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• The possibilities and impossibilities of Hungarian public debt

  26-42

  Laszlo Torok

  Views:

  374

  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 franchise as a governance form in the economy

  59-83

  Anett Flaskar

  Views:

  189

  Today franchise is becoming an increasingly common form of governance. Its popularity can be explained by the fact that a company can quickly expand and develop with the help of this business model. The franchise system affects the whole economy positively because it creates jobs and contributes to GDP. The paper is concerned with analyzing the role of franchise networks in the US economy which is considered to be the home of franchise, and also in European economy. Surveys, published by the International Franchise Association and the European Franchise Federation, provide information about the number of units, employment, payroll, the value of economic output and contributions of franchised networks to GDP. These data indicate that the franchise sector is playing a more and more important role in the economy, outperform other sectors, and considered to be the main engine of employment and economic growth.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: D22, L14

• Market institutions precede market beliefs: a test with cross-country regressions

  3-30

  Pál Czeglédi

  Views:

  301

  The paper examines the literature on culture, economic growth and institutions to derive hypotheses about the relationships between market beliefs, institutions, and productivity. It then tests these hypotheses with cross-country regressions. First, it points out that each of the four cause-and-effect hypotheses of the possible relationships have an economic literature, in that market beliefs are seen as parts of culture. Second, the paper tests these hypotheses by making use of the fact that they consider different variables as exogenous ones. Measures of market beliefs are the coefficients of the country-dummies in the regressions run with individual data from the World Values Survey. The tests support the two hypotheses which hold that it is institutions, not market beliefs, that are exogenous.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: L26, O43, P16

• Growth theory from an Austiran institutional perspective

  157-174

  Pal Czegledi

  Views:

  125

  Perhaps the one fundamental question of growth theory is why some countries are poor while others are rich. The paper identifies two main lines of research approaching this question, by applying the social analysis of Williamson, and points out that both approaches give an asymmetric answer. The paper applies a critique, which was formulated in the theory of the firm, and compares it with a transaction cost approach. According to this critique, the one approach to economic growth lays too much emphasis on technology, while the other neglects the technological side and emphasizes only the transaction costs and incentives. This paper argues that a new approach, based on the insights of modern Austrian economics, is able to integrate these two sides.

• The role of France in the economy of the EU

  207-224

  Mariann Eszter Kovacs

  Views:

  111

  The author examines the decisive role of France within the EU. After a preliminary examination of the principles of European integration and its historical development, the article analyses the netwrok of connections existing between the EU and the French economy, as well as the period of growth and retrenchment in its development. The main theme of the article is the debate over the stability and growth pact and the circumstances and consequences of the failure to comply with the pact's rules caused by the France's long-lasting budget. This failure calls into question, and in the long term may be fatal for the future of European integration and for the direction of a common supra-national economic policy and the national responses it requires. The common European currency, and the stability and future of the Euro are also affected, since this failure can influence the co-operative efforts of the various elements of the European Union in an unprecedented way. It also affects the relationships bewteen the smaller and larger countries, and the economic opportunities of all member states.

• Sustainability of growth in countries with diverse backgrounds in the light of main international indices

  145-168

  Tamas Borko

  Views:

  120

  The paper tries to answer why fossil fuel abundant countries with diverse backgrounds perform differently depending on the dominance of the advantages or disadvantages accruing from natural resource wealth. With the contribution of the most popular competitiveness and institutional indices the determining factors are indentified. The distinctive factors are market efficiency, the quality of the business environment, innovative capability, the quality and efficiency of governmental, market and judicial institutions, the low level of corruption and the existence of political and civil freedom.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: O13, O17, Q32

• Prognosis of the Roma population in Hungary by region till 2061

  39-74

  Laszlo Hablicsek

  Maria Hablicsekne Richter

  Tamas Langi

  Views:

