Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

This paper considers the importance of the automobile industry in the global economic environment and sheds additional insight on the forecasting of passenger car sales. The study uses data from the automotive sectors in 38 countries, which account for more than 80% of passenger cars in use worldwide for testing the accuracy of a general framework that uses income and other country-specific factors to forecast passenger cars sales for short- and mid-term periods. The results indicate that this framework can be applied to a wide range markets, but its performance is primarily influenced by income levels in these markets. Tested and discussed are not only income as the main predictor of sales, but also the effects of other factors such as vehicle ownership level on passenger car sales projections. Income is shown to play both a determining role and a moderating role that affects other variables’ impact on passenger car sales. Keywords: forecasting model, automotive, passenger car sales, income, accuracy of model, vehicle ownership JEL Classification: C52, C53, E23, O18, O50, R41

The average tax rate imposed on tobacco products in the European Union is insufficient if compared with the social costs of smoking, as has been proven by previous research. Does it also uniformly apply to the V4 countries, which are different from the rest of the EU in certain aspects? The conducted research has shown that the social deficit caused by smoking both in the V4 countries and in the EU on average was always in positive numbers during the years 2008 to 2015. This means that the tax imposed on tobacco products fails to cover the social costs of tobacco consumption. The social deficit per unit of manufactured tobacco in the V4 countries is lower than the average value of this indicator within the EU. The social deficit increased in the V4 countries apart from the Czech Republic during the examined period. Although the absolute social deficit as well as the social deficit per capita developed differently in the respective V4 countries, they also reached positive values. This may be legitimately deemed a failure of the state in the application of a remedial tax. Keywords: social costs, smoking, tax, V4 countries, European Union JEL Classification: H21, H23

EU’s own resources create the base of the European budget revenues. Tradi-tional resources of the European budget are decreasing. The current status of own resources is both inconvenient and confusing. A new concept of environmental taxes can serve as a new EU´s own resource. This concept would lead to more transparent financing of the EU budget and better environmental protection. In combination with an application of the principle of the fiscal neutrality, which consists in a collateral reduction of certain direct taxes, the tax could accelerate economic growth. The concept of the EU´s own resources reform through an introduction of the environmental tax in the amount of 1% of GDP, accompanied by parallel decreasing of the tax burden by the same amount has been proposed. Calculations of macroeconomic effects have been executed with help of the computable general equilibrium model with the focus on Slovakia. Keywords: environmental tax, CGE model, EU’s own resource, change of tax rates JEL Classification: C68, H23

The article analyses the effect of environmental taxes on environmental pro-tection. The research covers all European Union member states, the United States of America, Japan and People’s Republic of China, Norway and Turkey. Method for assessment of the regression tendencies of endogenous indicators has been chosen for the research. Research period: 1994 – 2015. Research results: environmental tax effect is stronger in countries having slower economic and tax growth, but more rapid development of renewable energy production technologies; the role of environmental taxes is more prominent where the level of natural energy resources is maintained at the expense of renewable energy use; ecological taxation encourages development and implementation of technologies that mitigate pollution and creation of new jobs; environmental taxes are directly related to humans’ ecological quality of life. Keywords: environmental taxes, environmental protection, assessment of the effect JEL Classification: H21, H71, C54

The article talks about the newly-conceived HGN model based on ratio indi-cators. The main characteristic of the model is a synthetic indicator based on “refining” chosen financial efficiency indicators by separating out impacts mea¬sured by using chosen efficiency decreasing indicators. We identify and present a way to determine the minimum limits of the synthetic indicator characterizing the performance of a non-financial enterprise. We apply both the classical and tolerance approach to sensitivity analysis in a linear optimization model. We demonstrate the performance measurement possibilities provided by the gradual improvement of the HGN model by designing two versions of the model. Keywords: non-financial profitable enterprise performance, HGN model, efficiency indicators, efficiency decreasing indicators, ratio outliers, linear optimization model, classical and tolerance approach to sensitivity analysis JEL Classification: C53, G33