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The subject-matter of this paper is the economic situation in selected Eurasian countries affected by armed conflict at the turn of the 21st century. The aim of the paper is to assess the strength and impact of such conflict on the economic development of the affected countries from its outbreak until 2022.

The paper examines the convergence of tax systems in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) over the period 1995–2018. Due to the increasing impact of tax competition, we have focused on income taxes, in particular, corporate ones. We have identified the factors that influence the taxation system and trends in income taxation in the CEECs by adapting the hidden Markov model approach. We find that many CEECs have reduced income taxation in the analysis period, mainly by lowering tax rates. Corporate income taxes have also decreased in many CEECs in the same period; however, the reverse has been observed too. Both convergence and divergence have been identified among the CEECs over the period considered. The speed of these processes based on the used variables varied depending on both exogenous and endogenous factors. These factors have been diagnosed as being specific to the periods of tax reforms, i.e., before and after accession to the European Union (EU) and the global financial crisis.

Innovation networks help to create innovation ecosystems by strengthen interactions between government, academia, business, and special institutions. The purpose of the article is to identify the relationship between the local context, i.e., the conditions and environment in which the Local Government Unit operates and their participation in the innovation networks. The analysis is based on a survey of 184 local government authorities in Poland, Local Administrative Unit level 2. The present study examines the hypothesis that the more supportive the local context is in the Polish municipalities and cities on district rights, the greater the engagement of local government authorities in local or regional innovation networks. The supportive local context was defined by a set of institutional, economic, geographical, demographic, cultural, political, managerial, and administrative factors. The research findings indicate that the key factors that influence the engagement of local government in local or regional innovation networks are institutional factors.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the travel habits of Ukrainian tourists changed after the beginning of the 2022 war in Ukraine in comparison to the year 2021. The theoretical part of the paper discusses the impacts of war on tourism; in the empirical part, the secondary and the primary research on the Ukrainians’ travel habits before and during the war is performed. The research gives an insight into the frequency of travelling, planned spending on travel, ethnic dilemmas on travelling, and travel destinations. The research is essential in the context of war and post-war periods for understanding the psychological and behavioral effects, assessing economic consequences, addressing destination marketing and recovery efforts, and facilitating reconciliation and social integration. Research limitations include the scope and generalizability of the findings, self-reporting biases, causality and temporal issues, and limited timeframe and context.

Portugal's high public debt, its weak economic growth and its great attractiveness for foreign tourists are legend. Less well known is its unstable system of public pensions. This article addresses the underlying economic and political reasons, such as poor labour productivity, low real wages, insufficient immigration of trained people and the failure to find alternative ways of financing retirement. NextGenerationEU will effectively soften Portugal's macroeconomic budget constraints, but it carries the risk of further postponement of necessary policy changes and reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, over 96% of EU27 oil needs, nearly 90% of natural gas and over 43% of solid fuels were met by net imports, with the largest share coming from Russia (35% of oil, 40% of natural gas and 20% of solid fuels consumed in EU27). The decline in the share of oil since 2016 was more than off-set by the increase in gas and solid fuels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public procurement amounts to around 14% of European Union GDP and, given this size, could well represent an important tool to foster the green transition. However, green public procurement continues to be underutilised in Europe, as several barriers to its application persist. A new EU regulatory action in this field could unlock the potential of green public procurement and add an important element to the European Green Deal toolbox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question as to why Germany is cautious towards a faster enlargement of the euro area. The usual explanation focuses on concerns that some of the candidate countries are not economically ready to adopt the common currency and their membership could destabilize the monetary union. However, such an approach does not take into account other factors that may influence Germany’s reluctance to speed up the enlargement process. One of them is the conviction that the existing division of integration does not translate into economic costs and a long-term political cleavage in the EU. Another argument explaining Germany’s position is their doubt about the economic policy preferences of the candidates which may prove to be crucial in the upcoming reform of the euro area governance. Some of them can drift towards more interventionism and support for the debtors’ positions which is at odds with German interest.

The position of information and communication technology (ICT) services is growing in the European Union (EU) trade, however to different extend in different EU countries. The article aims to identify trade positions of the EU Member States in intra-EU trade and extra-EU trade in ICT services and to assess changes that have taken place in the years 2013–2018. The importance of the EU Member States in trade in ICT services is assessed, followed by the analysis of their trade positions in terms of selected indices. We discovered that countries of the highest importance for the intra-EU and extra-EU trade in ICT services are not holding the best positions in trade in this area, except for Ireland. Additionally, leaders in ICT services trade do better in extra-EU trade rankings than in the EU Internal Market, since the distance does not matter to business operations consequent to the digitalization of economic activities.

Research background: The article attempts to include the accuracy of statistical data in a synthetic evaluation and classification of EU countries in terms of innovation.

