Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

The EU economic policy interconnects some Common Policies with a coordination of separately executed national policies. After the acceptance of Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, coordination – rather „soft” by now – will gain a tougher character. It will be connected with a strengthening of economic and political functions of the Union, necessary for its long-term existence, which will relieve fulfilling of convergence objectives of socio-economic development of Slovakia. Slovakia enters the Union in the period when its economic policy is oriented on restriction of role of state in economy and on strengthening of market coordination functions.

The accession countries are characterized by a relative homogeneity, however the transformation process, which started at the beginning of the 90s, deepened regional disparities among the individual states.
The following passage deals with common features of regional structure such as the double dichotomy of regional differentiation. It includes the dichotomy center-periphery and the differences in regional development between western and eastern parts of the accession countries.
The analysis of the sectors NUTS II provides an overall picture of the economic situation in individual regions of the selected countries in relation to the EU. It also evaluates the position of every country and focuses on basic economic and social disparities in eight Central and East European countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia).

Article analyses Draft Constitutional Treaty that was submitted by Convention established by the decision of the European Council in Laeken summit in 2001. It is devided into two parts: the first one – Draft Constitutional Treaty – analyses main changes proposed by the Convention and the second one concentrates on the draft from the point of view of Slovakia. Authors analyse certain parts of Draft Constitution and position of current and new EU members and deal with „pros“ and „cons“ arguments. They concentrate on main changes in the European Parliament, European Council, Council of Ministers and European Commission. The final part describes the position of the Slovak republic within the Convention and points out at main critical issues.

Economic and Monetary Union is consider as a great turning point which brings new challenges, tasks and problems. The theory of optimum currency area as a theoretical basis of EMU focuses on the definition of criteria which identify the optimal currency area. There are many contradictory opinions relating to formation of EMU, which on the one side refuse or dispute a meaning of creation EMU (Hayek, Feldstein) and on the other side there are views aimed at comparison of costs and benefits of single European currency (Krugman, Dornbusch) up to thoughts who unanimously refuse euro (Rothbard, Friedman). Robert Mundell, Nobel laureate in Economics, belongs to the most important supporters of EMU.

The home trade development in transitive countries as Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia is in spite of different initial positions very analogical. The home market in these countries is covered by the national companies and also by the big strong foreign companies with global marketing. These companies are obtaining strong position they mould the structure of national internal market.
Law and order form principal frame of business. Legislation, acts and regulations form space for business decisions about product, price, contracting, distribution and communication policy. Home trade development is needed be influenced in line of the targets of the economy policy and according the goals of the home trade policy.

This paper frames policy debates around the appropriate choice of currency regimes for developing and transition economies, by clarifying and articulating arguments drawn from the scientific and applied economics literatures. In particular, arguments for, and against, „fixed“ vs. „flexible“ exchange rate regimes are elaborated and evaluated, including the celebrated „insulation“ hypothesis of Friedman and „optimum currency area“ concept of Mundell. Political economy arguments are also considered, including in the context of (actual) European and (putative) North American currency unions. The paper concludes with some policy-relevant reflections on currency options for emerging economies, and alternative visions for the future of the international monetary architecture.

The target of this article is to present and subject to criticism a model which could after further stages of development advise the Slovak monetary and fiscal authorities how to adjust their instruments in the near future so that the nominal Maastricht criteria for the chosen time horizon can be fulfilled. This model which works on the basis of quarterly data is a dynamic stochastic forward-looking non-linear model with endogenous monetary and fiscal reaction function. By suitable adjustment of parameters of these reaction functions it would be possible to achieve both internal and external equilibrium of the Slovak economic system. To achieve nominal Maastricht criteria with respect to the Slovak monetary authority a strategy of explicit inflation targeting is proposed aimed at the overall consumer price index.