Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

The employment policies, whether preventive (Active) or curative (Passive), arouse the interest of policy makers in the OECD countries. These policies are mainly concerned with the economy of labor market, but they are not detachable from the reference to the health economy in its social and psychological dimension. Using different estimates (OLS, FE, GMM system), we found evidence that Active Labor Market Policies (ALMPs) have the strongest impact on the subjective well-being of the unemployed. Examination of the different types of ALMP reveals heterogeneity; programs of incentive employment, start-up incentives and training have been most effective in improving the well-being of the unemployed compared to those of direct job creation and supported employment and rehabilitation. Then, we propose some policy recommendations by emphasizing the disposition of the subjective well-being approach in the design, implementation and evaluation of ALMPs.

The COVID-19 pandemic and consequent economic lockdown have triggered unprecedented economic uncertainty. The financial markets responded instantly, pricing in the uncertainty boom. This paper assesses the impact of anti-COVID social distancing measures on stock markets across the globe. Analyzing 60 world economies in a panel vector autoregression framework, we find that the stringency of social distancing interventions has a negative effect on market returns, but its character is strictly transitory and it fades away within 7 days. The magnitude of the pandemic in terms of recorded disease cases and deaths reveal a very similar pattern, causing a significant, but short-lived decline of stock prices. Our estimates reveal a considerable asymmetry in the identified interrelationships. Less developed markets seem to respond to the economic lockdown more intensively than highly developed economies.

The feud between the leaderships of the republics of the Yugoslav federation was portrayed as mostly about development, with some political elites making explicit claims that living standards would catch up with Western Europe after independence and transition. A quarter of a century later, it seems appropriate to see how these former republics have fared in terms of GDP per capita con-vergence with the EU core countries, defined as the EU member states before the enlargement of 2004. Bearing in mind the deep structural and historical discontinuities, the data set was divided into two sub-periods (‘socialist’ and ‘transition to market economy’). The panel unit root and club convergence approaches were used for both sub-periods The results suggest that during the ‘socialist ’period, a larger part of the Yugoslav federation was converging to the EU core than following the breakup of the country and the transition to a market economy.

In current paper, we have researched the influence of environmental policy stringency (EPS) on economic development of the EU-28. The problem of identifying the influence of stringency of environmental policy (EP) on economic development of the EU-28 is that currently there is no well-established understanding of what economic results can be achieved depending on the extent of EPS within a separate country. The paper aims at making contribution to theoretical, empirical and political scopes of perception of EP as an independent factor of economic development of the EU-28. The results of research indicate that EPS is significant factor of economic development of the EU countries.

The basic objective of the research was to map the employment forms made use of in the small and medium enterprises operating in the Nitra region, with an emphasis on so called atypical employment forms which provides new possibilities for small and medium-sized enterprises; they introduce the possibility to reduce social contribution costs. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 513 randomly selected and addressed SMEs and 320 fully completed questionnaire forms served as the basis for a data analysis. The data collection was carried out in the first half of the year 2017. The atypical employment forms are applied not only in enterprises operating in the agricultural sector but also in other economy sectors. Micro enterprises use atypical employment patterns mainly when it comes to their active workforce, which fact is not surprising when considering the general characteristics of the enterprises included in this group.