CEEOL - Search Result

Country Case Study: Slovak Republic

Author(s): Lukáš Lehotský / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: Slovakia; Natural gas from Russia; main transit route; pipeline system;

Slovak Republic has played a key role in transit of natural gas from Russia to Western Europe, the domestic demand of country is not very significant. It has oscillated between 4.5 to 7 billions of cubic meters (bcm) annually for the last 30 years. The final consumption of gas in Slovakia was expected to be slightly above 5 bcm in 2014. According to IEA data from 2012, share of gas in total final consumption of gas was slightly above 30%.

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Advancing Comparative Research on the Extent and Impacts of Intermunicipal Cooperation

Author(s): Troy Mix,Eduard Bakoš,Filip Hrůza / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: municipal cooperation; comparative research; impacts; Czech; United States Air Force;

Why do municipalities cooperate and what are the main impacts of such cooperation? Though intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) is not a new public administration topic, answers to these basic questions remain unsettled. In an effort to address these questions, this paper scopes a cross-national comparative research agenda on IMC by 1) identifying data sources and methods that can reveal the extent and impacts of IMC in the Czech Republic and the US and 2) characterizing the implementation of IMC in these settings.

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Social Innovations in Slovakia: Success versus Failure

Author(s): Beata MERIČKOVÁ MIKUŠOVÁ,Juraj Nemec,Mária Murray Svidroňová / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: co-creation; social innovation; failure,; public spaces;

The objective of this paper is to present the factors that were the key differences between successful and failed social innovations in a co-creation initiative in Slovakia. Out of 33 implemented projects in this initiative we analyzed 21 final reports for the co-creation projects and selected 5 cases for an in-depth analysis. With 5 representatives of the co-creation projects we conducted structured interview, based on methodology of LIPSE project [Learning from Innovation in Public Sector Environments, project that focuses on identifying drivers and barriers of social innovation and its outcome).

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Evaluation of Ministerial Employee Satisfaction within the Context of the Civil Service Act

Author(s): Milan Půček,František Ochrana,Michal Plaček / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: ministrial employee; satisfaction; Civil Service Act;

The paper presents the results of empirical research [April-June 2013) regarding the employees of ministries in the Czech Republic [N = 1351 respondents) who deal with analytical, conceptual, strategic, planning, project, programming, strategic and managerial activities. From the current perspective, it regards workers who fall under the regime of the Civil Service Act, which came into effect on 1.1.2015. The main objective of the survey was to explore some aspects of employee satisfaction linked to performance in their position. Based on the survey results, we define the previous state which existed prior to the introduction of new legislation and discuss the possible impacts of the new legislation on employee satisfaction and on the level of the civil service as a whole.

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Impact of Decentralization on the Efficiency of Public Procurement. The Case of the Czech Republic

Author(s): Milan Půček,František Ochrana,Martin Schmidt,Michal Plaček / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: public procurement; decentralization; centralization; efficiency; accountability;

The article examines the impact of decentralization factors on the efficiency of public procurement. We analyzed the influence of these factors using an econometric model applied to data on public procurement purchases of gas for the years 2013-2014. In the context of the available data, this tender procedure is with a relatively homogeneous subject of performance, which significantly eliminates the possible distortion of the results due to various quality parameters of the required performance and different methods for determining the estimated value of public contracts.

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Offer, Receive and Share: How to Measure Proposers in fMRI Ultimatum and Dictator Game

Author(s): Lenka Kopečková,Jan ŘEZÁČ / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: fMRI; proposer; empathy; ultimatum; dictator;

Ultimatum game is in fMRI tested overwhelmingly from the responder's point of view. We assessed experimental designs which would allow for simultaneous testing of a proposer and a receiver under hyperscanning protocol. Our final laboratory designs use a specific set of choice sets and enables an iterated ultimatum game combined with control condition and dictator game. We run two pilots with different settings.

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Politicization of Civil Service in Slovakia: Case Study of Selected Ministries in 2004-2014

Author(s): Naďa Adamicová,Katarina Staronova / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: top civil service; politicization; turnover; Slovakia; Central Europe;

Politicization of top civil service in Central and Eastern Europe has been discussed among both academics and practitioners for some time now. It has been concluded that the politicization of civil servants has resurged since the accession into the EU, which has lead to a great deal of uncertainty among civil service. Nevertheless, the evidence on turnover is mostly stemming from interviews and expert survey since CEE countries lack basic data on HR functions. This paper wants to address this gap and looks into turnover data [both scope and depth) among top civil service officials at the six Slovak ministries between 2004 and 2014. During this period, the Slovak government was completely changed three times.

