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Twenty-one Economic Arguments against an Unconditional Basic Income
5-29Views:383In 2013/14 there has been an intense public debate both in the European Union and in Hungary on the feasibility of Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) support. In the Hungarian context, the publication of a 100-page proposal was an important milestone, in which a group of experts applied the UBI concept to the present circumstances. The study, the brainchild of István Bánfalvi, a distinguished social policy practitioner, proposed the following specific amounts as from January 2015: HUF 25,000 for children (≈ EUR 83), HUF 50,000 for adults and HUF 75,000 for expectant mothers. The present paper’s first objective was to challenge the entire 25-50-75 concept from both theoretical and practical-administrative perspectives. In addition, we tried to show that income poverty in Hungary is much less of a problem than generally presumed. Our final conclusion is that from a poverty alleviation point of view the geographical remobilization of the Hungarian Roma population is by far the most important issue. Roma living in small rural settlements should be assisted to move towards large cities, where the chances of finding work, education and health care are much better.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: H21, I38, J15
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The Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Development Lifecycles, the Short-term Plans and the Strategy of the Actors in the Hungarian SME Sector
29-43Views:208This study was prepared in the third phase of a multi-year research project. The goal of the program was to analyse the growth trajectories and strategies of Hungarian SMEs. Research in the first phase was focused on the specific periods of typical company lifecycles, the second phase dealt with strategic thinking, methods of strategy formulation and the content elements of strategies. The findings and conclusions were published in the journal Competitio. The present study is a report on the findings of the third phase of the research program. It describes the consequences of the recent economic and financial crisis on SMEs. It describes how unexpected and radical changes in the business environment influenced the development of firms, how managers reacted, and how they considered short and long
term factors in their decisions.JEL classification: L21, L26, M1
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Unworthy poverty as social relations
43-60Views:459The 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
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Individual Values for Organizational Success
37-51Views:125Douglas McGregor published Theory Y in 1960. The main element of this theory is integration of individual and organizational objectives. Today, near 50 years later, the integration of individual and organizational goals remians only theory in several business organizations. The author of this study conducted an online survey in 2008 in order to examine company cultures, values was harmonization between organizational-level and individual-level sets of values. Two multinational companies with 324 respondents took part in the research up to this time. This publication shows the findings of the survey and illustrates the importance of harmonization between organizational-level and individual-level values. Finally, it comes up with some ideas what leaders can do in order to harmonize the value hierarchies efficiently in their organizations.
JEL classification: D21, L21, L25
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The Conditions of and Requirements for the Formation of Clusters in Biotechnology
118-131Views:124In this article, with the help of the value chain model, I explain the functioning of biotech clusters. The “cluster” phrase was originally defined by Porter. In my opinion, the problem with Porter’s and other classical definitions of a cluster is that they are static, whereas the main feature of clusters’ is actually their dynamic nature. This is the reason why the following should also be included in the definition:
– clusters emerge in a turbulent way: processes cannot be foreseen due to the lack of linearity.
– a cluster, however, is a kind of an arena, because dense and changing vertical input-output relations and connections between horizontal organizations always generate a sort of a need for change.
– clusters cause changes in the innovation policy, as they support the evolution of a policy which is appropriate for cluster formation. That is, they act as catalysts for the formation of better conditions.
