Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

Autonomy of local governments consists also in the financial autonomy. In the SR, the municipal financial autonomy is importantly influenced by dominant position of shared tax in the municipal tax revenue. When considering only own revenues (own tax and nontax), the financial autonomy of municipalities is low. In this paper the financial autonomy of municipalities in the SR is analyzed in the period 2005 – 2019. At the base of the Gini index, inequalities in financial autonomy are analyzed. Higher inequalities are observed in case of the exclusion of shared tax, what confirms that the shared tax serves as a channel of horizontal fiscal equalization. Employing the panel regression, determinants of financial autonomy are analyzed. The negative relationship is observed in case of the population growth, use of returnable financial resources, financial crisis and also the portion of shared tax on municipal tax revenue, when considering the financial autonomy based on own resources.

The paper focuses on the links between cryptocurrencies and corruption. After providing an overview of the literature dealing with the topic, it presents an outline of possible scenarios for how cryptocurrencies can be used in corruption-tainted contracts. The scenarios imply that cryptocurrencies can reduce the costs and risks related to a corruption-tainted contract and make it easier to transfer the corruption-based benefits on an anonymous basis. Their existence also allows corruption-tainted contracts to expand to areas where this did not bring any economic advantages in the past. The paper then explores whether there are any empirical correlations between cryptocurrencies and corruption in different countries. The numbers of Bitcoin automated teller machines (ATM) and cryptocurrency users were used as a proxy for cryptocurrencies and the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) as a proxy for corruption. Although we did not find any clear relationships, we discovered that the largest number of owners or users of cryptocurrencies is in countries with a high prevalence of corruption, but the level of corruption in them did not exceed the critical limit (around the value of 30 points of the CPI index).

The authors decided to verify the axiom of the key positive impact of research, development and innovation on a firm’s prosperity. A sample of companies, the main scope of business of which is CZ-NACE M72 Research and development, were analyzed. Based on a comparison of economic results of this sample with average values of the other 10 branches, two hypotheses were verified. Analysis of the sample of companies in the branch of research and development showed that intensity of research and development need not impact a firm’s performance in a dominant way. This is confirmed by variable results of the reached values of return on equity, return on assets, the spread of economic value added in years 2014 to 2017 and assets turnover ratio, gross profit margin, value-added in revenues and value-added per worker in years 2015 to 2017. The investigation did not confirm the continuously higher level of performance of companies in the research and development branch with statistical significance even in the subsequent elimination of possible property interconnections within subsidiaries and parent companies.

This paper focuses on evaluating the importance of strategic management in the long-term development of SMEs primarily trading electronically. The main output is to propose a business process model of strategic management that could strengthen the existing strategic position of SMEs with a focus on e-commerce. The main purpose is fulfilled through a research study conducted in several phases between the selected sample of enterprises primarily oriented on e-commerce. The empirical research methods are used: methods of personal interviewing, financial analysis, situational analysis, case studies, methods of statistical induction and descriptive statistics, modelling, and simulation. The process model is then simulated and verified in practice on the selected enterprise within a help of Vensim software. The contribution of the paper is based on the procedure for the creation and implementation of the strategic management of SMEs primarily oriented on e-commerce, which could strengthen their existing strategic position and whose validity is verified in practice.

The aim of this paper is to examine the determinants of healthcare expenditure in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries. The study covers the period between the years 2000 and 2018. In our research, we implement error correction based on an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, with focus on the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator. Our estimation results revealed that, in combination, health spending, income, medical progress, population ageing and fiscal capacity together form a statistically significant and stable long-term economic relationship. Our analysis indicates that healthcare spending responds to both short-term and long-term income changes. The obtained results support the prevailing view that health should not be considered a luxury good with an income elasticity close to unity. In the long term, medical progress and population ageing also significantly influence health spending, whilst these variables prove to be insignificant over the short term. Ultimately, government capacity is positively related to health spending dynamics.