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Knowledge Management in Public Administration. What Can Be Found in Research Outputs in the Czech Republic - Preliminary Findings

Author(s): David Špaček / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: knowledge management; public administration; public management;

The paper first introduces the topic of knowledge management in public administration. Its main focus is to summarize how it was approached in research in the Czech Republic. The research of which the preliminary results are presented is based on research outputs as recorded in the Czech information system for research, experimental development and innovations [the called "RIV"). The results indicate particularly the novelty of the topic as well as relatively high ICT-oriented approaches.

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Does Negative News Create Tax Evaders? Evidence from a Tax Compliance Experiment

Author(s): Jiří Špalek,Otto Eibl,Zuzana Špačková,Jozef Zagrapan,Miloš Fišar / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: experiment; tax; compliance; evasion; media; framing;

Tax evasion is perceived as one of the main problems of public finance. People tend to avoid paying taxes if they do not recognise a return in the form of public goods provided by the state or local government. The rate of tax compliance might also be affected by external factors such as the media, which hold great power over public opinion. We conducted a laboratory experiment to study whether the framing of the effectiveness of state spending influenced the decision to pay taxes. Subjects read news headlines with information on how state institutions spend their budgets.

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The Paradox of "Lost Engagement" in the Public Sector Theory

Author(s): Petr Wawrosz,Radim Valenčík / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: engagement of public sector theory; human and social capital; sector of productive services; transferred price;

The paper deals with the paradox of “lost engagement” in the public sector theory. Although we face in the present time many serious problems public sector theory does not to them pay appropriate attention. Even when some problems are reflected by theory, the reflection does not sufficiently affect real life or the reflection represents only sporadic attempts. The paper brings examples of the Czech scientific paper that are engaged, it means they try to analyze the serious problems in time of publishing the paper. Further we shortly discuss Czech and foreign books trying complexly analyze development of the world in the latest fifty years. Based on this we will outline what an engaged and comprehensive concept of the presence should include and why its important part should be a solution of principal issues of the public sector.

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Usefulness of Tax Assignation for the Czech Tax System: The Direction of Debates on Introducing

Author(s): Vladimír Hyánek,Marie Hladká / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: gift; non-profit organization; tax assignation; tax designation scheme;

The Czech Republic is the only country of the Visegrad Four that still does not apply the percentage tax designation scheme as one of the forms of financing of the non-profit sector. The mechanism has been discussed in the Czech Republic for years, however the idea has not been put to practice yet. A number of these discussions was approached as seeking a vision for the future while in other cases the discussions shifted to the political level or studies were drawn up on introducing the mechanism to the Czech legislation.The authors present the direction and development of debates on introducing percentage tax designation scheme in the Czech Republic, introduce arguments presented for and against the percentage tax designation scheme and estimate impact of the introduction in the Czech Republic.

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The Impact of Unemployment on Public Budgets. The Czech Republic Case-study

Author(s): Robert Jahoda,Jana Godarová / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: unemployment; social policy; public expenditure; tax revenue; economic modeling;

The unemployment is one of the factors which have a direct impact on the performance of the economy. Furthermore, there is a direct link between the unemployment rate and the government budgetary position; unemployed persons usually draw on social benefits and their tax payments to public budgets are lower. This paper aims to comprehensively assess the impact of unemployment on the condition of both the income and the spending side of public budgets. We based our quantification of the impact of unemployment on public budgets on earlier published studies.

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Fully Merit-based and Closed Pay-as-you-go Pension System: Basis of Reforms

Author(s): Jana Kotěšovcová,Radim Valenčík / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: pension system; human capital; transferred price; productive services;

A reform of social investment and social insurance system [especially financing of educational and health care services) necessarily requires a reform of the pension system so that this system should be fully merit-based, closed and with a single basic pension payment. This will make it possible to create a feedback among economic effects of the sectors that contribute to acquisition, retention and employment of the human capital [especially by providing educational and healthcare services) and sources of their funding. The fully merit-based pension system need not collide with meeting the principles of solidarity and simultaneously, it creates a highly motivating environment for all stakeholders [providers and users of services related to acquisition, retention and employment of the human capital).