Accordingly, Porter’s original definition needs modification.JEL classification: O32, L25, L65, D80
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Business Intelligence from a Strategic Perspective
49-70Views:469Business Intelligence is one of the fastest growing sectors of corporate informatics today. The study describes the history of the related approaches, models and applications, starting from the beginning of the last century. The most important growth engines are highlighted and the strategic role of business intelligence is explained in detail. Both the supply and the demand side of the BI market are analysed and key developments and trends are explained. Special attention is paid to explaining and modelling the intensive acquisition activity of the recent past, and to the potential consequences of the growing need for integration. New market and technology trends changing the application landscape are analysed at the end.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: M10, M15, M40
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The Concept of Innovative Fiscal Policy: Theory and Empirical Evidence
Views:146This contribution addresses the question of what are the main constituents of an innovative fiscal policy in the context of sustainability. We apply the concept of sustaining and disruptive innovation to fiscal policy. On the one hand, innovative fiscal policy is able to be sustaining whereby public finance will incrementally improve without leaving its decisive structure. On the other hand, innovative fiscal policy should be disruptive as well in the context of long term sustainability, whereby the structure of public finances can be profoundly restructured as a reaction to future challenges. By using the Finnish recovery in the early 1990s, we can refine our argument about the use and necessity of the mixture of fiscal rules and independent institutions in favour of fiscal sustainability. We also shed light on the key sources of the expansionary consolidation that emerged in the aftermath of the fiscal adjustment in the early 1990s. We emphasise that innovative fiscal policy with a mixture of legislated fiscal rules and independent fiscal anchor is more likely to be associated with sustainability if the economy has weaker growth potential which does not provide enough social trust towards the consolidation efforts of the government.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: E61, E62, Q01
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Competitive adavntages: Theory and corporate practice
51-70Views:166The competitive advantage achieved by a company basically influences its profitability and market position. The article shows that in addition to this the evaluation has many other criteria, and the management must consider these when defining competitive adavantage. The study explains that as a result of the acceleration of technological and economic development, the globalization of economic processes, and the evaluation of networks of interdepedence, the management have to face new types of competitive advantage. To choose between these the management has to consider competitive vulnerability. Following this the article attempts to summarize the basic law of the theory of competitive advantage, before introducing the most important management techniques for the selection of competitive advantage. Finally, the study emphasizes that the key factor in achieving a competitive edge and the success of different management techniques is the CEO, and through the model of the "CEO's personality pyramid" it explains the requirements that the manager has to meet.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: O30, O32
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Human Resources Management in the Changes in Hungary In the Light of Two Consecutive Cranet Researches: Két egymást követő Cranet felmérés eredményei alapján
92-110Views:400Management, including Human Resources Management, has undergone major changes in Hungary since the economic and political changes of 1989. This area is even regarded as a field of continuous transformation. This study makes an effort to compare differences and similarities of specific features of Human Resources Management in Hungary in the light of two consecutive surveys, Cranet 2005 and 2008 (Cranet is an established group of top business schools and academic institutions, all collaborating to provide unique and rigorous data on human resource management practices across the world). According to these analyses, the study compares typical characteristics and practices of Human Resources Management in Hungary with major trends and tendencies of this field in 32 countries, including 6 countries from the Central and Eastern European region as well.
JEL classification: J24, M1, M54
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The economic impacts of direct payments on agricultural income – A Literature Review
3-25Views:579The economic impacts of direct payments is a widely studied field in the literature related to the Common Agricultural Policy. This article aims to provide a systematic review of the income-related impacts of direct payments. In doing so, the article screened the academic literature on the impacts of direct payments and identified 150 relevant ones, out of which 41 were written directly on income-related effects.
Relevant articles can be classified into four groups: general, distributional, stabilisation and other impacts. Most of the literature criticised the ongoing system of direct payments and their effectiveness in producing income-related policy goals. We believe that our results can be useful for researchers and policymakers in better understanding the income-related impacts of direct payments.Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: Q18
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Study the past as if you would define the future!? - Testing the effectiveness of technical analysis on the Budapest Stock Exchange
201-214Views:173Technical analysis is an attempt to forecast prices of a financial asset by the study of its past prices. This technique has been an element of financial practice for many decades, but it has not recieved general acceptance in academic literature. In this paper I analyze the effectiveness of certain technical trading rules on the Budapest Stoch Exchange between 1999 and 2005. In the first step I test if there are trading rules that can be qualified as effective when the analysis is applited to the full seven-year period. Some worries arise concerning the long-term analysis, so in the next step I test whether the effectiveness of the trading rules change if the analysis is applied to one-year sub-periods. The results indicate that it is worth implementing the short-term analysis because it shows a different picture of the effectiveness of the trading rules. However, the results of the short-term analysis show that if these trading rules are tested on one-year sub-periods, it becomes doubtful that they are effective.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: G14, G15
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Protecting the Architectural Heritage and Economic Strategy
18-28Views:145This 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
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Strategic market entry barriers in Hungary
91-107Views:217This study is a continuation of a former project of the same research team. The focus of the research is market entry in Hungary for foreign firms, along with strategic entry barriers to both domestic and foreign importers to Hungary. A comparison of our findings from 2003 and 2008 gives some insights into the integration of the Hungarian domestic market into the Single European Market. Practical advice is offered to Hungarian market players on the scope of strategic entry barriers in Hungary as well as the ways entrepreneurs assess them.
