Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

The article focuses the elaboration of economic develop strategy on determination of structural changes enabling convergence of performance of the Slovak economy to the level achieved in the EU developed countries. It summarizes knowledge of up-to-date elaborated vision of social-economic development of the SR helpful for elaboration of the development strategy. It identifies the main structural changes forming its content in the nearest decade after the accession to the EU. It recommends to the economic policy to elaborate the strategy in participational and continuous way, thus in series of cyclic procedures as a partner of enterprise and other entities, which supports generation of structural changes by their (mainly market) activities. Only this basis the economic policy should formulate its aims and at them directed procedural and institutional instrumentarium.

Indebtedness and debt itself became important phenomenons of the world economy. They limit not only state budget, but also strategies of enterprises and the system of undertaking and they restrict considerably domestic consumption.
Indebtedness has to be dealt with and debt recovery is necessary, although they became very problematic. Indebtedness reached a very high state in Western and Eastern Europe and it threatens their tax reforms to a high degree.
It became one of the main factors of world recession and it may endanger the success of tax reforms and possible economic recovery of the countries.
Consumption is now days realized through credit purchases and together with increasing unemployment and decreasing income, it creates serious problems.
We can declare that indebtedness and debt itself passed over acceptable limits and they became serious problems and threats to global economy.

In spite of present relatively higher level of Slovakia’s external debt, the situation need not be evaluated as dramatic, especially with regard to the basic ratio indicators measuring external debt (which are still positive), to the net external debt (creditor position) and also with regard to the structure of the Slovak short term debt. On the other hand the question of debt sustainability (working up the optimal level of Slovak external debt) remains topical.

The article distinguishes the definition of corruption in the legal documents from the definition in the economics. There are three dramatis personae in the model of corruption: the corruptionist, the corrupt and the one to whose detriment the corrupt provides an advantage for the corruptionist. Both, the corruptionist and the corrupt calculate costs, returns and risks. Categories of the utility must be applied for the expression of the advantage from corruption and the marginal utility of money must be taken into consideration. Theory of the corrupt’s rent. The main ways of the restriction of corruption. How to stimulate informers to lodge information about the corruption cases.

This paper analyses development of the knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) in the Czech and Slovak Republics and Hungary. It examines patterns of KIBS intermediate consumption and looks at the role of KIBS as a factor of production. It compares value added-based and gross output-based production functions for KIBS in aggregate and labour-intensive forms. The paper also relates foreign trade in KIBS to entry by the multinational companies into transition economies and integration of these economies to global markets.

In this paper we describe the actuarial methods used by the four Slovak companies offering supplementary pensions at the present time: Tatry-Sympatia, Stabilita, Pokoj and Credit Suisse Life & Pensions. We concentrate on the actuarial methods used to calculate the value of the different types of pension and lump-sum benefits offered to members. The methods are described with the help of formulae with appropriate comments. The formulae used for the calculation of the member’s share of the investment return obtained by the companies on their assets are also covered. The paper ends by considering the results achieved by the supplemetary pension schemes and hence the desirability of their continuing development.

The aim of this article is to outline the main reasons for reinsurance: reduction of claim payout fluctuations, reduction of new business strain and receiving technical assistance from reinsurer. In the second part of this article are described the main types of reinsurance contract: proportional (coinsurance, risk premium reinsurance) and non-proportional (catastrophe, excess of loss, spread loss). The third part discusses how to determine the retention limit and how to reinsure substandard or medically impaired lives when life insurance company uses extra premium.

Managers play a key role in the restructuring and transformation of economic structures in transitional countries. It is therefore not surprising that they are at the centre of attention for experts and others as well. This paper describes the results of two studies conducted in 1998 and 2003 regarding the values governing the life, work and leadership styles of managers in Slovenia. Special attention was paid to the shifts in values which occurred in the five-year period between the two studies, and to demonstrating the correlation between an individual's values and his/her leadership style.

More than 150 financial institutions are estimated to offer their services in various forms of the Islamic financial system (IFS) in more than 50 countries in the world. The rate of growth of IFS exceeds 15 % p. a. Islam rejects a designated and guaranteed profit and a certain kind of the interest. The IFS follows sharia – an Islamic set of rules. Among the most used financial instruments and techniques in IFS ranks: profit margin or additional costs, leasing, profit sharing, co-partnership, sale contracts, non-interest-loan. Central banks in Islamic world began to appear in 50’s and 60’s in the 20th century. The petrol trade led to boom of commercial banks in 70’s. Islamic capital markets as well as the banking sector are far from making full use of their potential and face barriers.

Affer 20 years socialist economic reform and open the door to the world, the main land of China has changed thoroughly, its economic system, traditional culture and political atmosphere all have a great change. Along with the foreign capital come into China, the world trends of globalization affects China through all of those areas. So there is a close connection between China’s reform and the world trends of globalization, the world’s problems, such as equality, justice and democracy are also those problems that facing China. Economic development is still the main tasks of today’s China, but the whole social harmonious development is also an emergency task of it. There are two areas of harmonious development, one is inside, which deals with the relationship between different layers of people, and the other is outside, which deals with the relationship between developed countries and developing countries. We live on the same world, we have only one world, and the tasks of today’s China are more and more connected with the tasks of the whole world.