Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

Slovenia’s economic transformation is usually considered successful. It deviated from theoretical patterns: its general approach to reforms was rather conservative and was inclined to tolerate inflation. The decisive period was between 1991 and 1994 when the government implemented crucial reforms creating favorable conditions for inflation to decrease and, at the same time, turn the economy toward sustained growth. Indeed, GDP growth rates after 1993 were between 3% and 5% while inflation remained on a moderate level. Immediately before entering the EU and ERM II inflation was finally reduced. Keywords: economic transition, macroeconomic stabilization, sustained growth, Slovenia JEL Classification: E65, P20, P21, P24, P27

Marketing in Europe is regarded as a special function and section of the theory of enterprise economics, while in USA it is considered to be economic discipline sui generis. The potential object of research includes social life as a whole with all types of enterprises, and human being in the centre – that means that the theory of enterprise economics and marketing appear to be (just as applied sociology and psychology) in a certain sense a relation against other disciplines. Marketing processes and phenomena are an extraordinary complex, influenced by many factors and determined by human behaviour. Plurality of aims and behaviour patterns often enable to formulate only stochastic statements. The article concludes with an assessment of specific definitions of marketing over the last four decades to explain how the nature of marketing has evolved in the time. Keywords: marketing definition, marketing philosophy, marketing function, ex-change relationships, consumer needs and wants JEL Classification: M31

This paper tries to identify inflationary pressures in Slovak economy by two methods. The first method uses concept of output gap considered as a main determinant of inflation dynamics. The traditional output gap is estimated by structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) technique. An emphasis of the paper is however placed on a new way of looking at inflation dynamics. An explicitly optimizing general equilibrium framework in the presence of nominal rigidities suggests marginal cost as an alternative measure of inflation. The second method, based on this framework, uses real unit labor cost in order to identify inflationary pressures in Slovak economy. Keywords: output gap, inflation dynamics, real unit labor cost JEL Classification: C32, E31, E32

The paper describes the beginnings of the European monetary integration as the effect of world economy´s globalization. Globalization is defined as a dominant tendency in the development of the world economy at the end of the millennium resulting in the formation of regional integration blocks, especially the triad America – Europe – Asia (or NAFTA – EU – ASEAN). Globalization of the monetary system leads to the creation of monetary areas; one of the most formed ones is a Euro zone. The author characterizes the European Monetary Union as a unique phenomenon, outlines its benefits (the decrease of transaction costs, the elimination of exchange rate risk, the increase of price transparency) and costs (the loss of independent monetary policy, the loss of exchange rate as an economic-monetary tool) and evaluates Euro as a specific tool of integration of CEEC´s with Western European countries. Keywords: globalization, integration, regional blocks, currency area, Euro zone, Maastricht criteria, Euro JEL Classification: E42, F02, F15, F33

Submitted article presents micro- and macroeconomic analysis of impacts of new economy on globalization of international environment. Authors focus on selected issues related to competitiveness of national economies and main eco-nomic indicators. They point out to the role of research, technology, innovations and the ability of national economies to benefit from exploiting these developing factors of the Information Society on the commercial basis. As an appropriate example and “showroom” of the new economy, they use the economy of the USA in the 90s. However, as authors don’t forget to mention, there is a plenty of opi-nions and they looked for certain consistency, correlation among them and the messeges for European economy. Keywords: competitiveness, economic growth, globalization, innovation, inter-national business, new economy, productivity, world economy, information tech-nology, internet JEL Classification: B31, D24, E23, E24, L10

Knowledge management becomes one of the most critical success factors in the firm. An understanding of knowledge management processes and its challenges is the first step of gaining competitive advantage. Slovak companies have to transform their activities to the knowledge-based business and follow the challenges of knowledge economy, especially if they want to succeed on the competitive European market. Most knowledge management projects have to make knowledge visible and show the role of knowledge in organization, to develop a knowledge-intensive culture by encouraging behaviours such as knowledge sharing, seeking and offering knowledge and to build the knowledge infrastructure. These pro-cesses will contribute to the effective implementation of knowledge management in Slovak companies. The aim of the paper is to present the theoretical insight of knowledge management conception and its challenges for Slovak enterprises. We also present the results of a survey of knowledge management practice and application, which was performed in construction industry in Slovakia. Keywords: knowledge, knowledge economy, knowledge management, organizational culture, knowledge sharing JEL Classification: M12, Ml3, M14