JEL classification: F13, F14, F15
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Features of Knowledge Intensive Business Services from Innovation Aspects
147-156Views:158Based on the innovation approach to services this paper defines knowledge intensive business services and gives an overview of their features from innovation perspectives. It finds that different service activities are related to innovation systems to varying extents. Compared to other sectors, services lack stimulative institutional and other formal support systems that may act not only as knowledge centres for companies but could also contribute to both the protection and spread of innovation. In contrast with production, the absence of an efficient protection of intellectual property indicates a significant risk in the service sector, and hinders optimal knowledge transfer and results in waste and duplication in innovation efforts.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) Classification: O31, O32, L84
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Price transmission on the Hungarian pork meat market in the presence of structural breaks
24-36Views:112The study of marketing margins and price transmission on various commodity markets has been a popular research topic of the past decades (see MEYER, VON CRAMON-TAUBADEL, 2004, for a present survey). However with a few exceptions these studies focused on developed economies. This paper examines the above phenomena on the Hungarian pork market. The Johansen (maximum likelihood, 1988) or Engle and Granger (two step, 1987) cointegration tests do not reject the no-cointegration null hypothesis between the Hungarian pork producer and retail price series. Therefore, we applied the Gregory and Hansen (1996) procedure with recursively estimated breakpoints and ADF statistics, and found that the prices are cointegrated with a structural break occurring in April 1996. Exogeneity tests reveal the causality running from producer to retail prices both in the long and short run. Homogeneity tests are rejected, suggesting mark-up pricing strategy. Price transmission modelling suggests that price transmission on the Hungarian pork meat market is symmetric in the long, but asymmetric in the short-run, i.e. processors, wholesalers or retailers might take temporary advantage, should price changes occur.
Journal of Econmic Literature (JEL) classification: Q13, D12, D4
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The Marketing Concept, Market Orientation and Marketing Competencies: How are they Adopted in Small and Medium-sized Firms?
104-117Views:135The aim of this paper is to review the literature dealing with the marketing concept, its implementation, i.e., market orientation, marketing competencies and their effects on performance with special emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). A large number of studies have shown that, on the one hand, the lack of a conceptual marketing approach is one of the most serious problems owner-managers face in business operations and, on the other hand, marketing is recognised as one of the most important business activities essential to the survival and growth of the enterprise. According to the literature,
the adoption of the marketing concept/market orientation in SME-s is limited, due to limited resources in finance, time and marketing competencies.JEL classification: L26, M14, M31
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Knowledge Export in Higher Education: A Hierarchic Approach
35-48Views:153The role of higher education in economic growth is increasing parallel with the development of the knowledge industry. The export income from student mobility estimated by some experts exceeds 40 billion US dollars worldwide. In this paper we discuss two aspects of the phenomenon. First, higher education as an industry is more complex than simply student mobility. This is true despite the fact that this mobility is the most visible and most attractive part of the export activity. There are research outputs of universities and other service activities which are classified as exports and which are offered in market based systems. Second, the individual professors - whether employees of universities or freelance knowledge workers - university departments, faculties, universities, countries, regions, etc. could serve as the subjects of the statistical measurement of activities. All of those activities which are carried out by universities can be measured in different hierarchical systems.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: F14, M31
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Efficiency and resource allocation: the Hungarian managed health care system
Views:118The managed health care system (MHCS) was introduced and applied in Hungary between 1999 and 2009. The gradually expanding system covered only 22% of the population and included exclusively the curative-preventive health care, subsidy on medicaments, subsidy on therapeutic appliances and the spa service. Like anywhere else it was cost-effectiveness that was expected from the MHCS without the adverse effect in the quality of the health service. To decide whether the MHCS was successful in Hungary or not, we compare it with the results of those segments of the health system where the MHCS was not introduced. We use the method of the incremental cost analysis. We are making our comparison exclusively on the basis of health economics aspects, because no difference has evolved in the quality of the medical attendances. We will see that where the MHCS was applied, the medical attendance became cheaper, at those places where the MHCS was not applied the medical attendance became more expensive, causing a chronic financial deficit (137785 million HUF). Although the MHCS managed from less money, it gained 17767 million HUF during the mentioned ten years. We are going to present the general features of the MHCS and support the fact that the outcome of the managed care concept was rationalized and the savings in several segments of health care, by means of empirical evidence.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: I150, I180, G220, G320, H520.