  1040

  In our paper we try to give an overall picture about the countrywide and regional demographic characteristics of the Hungarian Roma population, to make a roll-forward calculation of the next decades until 2061 by region. It indicates the actuality of the study that in the last decades the population of the Hungarian Roma minority and its rate according to the whole Hungarian population permanently and materially increased. In the next decades in both further growth is expected, but the speed of this growth will be slower and slower. The fertility and the mortality of the Roma population will decrease, life expectancy will increase, these result in the increase of the rate of the aged population. Out estimation indicates that until 2061 the age pyramid of the gypsies’ changes, it will be more and more similar to the present one of the whole Hungarian population.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: C82, J11, J13, J19

• Regulatory Coherence and Economic Growth

  33-54

  Pal Czegledi

  Views:

  165

  The paper is aimed at examining differences in market regulation across countries. Its starting point is the puzzle that poor countries apply more regulatory measures than rich ones do, although it has been empirically shown that those countries that regulate less grow faster. To explain this contradiction, the paper introduces the concept of regulatory coherence, and tries to explain the differences in this concept, together with the differences in the general level of regulation. The main argument is that regulatory coherence as well as the general level of regulation is dependent on the external, broad institutional system, because this affects the incentives of the regulators. The paper tries to support this theiretical argument empirically by a cluster analysis.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: B53, M13, L51

• A reklámberuházások versenyre gyakorolt hatásának és gazdasági növekedéssel való összefüggéseinek vizsgálata

  Karmen Kovacs

  Views:

  128

  The amount of advertising investments is increasing dynamically worldwide, but returns are decreasing significantly. This is largely the consequence of growing market competition. In connection with this I analyze the role of advertising and the effect of advertising on demand and competition, then I study the relation between advertising and economic growth in this paper. I have conducted a survey among European countries to scrutinize the relation between advertising expenditures. My other assumption had to be rejected as a positive relation does not exist between GDP per capita and advertising investment rate.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: D21, E01, M21, M37

• Knowledge Export in Higher Education: A Hierarchic Approach

  35-48

  Jozsef Beracs

  Views:

  153

  The 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

• The suspicion of Dutch Disease in Russia

  103-124

  Tamas Borko

  Views:

  192

  The main statement of the paper is the suspicion that Russia carries the symptoms of Dutch disease. The main justifications behind it are the appreciation of real exchange rates, the deterioration of the performance of the manufacturing sector and the improvement of service sector results. However it is difficult to prove the determining factors behind these processes, so the conclusion that Russia has this ailment has to be treated with caution. As the Dutch disease is only one of the determining factors of the resource curse hypothesis, in the case of Russia other relevant aspects may also play a significant role, such as, inter alia, continuous and considerable corruption, the weaknesse of democratic political system, a protectionist economic policy and a low level of competition, especially in the energy sectors. All of the reasons behind the paradox of the plenty type resource curse phenomenon, and among them the Dutch disease, can jeopardise long-run growth sustainability.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: F31, L60, L72, Q32, Q33

• Eastern-European education and economy

  73-82

  Janos Timar

  Views:

  117

  The main reason for the inability of the Eastern-European region to catch up economically is thought by many to be the fact that for a decisive period the state curtailed the incentive power of private property. The harmful effect of this was aggravated by the arms race. Contrary to this, this paper claims that the main reason is the underdevelopmnet of the population's knowledge base. The direct factor in this is the mistaken education policy, which because of the emphasis on quaility in schooling, imparted a low and weak knowledge base to the growing generation. The author claims that without a general and radical reform of education the eastern European region and Hungary as well, will lag behind in international competition.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL): I21, I28, O15

• Examination of the effect of financial transfers within the European Union

  83-102

  Zsuzsanna Tron

  Views:

  270

  It is a common view that financial transfers within the European Union have a significant effect on economic growth. Model simulations, sponsored by the European Commission, seem to confirm this supposition. The econometric analyses evaluating the actual impact of the funds, however, yields a dismal picture on the additional growth and convergence effects of financial transfers. This study's goal is to find the reason why the outcomes differ so much. First, we present the main types and the underlying logic of the evaluation methods of EU regional policy. This is followed by a review of the lessons learnt from the specific evaluation methodologies including case-studies, general equilibrium models, and regression analyses. Our conclusion is that the main objectives of the European regional policy prevailed only to a limited extent, which is mainly due to crowding out effects, rent-seeking, inefficient allocation and moral hazard.

