability and communities, furthermore they highligted the possibilities and limitations of involving external parties and service providers, as well. The value of the case study is enhanced by the fact that no comprehensive case study presenting the sustainability activities of the leading domestic food retail companies has been published recently.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: A13, D6, F6, M14, M19, M38

• Regional netwrok cooperation

  115-130

  Marietta Kiss

  Views:

  102

  The current study aims to reveal the regional network cooperations - found primarily in the construction industry -, in particular in the Észak-Alföld Region. The study includes three main parts: after the industry analysis of the construction industry a short summary follows about the theoretical bases of today's business network cooperations, clustering, and such relationships especially among firms operating in the construction industry, and finally it is closed by a case study revealing the relationship network of a dominant construction company of the Észak-Alföld Region. The most important finding is that in Hungary clustering in the construction industry - that has already existed in several developed economies - has not started yet, however, networking - that can be the basis for the development of a construction industry cluster - has already began, and if it continues, it further increased the advantages already experienced.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: L140, L850

• Exit strategies of family businesses in Hungary

  43-63

  Ágnes Mosolygó-Kiss

  László Kucséber

  Áron Szennay

  Views:

  216

  The study aims to examine the ownership transmission strategies in the context of family firm succession in Hungary. The successful transfer of ownership, management and acquired experience at a family firm represents one of its greatest challenges; however, there is still a lack of understanding of the unique future strategies and succession outcomes of Hungarian family businesses. As a significant proportion of the founders of those family businesses established after the regime change (post-1989) are now reaching retirement age, a study of how such business organisations plan to survive the generational transition is highly relevant. This study applies a mixed methodology of quantitative and a qualitative analysis (e.g.,
  in the case of IPOs). The results show that the average age of the examined family firm CEOs is higher than the global average and the majority of them plans to keep ownership and management within the family. Other exit strategies (i.e. initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions) are not typical of the examined sample.

• Greenxit: Greenland’s Case with the European Union

  34-53

  Fruzsina Siger

  Views:

  287

  In connection with the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Brexit) a little-known episode of the European Union history became particularly interesting and timely: Greenland entered the European Community in 1973 together with Denmark, and later it left in 1985. This study provides an overview of the accession and withdrawal of Greenland to and from the European Communities and then it is put into a comparative context. On the one hand Greenxit is examined in the light of the planned withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, on the other hand it is compared with the almost-entry of Iceland. The study concludes that considering the key aspects of the case of Greenland it does not resemble that of the Brexit. However, the differences between the sovereignty and economic, political weight of the two territories explain the attitude of the EC/EU to the withdrawal. The comparison with Iceland highlights the importance of fisheries.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: F53, P52

• Global Value Chains and Upgrading – Experiences of Hungarian Firms in the Machinery Industry

  5-22

  Andrea Éltető

  Anikó Magasházi

  Andrea Szalavetz

  Views:

  234

  Global production networks and global value chains have become widespread today. In these cases firms locate the various stages of their value adding activities across different countries. The activities of global value chains form a new phase of globalization characterized by fragmented production, transfer of technology, and decreasing transport costs (Kaplinsky 2013). Developing countries are involved in these production networks, perceiving this as an important (if not the only) way to develop. The Central European countries have taken an active part in the chains of multinational firms since the nineties. The benefit derived from this participation varies across sectors and firms. In this article we analyze the experiences of Hungarian companies in the machinery industry. The structure of the article is the following. After a description of the basic research question and methodology, a literature review is provided. In the following section we introduce the companies surveyed and review their product-, process- and functional upgrading experiences. Finally, we discuss our findings and suggest some managerial and policy implications.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: F23, M21

• The shift from Office to Customer Oriented Culture: the Case of the Hungarian Post: Liberalizáció és szervezeti változások a postai szektorban

  143-158

  Eva Farkas

  Maria Petrovics

  Views:

  222

  The case study is conducted within the framework of organizational change and organization innovation, and examines the changes in knowledge requirements and the alterations caused by the liberalization generated by the Magyar Posta Zrt. The study focuses on the transformation of official attitudes, the make up of the required knowledge and how organizational changes have facilitated the development of a customer-oriented organizational structure. Based on the interviews conducted, the conclusion is that the process of “providing service ex-officio” has not yet been completed, but the employees are increasingly becoming involved in a client-centred approach. On the management level the preservation of the hierarchy and the status quo have more importance than the expression of the new organizational values.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classifications: D23, M14

• A német transzferrendszer mint a gazdasági visszaesés okozója

  Agnes Orosz

  Views:

