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Interdependence between government redistribution and economic growth in the long run
132-146Views:174The present paper aims to study changes in the degree of government redistribution with an institutional, historical, statistical and model-like approach. I investigate the impact of changes in redistribution on long-term economic growth in 30 European countries. It is generally stated that government spending/GDP ratio has been continuously increasing (in terms of trend) in Europe since the 1870s. I examine how the size of the states affects economic growth, and what other factors influence the long-run relationship between these two variables. My hypothesis is that in developed countries with high government
redistribution it has been an impediment to economic growth in the long run. Finally, I illustrate this hypothesis with a statistical analysis of 30 European countries.Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) Classification: E66, H62, C10
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The equilibrium problems of the Hungarian economy and the theoretic possibility of a solution
85-102Views:138Followinf article analyses the question, how the twin deficit - the joint deficit of the budget and the current account - changed in Hungary between 2000 and 2006. The first part deals with the basic identities of the national accounts. The second, analytical part, looks through the latest data about the import surplus, the balance of owners' income and the inland consumption surplus, then it deals with the current account deficit and the ways of financing it, the current expenses, the net accumulation and the borrowing of the government budget. The third part performs the economic analysis and draws the main conclusions. According to this, the drastic decrease in proportion of the gross accumulation, the virtually zero net accumulation of the government sector, the deficit of the current account and the debt generating way to finance it are way more serious problems than the cudget deficit, which does not mean, that such deficit is sustainable. Even this situation does not justify the radical demolition of the welfare state, the theoretic solution can only be the increase of export capacity and the employment.
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Nexus between Corporate Social Responsibility Practices and Sustainable Livelihood in Nigerian Oil and Gas Production Region
71-87Views:300Oil and Gas remains the backbone of the Nigerian economy as it constitutes a major revenue source for the government. However, host communities have not felt the effect of carrying the financial burden of the nation. The heavy reliance on the oil sector has crippled instead of enhanced the environmental and social conditions of the host communities. This study examines the nexus between CSR practices and sustainable livelihood in the Nigerian oil and gas production region using secondary data. The study concludes that oil firms have underperformed within the scope of the usage of CSR to mitigate environmental and social concerns. Attention should be drawn to the peaceful coexistence of the oil firms and the community members in the affected region. CSR initiatives, together with government interventions, will greatly improve the livelihoods of the people. It is recommended that oil firms recognize their obligations to all stakeholders, the environment and the expectations of the host communities and establish a relationship that will foster a working partnership for community development and peaceful coexistence.
JEL Code: M14, Q35, Q56
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Economic Freedom and the Process of Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis Based on a New Measure
5-30Views:356This paper, relying on a conceptualization of economic freedom in terms of kinds of government actions, develops a new measure of economic freedom. However, this is not art for art’s sake; instead, it allows us to provide an explanation for how particular institutions of economic freedom enhance economic development, a view upon which scholars agree. We develop two concepts related to economic freedom, namely the freedom-compatible and freedom-non-compatible institutions and use them as tools in an analysis of the process of economic growth, especially the relationship between economic freedom and long-run income. The major argument is that freedom-compatible institutions are primary determinants of income, while freedom-non-compatible institutions depend upon them and are partly the outcomes of the growth process itself, a fact which is explained by the Misesian theory of interventionism. Our regression analyses support our theoretical insights.
JEL Classification: B53, H10, O10
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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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Corporate and state roles in Hungarian industrial development after the nineties
7-22Views:122In the nineties the development of Hungarian industry was first disappointing, but later it was definitely rapid and successful. Several publication have described the process of this industrial transition in general as well as in the light of the foreign market performance of Hungarian industry. However, the majority of the analyses were based on stistical surveys and the participants of the processes were somewhat neglected. For this reason the present study examines the influence of major corporate participants and that of the government on the development of the industry, as well as their behaviour, and conclusions are drawn as regards the strategic potentials of Hungarian industry after 2003 and 2004. First the study offers an overview of the most important corporate participants of the Hungarian industry, then it seperately discusses the peculiarities of the market presence of foreign industrial firms, in particular to what extent the European Union's ambitions, taking shape from the year 2000, aiming at improving competitiveness can be reflected in Hungarian economic policy. Thus the question is whether we can expect the revival, to some extent, of Hungarian industrial policy which has appeared to be lifeless since 1996, and whether we can expect state participation in the promotion of the development of Hungarian industry which should be of European standards and yet more active than round the turn of the century.