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Economic Context of the Czech Army Military Deployments and Export

Author(s): Miroslav Krč / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: military spending; public economy; military deployments; export;

The paper analyzes the influences of the military deployment on the export and the consequences of military spending on the public sector. The theory of the state defence economy deals with the impact of military spendings on economic variables. Several studies have confirmed the positive effects of the military spending. Using the quantitative analysis the paper is trying to evaluate the economic impact of the military deployments on the export between 2002 and 2009. Statistical data were used to identify interdependencies between Czech army spendings on the military deployement and the size of the export to Iraq destination.

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Fiscal Bills and Implementation Lags

Author(s): Daniel Němec,Hana Lipovská / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: fiscal discretion; fiscal procedure; government budget; implementation lags; Senate;

The aim of this paper is to broaden our knowledge of the implementation lag and primarily to analyse the impact of bicameralism on it. For the aim of this research, an original dataset of fiscal discretionary bills and state budget bills was created. The dataset on the fiscal discretionary bills is based on the original list of discretionary government expenditures and revenues, which was compiled by the Czech National Bank. Our extended dataset covers 69 bills in total for the period 1994-2013. While standard implementation of fiscal discretionary measures takes 215 days, implementation without the Senate took only 143 days. The monocameral procedure used for the state budget bill takes just 103 days. For the aim of our research, we defined the original concept of fiscal procedure as a monocameral legislative process.

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Modelling of Municipality Indebtedness Evaluation at Regional Level

Author(s): Pavel Petr,Romana PROVAZNÍKOVÁ,Jiří Křupka / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: data analysis; indicators of indebtedness; modelling; municipal debt; North-east Cohesion Region;

The objective of this article is to evaluate and analyse municipal indebtedness of the Czech Republic [CR) municipalities [with the exclusion of the capital city Prague) from the point of view of their size - both for the entire CR for year 2013 and the NUTS2-Northeast [NUTS2-NE) region for the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Selected indicators have been used to evaluate municipal debt (MD). One of them is the “budget responsibility" indicator. This indicator will be compulsory for municipalities based on approving the CR constitution law. Another indicator is the share of debt in the total municipality assets. We have used a system approach for executing this analysis.

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Who Has Had the Main Say in the Path of the Czech Pension Reform: Politicians, Experts - or Both?

Author(s): Martin Potůček,Veronika Rudolfova / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: pension reform; the Czech Republic; Discursive Institutionalism; frame analysis; politicians, experts; communication;

Although pension systems are among the most stable elements of social systems, even they evolve. In recent decades, dozens of countries have joined in by enacting minor adjustments or significant reforms. Politicians as well as invited experts have been paying close attention to the topic. In this paper, we analyze the framework of the spirit and content of the discourse of the Czech pension reform between 2004 and 2014 with the aid of discursive institutionalism theory and methods of framing analysis.

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Provisional Budgets and Budget Accuracy in Czech Towns

Author(s): Lucie SEDMIHRADSKÁ / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: budget accuracy; provisional budget; local government; rebudgeting;

The purpose of the paper is to explore the frequency of the provisional budgets and the influence of the time of budget approval on budget accuracy in Czech towns with more than ten thousand inhabitants between 2010 and 2014. The difference of means test [t-test) is used for the analysis. Provisional budgets are quite common in Czech towns, on average 28% towns used provisional budget between 2010 and 2015. Its usage is higher in the postelection years, especially 2011. The time of budget approval does not influence the accuracy of any type of budget revenues, however it has, with exception of 2012, positive impact of the accuracy of current expenditure. Its accuracy is higher in towns which approved their budgets later, i.e. in the course of the current fiscal year.

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Policy Case Study: Impact of the Policy Changes on the Housing Loan Market

Author(s): Emília Sičáková-Beblavá,Miroslav Beblavý / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: bank; consumer; interest rates; policy changes;

The article analyses the impact of the state regulation on a housing loan market in Slovakia in the period of 2010 till 2015. This issue is explored by the case study that enables a holistic view of the influence of three factors [policies) in one area and comparing the situation prior to and after the policy changes.

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Method of Non-weighted Average Absolute Deviation in Context of Income Inequality. Case Study of the Czech Republic

Author(s): Kamila Turečková / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

Keywords: income inequality; method of non-weighted average absolute deviation;

The aim of this present paper is to introduce the alternative new method to express and measure income inequality in the society and in the economy. There is presented use of the method of non-weighted average absolute deviation for expressing and comparing income inequality in case of Czech Republic in years 2005-2013. The result of measuring of income inequality usingh method of non weighted average absolute deviation is, in practical part of article, compared to 3 other, well-known traditional indicators - Gini coefficient, Robin Hood Index and S80/S20 Ratio in order to highlight compatibility between all these methods to measure income inequality.

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