Common agricultural policy (CAP) is a factor of development and cohesion of the European Union (EU) agriculture. The fundamentals of CAP were defined in the 1950s, when the Union was formed. Since then, CAP has been reforming and adapting to new circumstances. Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union defines the goals of CAP: stable (acceptable) prices of agricultural products, growth, productivity and technological progress in agriculture, growth in farmers’ income and supplying the common market. Factor analysis of the prices and production goals of CAP directly or indirectly involves the following variables: prices of agricultural and industrial products, indices of the prices of cereals, meat and milk, indices of the prices of agricultural products in France and Great Britain, agricultural GDP and EU GDP. The analysis results come down to 2 factors. The first – “internal factor” is a set of indicators homogenous in terms of greater impact of CAP on their trends (the prices of agricultural products in France, income from agriculture, the prices of agricultural products in EU and Great Britain and the milk price index). The second - “external factor” is made of general and global indicators (cereals prices, EU GDP and prices in industry). Factor analysis has confirmed high correlation of goals: production growth, productivity and technological progress in agriculture as well as “reasonable” prices in agriculture. The analysis shows high correlation between agricultural and industrial products, indices of the prices of cereals, meat and milk, indices of the prices of agricultural products in France and Great Britain, agriculture GDP and EU GDP (classified into internal and external factors). In general, the results of the factor analysis justify the existence of CAP, while the EU budget support brings wider social benefits.

Subject and purpose of work: Integrated fare to date is essential for the efficient functioning of city transport services and for the involvement of citizens to shift from private to public transport. Implementation of this kind is a necessary component of the future development of the city in the direction of smart mobility.

This study aims to investigate the impact of savings and foreign direct investment on economic growth in Poland. Savings play an important role in achieving sustainable growth. High saving rates are also an important tool to increase resilience to financial shocks. The economic climate that emerged following the financial crisis revealed problems with the economy of Poland to obtain foreign financing. The decrease in foreign direct investment has led to an unpredictable economic environment for developing countries such as Poland. The decrease in foreign direct investment has led to lower growth rates for an emerging market such as the economy of Poland. The relationship economic growth rate, saving and foreign direct investment are examined for Poland over the period 1992-2016 by using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach. According to this approach there is a cointegration relationship between the series and a 1% increase in savings which leads to a 0.81% increase on economic growth rate. Also a 1% increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) leads to a 1.52% increase in the economic growth rate.

Aim/purpose – The main objective of the paper is to explore mobility choices of Generation Y in Poland to check if they can be translated into guidelines for the development of mobility services.

Numerous theoretical and empiric studies investigate the correlation between education and human capital and economic development. Full affirmation of knowledge and the role of education in stimulating economic growth were provided by endogenous theory. The subject of this paper is to analyse the correlation between education and educational system and the economic growth of the Western Balkans countries (WB). The hypothesis of this work says that: education and educational system in the WB affect the growth of GDP per capita. A better education system stimulates and accelerates the economic growth and development. The aim of this research is to prove that an optimal education system stimulates the growth and development in each observed national economy. In this paper, the results of the correlation analysis indicate high compliance of higher education with GDP per capita i.e. higher education population is particularly important for the level of development whereas there is a highly compliant but inverse relation of the population with informal level of education and economic development in the WB countries.

The EU has many supranational accomplishments to its credit. Frictions nonetheless exist within the EU because some members want to rollback parts of the consensus (“less Europe”) and others want to expand them (“more Europe”). The conflict cannot be amicably resolved as EU leaders are trying to do in a one-track supranational regime because both factions disagree about whether confederation or federation is best. A solution in a one-track system requires one side to capitulate to the other. This is why the EU is at an impasse. However, the conflict is easily resolved by switching from a one-track to a multi-track supranational system that allows advocates of “more Europe” and “less Europe” to do as they like in some areas, while acting collectively wherever consensus permits. The EU already accepts the multi-track principle with regard to the euro and non-euro zones, and could restore harmony to the European project by applying the principle more broadly.

This article explores the development of part-time employment in Central and Eastern Europe and compares it to Western Europe. On the macro level it examines the role of the business cycle and its effect on part-time employment in the two groups of countries since 2001. The key result reveals that contrary to the West, the business cycle development exerts a significant negative effect on the part-time employment rate in Eastern Europe. When the economy operates below its potential, part-time employment tends to grow more than full-time employment. This finding is consistent with the labour demand effect and reflects the pursuit of flexibility by firms as well as the adjustment in composition of employment to changing economic conditions. The countercyclical effect is even stronger for involuntary part-time employment. Separate analyses of individual demographic groups of workers reveal a significant negative effect of the business cycle on part-time employment of older workers and male prime-age workers in Eastern Europe. In contrast, the effect is insignificant for young workers and unclear for prime-age women.

The paper is an attempt to show the competitiveness clusters policy as a key element of the new French industrial policy using recent evaluation results of this policy. The aim of the paper is threefold. Firstly, objectives of the competitiveness clusters policy as well as their characteristics, spatial distribution across the country, selected statistical data concerning their functioning are overviewed. Secondly, evaluation results of the French competitiveness clusters policy and a comparison of this instrument to similar ones existing in leading EU countries are provided. Thirdly, some crucial challenges resulting from the evaluation and policy orientations are proposed in order to increase the effectiveness of the competitiveness clusters policy in France. The descriptive analysis has been used in the paper as research method.

The aim of this paper is to look at the extent and type of internationalization among Hungarian information technology (IT) small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the possible relationship between the degree of innovativeness and the internationalization of these companies. Information technologies play an important role in the Hungarian economy: this sector is one of the most R&D intensive industries in which many SMEs are active.