  164

  According to the theory of optimal currency areas the most important advantage of monetary integration is its positive effect on economic growth. However, examining Germany we can notice that since German reunification economic growth and the convergence between East and West Germany has slowed down. These facts show that the operation of the German currency union is not optimal and its performance has not improved over the last twenty years. The criteria of the optimal currency area theory is endogenous due to the recent development of the theory. This means that a country is more likely to satisfy the criteria for entry into a curreny union ex post than ex ante. In the case of Germany, examining the trends of economic growth we can conclude the the German currency union has not become optimal in the last two decades. These facts raise the puzzling question of what are the specific circumstances hindering the improvement if Germany's monetary union despite the endogeneity of the optimal currency area criteria. To answer this question the study examines the interactions between monetary and political integration with special attention to the issues of fiscal policy. According to the study the German transfer system and the dependency on transfers explain the discrepancy between theory and empirics.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: E42, E62, E63, F01, F31, F36

• The possibilities and impossibilities of Hungarian public debt

  26-42

  Laszlo Torok

  Views:

  334

  The topic of the present study is the hypothetical, ex ante nature examination of Hungary’s gross consolidated public debt. The study defines the most important concepts and correlations, the judgments on the different degrees of public debt, the development of the Hungarian public debt, its main stages and characteristics. The study then presents a macroeconomic framework, which can predict the future output values of the public debt commensurable to GDP, depending on the parameters of the main explanatory variables. The establishment of input values of the main macroeconomic aggregates, as endogenous variables, is based on the author’s extrapolation and other empirical studies. Applying these, the values of the future public debt rates can be forecasted. The present study intends to show that the explanatory (economic) variables currently have well established values, which, if inserted into the chosen macroeconomic forecasting framework, show that the Hungarian public debt compared to GDP can be reduced to the desired 50 percent level. As the result of ten scenarios a more or less pessimistic, but in the case of one scenario, an optimistic, picture emerged concerning the future state of gross public debt.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classifications: C53, H68

• The role of the voluntary unemployment insurance system in the trade union movement

  43-70

  Nora Ilona Elek

  Views:

  212

  The purpose of this study is to analyse the institutional environment of the state-subsidised, trade union-managed national voluntary unemployment insurance system (the so-called Ghent-system) that influences the selective incentive feature of this system based on the literature. Another goal is to run cluster analysis in order to show whether Ghent-countries – Denmark, Finland and Sweden – differ from other countries based on this environment. The analysis is based on Olson’s (1965) concept of by-product theory. The essence of this theory is that large groups are able to increase, maintain and thus realize their lobbying activities by applying incentives to individuals. In the case of trade unions, the availability of voluntary unemployment insurance is a significant incentive. Its impact on trade union movement is usually analysed as a dummy variable, but this article focuses on institutions that are important to the Ghent-system.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) code: J51

• Protecting the Architectural Heritage and Economic Strategy

  18-28

  Laszlo Csaba

  Views:

  117

  This essay advances five theses explaining the desolate state of the architectural heritage in Hungary. It also addresses the issue of why two decades of transition was not sufficient to remedy the shortcomings of four decades of socialism. In the second part of the study we attempt to draft a strategy that could help overcome these difficulties. It aims at a combination of business, municipal and civil society activities guided by a nationally coordinated plan. Following these guidelines the architectural heritage in Hungary could be transformed into an asset instead of a liability, as has been the case in many other European countries.

  JEL classification: I38, O21, P20, R11 

• Unworthy poverty as social relations

  43-60

  Wolfgang Aschauer

  Eva Malovics

  Views:

  415

  The paper deals with recent discourses on poverty, exemplified by the case of Hungarian Romany community. For this purpose we first deduce from the theoretical framework of the underclass three way of viewing extreme poverty: the political-economic type that traces poverty back to developments of the whole society; the culturalistic type in which poverty is the result of certain behavioural deficiencies (the “culture”) of the poor; and the interdependency type that regards poverty as induced by factors in the society as a whole and perpetuated by poverty specific cultural elements of the poor themselves.
  In the second part of the study we discuss three fields of discourse with respect to the question of which of the mentioned types can be found there. In the field of social sciences it is preeminently the interdependency type which occurs, probably because of its capability to link many, even heterogeneous, observations. In public discourse – analyzed by considering an internet debate and two so-called scandals – the culturalistic type dominates: Romanies are poor, because they have Romany cultural (behavioural) deficiencies. The Romanies themselves mainly use elements of the political-economic type, explaining poverty in terms of general impoverishment, regional neglect, and group discrimination.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: I32, J15, J16, O15