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A gazdasági növekedés gyorsításának esélyei Magyarországon 2030-ig
5-26Views:136The regime change in 1989/1990 has not produced the expected result: Hungary has not been able to catch-up with the Western market economies. Can Hungary grow 2-3 times faster then its competitors during the next 20 years, as the present Hungarian government declared in its economic plans? Can Hungary improve its relative position and catch-up with the per capita GDP level of the EU-27 average by 2030? The conclusion of the paper is that this is very unlikely to happen. But there is ample room for accelerating productivity growth, and in this regard, every percentage difference counts enormously in the long-term. Three factors of production are analyzed: the natural-physical-geographical endowments of Hungary (N), Labour (L) and the capital stock (C). The following new findings are discussed. First, contrary to the widely held view, the amount of labour currently used by the Hungarian economy is not low in international comparison. The education of the workforce is also adequate. The problem is its allocation: too many workers are employed in low productivity, small firms. The only way forward is to promote the concentration of enterprises, to support the increase in the number of medium-sized and large firms. Second, the rate of domestic savings needs to be increased considerably, to allow for a low-cost financing of investments. In turn, this requires a substantial reform in three areas: healthcare, pensions and higher education. As long as the welfare state exists in its present form and these three spending items are largely financed by the state, one cannot reasonably expect households to save and accumulate families" long-term reserves in financial assets. But before these changes happen the political alite must accept that the obstacles to productivity growth have to be removed from the legal and political stuctures.
JEL classification: E66, O47, O50, O52
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Communitarisation in the cultural spheres of the member states of the European Union
127-144Views:104The intstitutions of the European Union encourage the liberalisation of the cultural sector wirh the reduction of the coercive power of the member states. The article assumes that communitarisation in the cultural sphere exists although there is no EU Treaty (acquis) on cultural policy and the member states use different cultural financing models. The author first analyses the government and household expenditure for culture of the OECD countries, then compares the productivity and profitability indicators of the post socialist countries with the same indicators' EU 25 average.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: Z10, Z11
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Living memories of the past? The new wave of redistribution at the turn of the millenium
83-104Views:110Redistribution within the economy and the state owned companies subsidized by the government have become a major field of economics policy. The view of the daily press is misleading: it is not a brand new phenomenon. Redistribution was present during the whole transformation of the economy. The article analyses the distinctive features of a new wave started at the turn of the millennium and the central position of private enterprises showing the various methods, the ideologies providing their background and the driving forces. According to the article the factor and basic motivation of redistribution are independent of the political orientation of the ruling governments, it is only their approaches that vary. The support of domestic private enterprises is a failure concerning the direct political aims. Anf from sociological aspects it supports the old attitudes of the planned economy. We could not show clearly favourable economic effects but their chance depends on the method of redistribution. The conclusion of the article: the best support is the decrease of subsidies and the changing of the general economic possibilities into favourable ones for the players in the economy.
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Regional governance in the new CEE member states of the EU
33-48Views:98This paper discusses how the CEE-10 countries complied with the EU conditionality in the field of regional policy, examining whether the territorial reforms implemented were carried out leading to the enrooting of sub-national regional governance structures. Following the discussion of the EU requirements in the field of regional policy, I turn to a case by case analysis of how the meso-level government tiers were set up in the CEE-10 countries. The analysis leads to the finding that the limited interest in the CEE-10 countries to develop extensive regional governance structures by creating new autonomous sub-national governance structures coupled with the frequent contradictory and often unofficial requirements by the European Commission during negotiations, has led to a weak institutionalization of meso-level governments when compared to the institutional and policy structures within the EU-15.
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The Comparative Analysis of the Cultural Financing Models of France and Hungary
50-67Views:180Both France and Hungary use the so called coordinated cultural financing model, in which the active role of the state is decisive. However, instead of producing a similar model, the level of the cultural sector value added to GDP in the two countries is different. The article’s aim is to answer this puzzle. The focus is on the role of institutions and state subsidy. The analysis tries to understand whether direct state subsidy plays a decisive role in the economic performance of the cultural sector. The analysis also shows whether the harmony of formal and informal institutions have a positive effect on the economic growth of the cultural sector. The assumption is that the size of direct government subsidy cannot increase economic growth. If the formal and informal institutions are in harmony, and if there is a long-run cultural policy strategy in a country, the cultural sector value added to GDP is higher.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classifications: Z10, Z11
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Corporate tax - a new paradigm is needed! -II. A new global value-added tax is needed instead of a corporate tax
31-47Views:160Abstract: The corporate tax system is easy to manipulate in modern economies, with high explicit and implicit costs of maintaining it. Attempts to reform it have been unsuccessful, with aggressive tax planning and tax evasion gaining ground at the international level. The source of constant conflicts between national tax administrations and companies is also the corporate tax base and tax accounting. Therefore, based on a new paradigm, I have developed a new, globally introduce, corporate value-added tax on corporate adjusted sales. Revenues from this tax would replace general government revenues lost due to the abolition of corporate tax. Based on the GDP of the member states of the European Union, I calculated the rate of the new tax for all member states. In the study, I present in detail, the mechanism of operation of the new tax, then describe the advantages of the introduction of the new tax compared to the corporate tax. Finally, I will thoroughly present how the taxation of dividends from company owners/shareholders would change if the new tax I planned was introduced and operated. This new type of taxation of dividends would, in my view, contribute more fairly to the burden-sharing.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: C 53, E 62, H 24, K 34
