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  • An analysis of services for general economic purposes and universal services in the European Union
    49-66
    Views:
    116

    A topic in the focus on debates on the European social model has been to define the future role of Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI). The European Commission launched a widespread public discussion on the public utility related objectives of SGEI, their impacts on the quality of life, on the environment and on the competitiveness of European firms, as well as on ways of organising and financing these services. This discussion has received an important input from rulings of the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance in cases on Services of General Economic Interest. Although these court rulings lacked consistency in some cases, they still helped to obtain more accurate definitions of SGEI. Most member countries of the EU have started to elaborate the concept of universal services, but there are still serious loopholes in the field of monitoring, control, quality management and in terms of financing. To sum up, the EU member country level practice of universal services in the energy sector is still in the first phase of realisation.

  • Twenty-one Economic Arguments against an Unconditional Basic Income
    5-29
    Views:
    362

    In 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

  • Market efficiency in relation to the financial crisis of 2008
    31-50
    Views:
    351

    After the financial crisis of 2008 many scholars criticised the validity of the market efficiency hypothesis of the modern financial literature. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the adequacy of market efficiency based on Hungarian, and as a reference, on American securities. Besides classical statistical tools (autocorrelation function, Ljung-Box test, Augmented Dickey-Fuller test), we also used new approaches of the literature (Variance Ratio test). In addition to the simple hypothesis tests we tried to separate the different type of time series and explain the reasons for the different behaviours.

    Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: G140

  • The development of regional policy in the European Union: reforms and conflicts
    88-102
    Views:
    132

    In the European Union the discussion of each budgetary period sees fierce debates about the structural expenses and their distribution. The paper presents a summary of the principles of those involved, and tries to catch them in the policy making of Brussels. In the first half of the paper the necessity of regional policy and its theoretical foundation are examined touching upon the so called convergence and divergence theories. This is followed by the discussion of the conflicting interests and motifs shaping the regional policy. The final question is whether the expenses of the Structural Funds can be justified in view of the processes and results shown.

  • Az euró és az új tagállamok: közgazdasági vagy politikai kihívás?
    69-94
    Views:
    107

    Az európai közös valutára vonatkozó első tervek megjelenése óta komoly vita dúl a vonatkozó szakirodalomban arról, hogy az euró elsősorban makroökonómiai vállalkozásként, vagy inkább az integrációt
    a föderális alapú politikai unió előszobájába juttató kezdeményezésként értelmezendő-e. Ezzel a dilemmával analóg módon, az új tagállamok2 eurózónás csatlakozását övező polémia is részben elkülöníthető
    egyrészt a jellemzően gazdasági előnyöket és hátrányokat mérlegelő, másrészt a politikai-választási szempontokat előtérbe helyező argumentációra. A vázolt problémakörhöz kapcsolódva a tanulmány elsőként áttekinti, hogy milyen tanulságok azonosíthatók a közgazdasági megfontolások alapján az euró átvételére megfogalmazott stratégiákat illetően. Részben e tényezők feltárásának köszönhetően szakmai körökben láthatóan egyetértés övezi az eurózóna keleti kibővítésének főbb kérdéseit. Ezzel szemben komoly tartalmi nézetkülönbségek fedezhetők fel a választási logikát, illetve az európai integráció stratégiai helyzetét megjelenítő érvek hátterében. Az írás második felében sorra veszem és részletesen elemzem az euró bevezetéséhez kötődő politikai szempontokat, amelyek alapos végiggondolása ugyanakkor nem kérdőjelezi meg az eurózónába való lehető leghamarabbi betagozódást sürgető konszenzusos szakmai álláspont helyességét.