Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

This study offers a new perspective on the debate concerning inflation convergence in the Euro Area. A new pair-wise unit root testing procedure advocated by Pesaran (2007) is employed on all possible bivariate consumer price index differentials. Evidence in favour of long-run convergence is confirmed where the fraction of rejections in favour of stationarity exceeds the size of the individual tests. We find evidence of long-run inflation convergence across the EU though the speed of convergence is lower for current non-Euro Area countries. Keywords: inflation convergence, unit roots, cointegration, pair-wise JEL Classification: F31, F33, G15

The article contributes to the existing empirical evidence on the impact of the macroeconomic environment on retail prices dynamics by using panel estimates to explain inflation in Slovenia after the introduction of the euro. We evaluated the impact of diesel fuel prices, food prices on the world market, GDP, the bank loans to the private sector, import prices, the earnings of major merchants and the production prices for retail prices of alimentary products. The earnings of major merchants, import prices and GDP growth contributed significantly to the incline of the retail prices in the first period observed. While, the results of the empirical analysis state that the cause of increased incline of the retail prices of alimentary products after May 2007 can be attributed, mostly to the earnings of major merchants, volume of credit, world food prices, the price of diesel fuel and import prices. The impact of producers' prices was insignificant in both periods observed. Keywords: inflation, demand, prosperity, mark-up pricing JEL Classification: E31, C13, C2

This paper looks at the effects of foreign aid on alleviating regional (cross-country) income disparity. While foreign aid is designed to help countries finance the gaps between savings and investment, the results so far seem to indicate that foreign aid has not played any major role to generate accelerated economic growth and a subsequent relief in regional disparity. Nonetheless, there are cross-country and cross-regional differences when it comes to effective use of foreign aid. In this respect, while the data for emerging economies reveal some positive effects for regional growth, for most of the developing regions, foreign aid contributed little to change not only trends in regional disparity but also the overall economic landscape of the countries under investigation. Keywords: foreign aid, economic growth, regional disparity, panel data JEL Classification: C13, C23

In overcoming the aftermaths of economic crisis and in starting up economic growth past the crisis the business sector will have to undergo a very demanding adaptive process. Due to this, the study focuses on its characterization from two standpoints. In the first part, position of foreign controlled enterprises (FCE) is investigated in comparison with nationally controlled firms – domestic enter-prises (DE). There are discovered all differences in the position of these firms in the economy as well as in their performance parameters, while particular atten-tion is being devoted to manufacturing industry, where the foreign controlled firms occupy the key position. Apparently, majority of the domestic business sector consists of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The second part of the study deals with the SMEs in comparison with big enterprises. Attention is drawn also to methodic problems connected with acquisition of internationally comparable statistical data needed for both analyses. Keywords: non-financial business sector, foreign controlled enterprises, small and medium enterprises, business sector’s performance JEL Classification: F23, L25, M21

The economy performance taken as the aggregate is more than simple sum of performances of its particular parts – regions. The research in regional performance however should not be only marginal matter, especially if regions have (NUTS 3, or LAU 2) legislative duty to carry about the development of their territory. It is therefore necessary to identify common and specific effects and processes influencing operation of given region and in part to keep at disposition the sufficient number of relevant information. In conditions of particular region it is dealt with usage e.g. theoretic approaches to economic growth on one side and empirical data about situation in region and its changes on the second side. Where as synergistic effect which has arisen should not stay non-feasance by participants of regional development on particular levels. Keywords: region, growth, value addend, inputs, efficiency JEL Classification: O47, R11