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Corporate tax - a new paradigm is needed - I.: Income tax versus value-added tax
26-47Views:468Since the existence of the corporate tax institution, it has been a difficult task to determine the exact corporate tax base. As long as states are as large as possible, taxpayers, on the other hand, are interested in the smallest possible tax base. National and supranational rules for determining the tax base are changing with unrealistic frequency. It is almost impossible to enforce them, so conflicts between countries and between companies and tax administrations over corporate tax payable seem to be perpetuating. With the rise of trans- and multinational corporations, aggressive corporate tax planning and covert tax avoidance have also emerged. National governments are trying to prevent this with bilateral and multilateral treaties. Still, the verdicts of the recently revealed multi-billion euro/dollar corporate tax cases prove that they do not have a deterrent effect, meaning that the measures taken so far are far from sufficient to prevent them. In my research hypothesis, I argue that the corporate tax system's current form is unsustainable at both national and global levels due to its intricate design and manipulability and its high macro- and micro-level implicit costs. I will then propose a new value-added tax and tax rate to compensate for the loss of government revenue due to the abolition of corporate tax in an equivalent and essentially clear way. After that, I tested the proposed new type of tax based on the European Union countries' value-added data. Finally, I present the new global tax's territorial principle to replace corporate tax and its contribution to national public burden-bearing.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: C53, E62, H24, K34
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A comparison of efforts to set up cluster initiatives in two Hungarian regions – submitted cluster proposals in North Hungary and the Northern Great Plain
133-140Views:112The Hungarian government has taken the initiative to finance the formation of new entrepreneurial co-operations using the cluster theory. It is not certain whether or not the Hungarian economy is ready for an initiative such as this. In North Hungary and the Northern Great Plain (two Hungarian NUTS 2 regions) project teams set up fresh clusters to obtain the subsidy – as in other regions. Their level of cooperation, the number of submitted projects and the ratio of successful projects tell us if theory and the western practice fit with the local needs - if Hungarian companies want to work and can be successful in clusters or not. In this article I examine the willingness of regional business actors to cooperate and start new business networks in the framework of the 2008 regional cluster calls. The two regions have similar but not identical results.
JEL classification: R58, L2
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Hungary's dependence on external financing
145-156Views:88This paper demonstrates that Hungary has been dependent on external financing for several decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, debt was prevelant in the external capital structure of the Hungarian economy, but since the transformation to a market economy internation equity finance has reahced a level of capital accumulation and plays a very complex role in export potential, debt srvicing capacity and the modernization of the country. This paper argues that in general the forced increase in domestic demand is not able to substitute for the inherent need to realize export surplus in a small open economy in the long run. In the subsystem of the real economy there is a self-financing circuit driven by foreign direct investments which can meet the economy's current liabilities and profit remittance requirements, while this circuit cannot compensate for the consequences of the soft budgeting constraints of the general government.
JEL classification: H6, F4
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Freedom of the Markets versus Good Governance: Experiences in Central Europe
35-61Views:141The market and the state, operation and characteristics of two institutions of key importance in the modern mixed economies, are investigated for the former socialist countries in this study. After two decades it can be seen more clearly what system has been established in the region, how it operates, and what its characteristics are. In the first part of the with the help of international comparisons we examine how free the market is, how good the rules are, and how much they help, or hinder, the fulfilment of its function. From an other aspect we compare the scope of the good governance and the size, the freedom and efficiency of the state. According to the evidence of the international studies examined, the former socialist countries established the forms of the market institutional system relatively quickly, but the operation and quality of these lagged significantly behind those of the developed countries. Also important conclusion of the study is that by the first decade of the millennium the characteristics of the former socialist countries are increasingly diverging from one another. Both the characteristics of the earlier socialism, and the more distant historical past which can be caught in the act within it, had and have an effect on the economic and social systems now established in Eastern and Central Europe.
Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: H1, P17, P27, P35
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Challenges ahead for the European Union
7-12Views:124It is a mild understatement that nowadays the EU is navigating in rough waters. Close to half of the member countries of the Euro area are in breach of their fiscal stability commitment – and some of them very substantially. Quite a few heads of government publicly criticise the ECB’s monetary policy. Germany and France are determined to water down the Bolkenstein directive on the implementation of a genuine single market for services (which amount to about two-thirds of the EU’s GDP), to which, incidentally, no major objections had been raised by the governments of the member states during the drafting stage. There is no agreement on the longer term EU budget. Only Ireland, the UK and Sweden accept the free movement of the residents of the ten countries which became members of the EU in May last year.