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From mud-hut to microprocessors: The unified growth theory
29-50Views:127The Unified Growth Theory attempts to explain economic growth in the long run within a single framework. Accordingly, it is expected that a successful unified theory is capable of modeling the transition among different economic regimes. In this study, after identifying the main features of the three growth regimes (Mathusian, post-Malthusian and sustained economic growth), we review two typical unified growth theories. While the Hansen-Prescott model seeks to explain how the transition occurred, the Galor-Weil model focuses on the causes and interrelatedness of the observed phenomena.
JEL classification: N10, O41
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University Ranking Lists and Mirror Images - as Prospective Students Make Their Choice
78-91Views:145The paper is based on a survey carried out by the authors, which aimed, on the one hand, at specifying the extent to which would-be students know the rankings of universities and take them into consideration when choosing university faculties, and, on the other hand, at revealing the role played by other factors in their decisions. The majority of would-be students know the rankings of universities but these have not became an important factor in the decision processes. To have good lecturers and professors, to acquire useful knowledge, and to obtain a job with their degree are considered by would-be students as crucial factors. They try to get information from several sources and the Internet has become the most important one, which they use routinely and with skill. On the other hand, it can be proved that they would like to rely on more customized information sources as well.
JEL classification: Z13
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Presentation of economic and socio-cultural impact analyses of the Opera festival of Miskolc
114-130Views:118The article presents research into the economic and socio-cultural impact of the Miskolc Opera festival. It explores how a cultural event – which was created thanks to conscious urban development – can operate in a city with an industrial past and a stagnant economic situation. After the methodology and desk research, the tourist facilities of the city are analyzed. In the following sections of the paper, the results of primary research are presented.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: Z130
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Több hitel, nagyobb kockázat
185-200Views:168The main goal of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of the rapid credit growth in Hungary in recent years. The availability of credit is crucial for households who want to smooth their consumption and for firms, while the amount of credit affects the monetary transmission mechanism and financial stability risks. We analyse the reasons for the credit expansion and demonstrate that the increase in the amount of credit can improve the efficiency of the monetary transmission mechanism, We analyse the micro risks induced by credit growth. Finally we demonstrate Krugman's model (1999) in connection with the Asian crises and then we try to prove that the growth of foregin-currency denominated credit decreases the ability of monetary policy to affect aggregate demand.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: E51.
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The “Timeless and Highly Topical at the Same Time”: In Memory of Professor András Bródy
5-17Views:143Professor András (Andrew) Bródy, one of the most outstanding of post-war Hungarian economists, perhaps the most spirited member of his generation, died at the age of 86, on 3rd of December, 2010. For several decades he had been dealing with the mathematical formulation of Marxian theory. He was an internationally respected model-builder, applying input-output analysis, also working with Professor Leontief in this field. He was both in full command of high-level theoretical knowledge, and proficient in the latest methodological approaches. He also conducted pioneering research into the application of
the laws of thermodynamics to economic problems. His international fame was initially based on his book Prices and Proportions, published in Hungarian (1969) and also in English by North-Holland (1970). Several articles, conference papers, and several other books he wrote or edited broadened this recognition,
the most important landmarks being Ciklus és szabályozás (Cycles and Regulation, 1980) in Hungarian, Slowdown (1982) in both English and Hungarian, and finally, Near Equilibrium in English (2004) and Chinese (2009). Fortunately, he participated in the work of our department, the History of Economic Thought at the Corvinus University of Budapest between 1995 and 2005. This article in his honour is a brief summary of his achievements and a reader’s selection of his writings prepared for the students of our department which reflect his views on the state of economic theories; also attached is a bibliography of his most important publications.JEL classification: A11, B23, B24, B32