• Nyugdíjreform-dilemmák – jövedelemelosztási arányok és makropénzügyi egyensúly

  5-32

  Laszlo Antal

  Views:

  145

  The paper aims to outline the main relations and critical points of the pension system which make the reform of the whole system inevitable in near future. The most important cause stems from demographic change: in the developed countries average life expectancy is rising rapidly while the number of births is diminishing. This results in rising retirement outgoings and decreasing revenues from superannuation taxes. In addition to this medical expenses are increasing due to the development of treatment methods. In contrast, in Hungary the average life expectancy will only increase after 20-30 years. The main problems of the distributive systems are rooted in the particular characteristics of the political change following the collapse of communism. The level of employment decreased dramatically and there are many tax arbitrage opportunities. In addition nowadays 90% of employers tend to retire on a pension before retirement age. These factors make the main distributive system unsustainable. Additionally the elderly dependence rate will double in the next few decades. Parties debating a socially and financially sustainable main distributive system agree on the inevitability of an increasing role for self-provision and a cut in the growth in expenditure. The pension system will not be able to keep pace with growing wages, to guarantee insurance principals and a minimal income in old-age, and to meet the requirements of long-term financing at the same time, especially not in the period of demographic changes.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL): I38, J11, J26 

• The Success and Motivation of Academic Entrepreneurs in Hungary

  75-87

  Adam Novotny

  Views:

  525

  This paper presents the results of an empirical study of 80 academic entrepreneurs in Hungary. It aims at analysing the relationship between the motivations for starting a firm and entrepreneurial success. The motivations studied are the prospects of higher income, the need for achievement, the need for independence and the benefits related to research. Success is examined from both objective and subjective perspectives. The indicators of objective success are the firm’s revenue, the change in the revenue, the number of employees and firm age. Subjective success refers to the academic entrepreneur’s self-evaluation. According to the findings, the strongest motivation for starting a spin-off firm is financial necessity, i.e. a dissatisfaction with the university salary. Except for financial need, all the motivations included in the study have a significant relationship with subjective success, but a weaker or no relationship with objective success. Research-related benefits, such as moving the research towards development, is a key entrepreneurial motive in the academic sector, as it is positively associated with subjective success, the revenue of the spin-off venture and its growth.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) Classifications: L26, I23, O32

• Business Intelligence from a Strategic Perspective

  49-70

  Gyorgy Bogel

  Attila Papp

  Views:

  469

  Business 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

• Reflections on the Role of Institutions on the Chinese Road to a Market Economy

  49-82

  Laszlo Csaba

  Views:

  114

  At the onset of transformation there has been a close to consensus view that the market system has no alternative. While this insight has found its place in the current mainstream on development economics, the so-called Washington consensus or post-Washington consensus (Kolodko, 2000, pp.119-141 andpp. 348-356; and Williamson, J, 2000, Srinivasan, T.N.,2000), very few would venture to repeat in an academic writing the once famous dictum of Vaclav Klaus: the third road leads to the third world. Much of western Europe has remained within the framework of the welfare state, despite its obvious limitations. Also in
  the transforming economies, the rollback of the state has proven to be much less than the tough normative language adopted by early reformers would have indicated. Actually, it is the structure rather than the size of public spending in these countries that may be a source of social and economic strains by providing less than optimal conditions for sustaining economic growth.

• 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

  29-43

  Anna Salamonne Huszty

  Views:

  208

  This 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

• Strategic directions of international degree mobility – examining the motivation of foreign students studying in Hungary and the factors influencing foreign studies

  3-38

  Elvira Bocskei

  Zoltan Bacs

  Barnabas Kovacs

  Tibor Tarnoczi

  Veronika Fenyves

  Views:

