Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

This paper examines the indirect effects of foreign direct investment, commonly referred to as spillovers, in Slovakia. It provides a theoretical framework of this phenomenon reviewing existing literature on the topic that presents some experiences of Slovak companies over the last decade regarding spillovers and describes qualitative research of spillovers in the Slovak automotive industry. The results show that spillovers are present only through backward linkage, which is related to the technology transfer from foreign customer to domestic supplier. Keywords: foreign direct investment, spillover effects, Slovak automotive industry JEL Classification: F21, F43

This paper investigates the relationship between labor taxation and labor market performance in the European Union (EU), with special attention to the new EU member states. The impact of the labor tax wedge on employment/unemployment rates and their growth are analyzed. We employ ordinary least square (OLS) regression framework, which confirms very weak positive association between labor taxes and unemployment rate in the EU. Panel regression framework confirms statistically significant negative association between tax wedge on labor costs and employment growth in the EU as a whole, though the correlation coefficient is rather small to make conclusions. The negative impact of labor taxation on employment growth tends to be larger in the eight EU transition countries than in the rest of the EU. Keywords: labor taxation, labor market performance, employment, EU panel data JEL Classification: E24, J32, H24, H31, H32

The paper deals with public transport performance, demand for public transport, and relationship of public transport to individual motoring. Demand for public transport can be defined as secondary and it results from customers demand for goods and services. The paper analyses significant factors that influence value of passenger demand for public transport. Passengers have a sensitive reaction to the price, quantity and quality changes of public transport services. Therefore, this paper presents different types of demand elasticity in relation to influencing factors. The article illustrates possibilities of future estimation of demand for public transport, too. Quality public transport services are important for economy growth and society development. Keywords: elasticity, demand, supply, public transport, passenger, individual motoring JEL Classification: R41, C13

The paper studies relationships and dependencies among several indexes, designed by international organisations, which are used for assessment of economic, social and technological (mostly information society related) development. Examination and analysis of correlations between these indexes can reveal interesting dependencies. Indexes assessing the level of a country’s competitiveness, corruption, e-participation, e-readiness, etc. are studied and interdependencies are also investigated. Correlation coefficients between the individual indexes are calculated and identified dependencies discussed. Keywords: indexes, e-indexes, economics, correlation, information society JEL Classification: A13, B41, C10, E00, O30

This article deals with new trends on the financial markets, namely banking and insurance markets. In each country bancassurance is in a different phase of development due to the existence of different legal regulations and because citizens of each country have different ideas about the financial products and ser-vices. Nevertheless, bancassurance creates on the market completely a new space and it can be expected that its popularity will grow in the future. Namely life insurance is closely connected with banking products, contributing to the global tendency of banks and insurance companies to the development of bancassurance that brings synergic effects and intersectorial stabilizer. Keywords: similarity of banking and life insurance products, connection between banks, insurers and other financial institutes, bancassurance, intersectorial diversification of risk, alternative transfer of risk JEL Classification: D74, D81, D82, G22

The paper discusses the problem of socioeconomic inequality and its regulation in developing countries putting it into the context of international development. Firstly, we put forth some arguments why should one care about inequality dealing with the poverty-growth-inequality triangle, the inequality-on-growth effects, and the globalization-on-inequality impacts. Secondly, regarding the mechanisms of inequality regulation, we state a limited role of progressive taxation in developing countries, where most of the redistribution occurs through social spending and other welfare programmes. A scanty government budget in many poor countries needs to be supplemented with additional development resources. However, the channels of international redistribution are currently underused. Keyword: socio-economic inequality, developing countries, regulation of inequality, economic growth, globalization JEL Classification: D63, E60, H20, I30, O15