  383

  In the scope of our research, we examined the motivation of foreign students studying in Hungary. The objective of the applied questionnaire survey was to explore the possibilities both on the supply and demand side based on which young people who wish to study outside their home country identify Hungary as a potential destination country. In the first phase of the research, the statistical study of inward student mobility was performed. The image of Hungarian higher education is interesting also because, although the countries sending the most students are still in the neighboring countries (Slovakia, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine), there is a dynamic growth in terms of the number of students from Norway and Asian (China, Iran) and African (Nigeria) (Statistical database of the Office of Education). In the second phase of the research, the questionnaire survey was conducted seeking the answer to the following: what factors played a role in the decision of foreign students to study abroad (when did they decide to study abroad, where did they obtain information, what were the factors that influenced their choice of country and institution, etc.). How satisfied are they with the chosen training, with the organization education and what are their plans following the completion of the training? What prior information was available about training and subsistence expenses, what were the sources of funding, how did the costs of subsistence develop and what were the returns on these expenses, what was the proportion of leisure time and studying, and what were the options of spending leisure time? - How satisfied are they with institutional services (technical equipment, classroom facilities, library service, and institutional programs)? In the present article, we cover the factors influencing foreign studies considering the limitations of the scope.

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: I2, J1

• The Actual Experiences of SME Lending

  70-96

  Zsolt Zsombori

  Views:

  300

  This paper is intended to show the quantitative research results of an actual survey conducted within 82 active SMEs in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County. The sample of participants was selected by a two-step combined sampling method resulting in a nonrepresentative, but still useable data collection. The survey especially focused on identifying and ranking SME pressing factors, identifying and ranking credit prohibiting factors from the viewpoint of SMEs, identifying the actual financial preferences of SMEs with special attention to subsidized credits and non-refundable subsidies. It gives actuality to most of the aforementioned questions that currently even the Central Bank of Hungary pays attention to boost the crediting activity by its Funding for Growth Schemes (FGS).

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: G30, G32, G39

• A technológia szerepe a gazdasági növekedésben, ágazati megközelítésben

  61-74

  Domician Mate

  Views:

  134

  Ebben a rövid munkatanulmányban elsősorban a gazdasági növekedésben bekövetkezett változásokra koncentrálok. A kutatások1 során egyrészt arra a kérdésre keresem a választ, hogy ezek a változások – a vizsgált, 1976 és 2007 közötti időszakban – az úgynevezett teljes tényező-termelékenység (TFP) és a fizikai, valamint humán tőkeállomány változása miként járultak hozzá a kibocsátás növekedési üteméhez. A számításokat – a növekedés számvitel (growth accounting) alapján – néhány OECD tagországra vonatkozóan, illetve a technológia intenzitása szerint megkülönböztetett gépgyártási szektorokban végzem el. E mellett a panel regressziós módszertan segítségével azt vizsgálom, hogy a beruházási ráta és a foglalkoztatás alakulása hogyan befolyásolja ezekben az ágazatokban az egy munkavállalóra jutó kibocsátást (termelékenységet).

  Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kódok: E25, J24, L16.

• The importance of foreign direct investment in Hungarian economy on the Millenary

  10-25

  Tibor Karpati

  Views:

  126

  In the last two decades foreign direct investments has increased tremendously all over the world. Therefore the study of their economic influences and consequences is in the centre of international and Hungarian research. The paper without aiming at completeness gives a short summary of their influences on the recipient country, which is followed by the analysis of the Hungarian statistical data. These investments are of primary importance in Hungary. They played an important role in putting the country on an export-governed growth path at a time when inner accumulation did not make this possible. Their import demand exceeding export can be considered as an infavourable influence, with which FDI contributed to foreign trade deficit to a great extent. The annual capital influx helos compensate for the deficit of the balance of payment, however a major part of this deficit results from the withdrawal of the earnings realised with the help of FDI, which has been at a growing rate since 1998. The figures of the Hungarian companies (between 1998 and 2001) show that the duality of the Hungarian economy is not spreading.

• The Concept of Innovative Fiscal Policy: Theory and Empirical Evidence

  Oliver Kovacs

  Views:

  146

  This 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

• The Marketing Concept, Market Orientation and Marketing Competencies: How are they Adopted in Small and Medium-sized Firms?

  104-117

  Eniko Kontor

  Views:

  135

  The 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

• Hol tart a növekedéselmélet, és merre halad? Elhanan Helpman: The Mistery of Economic Growth. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, 2004, 223 oldal

  153-156

  Pal Czegledi

  Views:

  149