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Although the expansive policy of Great Coalition might have negative impact on Germany’s public finance, claiming that this would significantly reduce country’s attractiveness seems exaggerated. Gaining foreign investors relies on offering the whole package of factors such as clusters. This article aims at evaluating development trends of German clusters. It proposes a classification drawing on firms population and labour force size. Obtained results indicate that most of German clusters have been expanding. Clusters’ closing/vanishing is the result of downsizing i.e. the faster decline of labour force than the number of active firm in East Germany, whereas in Germany it mainly reflects the relocation i.e. the steeper decline of cluster’s companies than working population. Disaggregation (growing number of cluster’s firm accompanied by reduction of labour force) outnumbers the opposite case i.e. the aggregation when decrease of firms number goes along with expansion of employees. Whereas the development of East Germany clusters does not differ substantially from the general German trend, the evolution of their investments may worry.
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The main purpose of this paper is to show the Lithuanian way to European Monetary Union in the period since the initiation of the economic transformation in that country in the early 1990s. At first, a brief analysis of the factors which impede and make the development of the Lithuanian economy more dynamic is made. Then the measures taken to overcome the crisis which badly affected the Lithuanian economy in 2009, and efforts to meet the convergence criteria of the Maastricht Treaty, are described. The final part of the study focuses on the technical aspects of the introduction of the euro and outlines the expected benefits for Lithuania related to the accession to the eurozone.
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The purpose of the article is to compare the European Union countries in terms of socio-technical infrastructure development and to determine Poland’s position in the league table. The analysis was made using 9 statistical indicators characterizing different aspects of socio-technical infrastructure in 27 EU member countries. The league table was compiled using various multidimensional comparative analysis methods – a development model proposed by Hellwig and the method of standardized sums. The results of calculations obtained by two different methods indicate that socio-technical infrastructure is best developed in Austria, Germany and Greece, whereas the worst is in Cyprus, Malta and Romania. Poland ranks far behind other EU countries in the league table, 23rd or 24th depending on the adopted analysis method. The improvement of Poland’s unfavourable situation compared with other European Union countries in terms of socio-technical infrastructure requires changes of some of its elements represented by the variables used in the analysis e.g., medical doctors per hundred thousand inhabitants and the number of bed-places in hotels and other short-stay accommodation per thousand inhabitant
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Sustainable consumption and production has been the subject of keen demand in many countries around the world for over 20 years, especially in the countries of the European Union. Despite this, negative environmental effects are still observed, caused by growing consumption and excessive economic growth. Many environmental strategies involve the usual increased resource efficiency and eco- -efficiency of processes and products.However, this does not fully balance the environmental impact caused by the increased consumption, which in the EU is four times higher than public expenditure. However, there are very large differences in the approach to this difficult topic. The northern states of the EU turn out to be more inclinedto being involved in promoting and subsidizing sustainable consumption and production than the countries of southern Europe. The main purpose of the article is to compare sustainable development in the countries of southern and northern Europe andto fathom what the reason forthose differences is,based on specific and selected indicators and influences on countries’ economic development. The research is based on indicators of,among others: domestic material consumption, recycled and composted municipal waste, atmospheric emissions and organic farming.
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The article presents a comparative analysis of the international competitiveness of Poland and the Czech Republic in 2011–2015. These countries have a common history of the postwar period, regained their freedom at the same time and started the transformation of their economies. Both countries became members of the European Union at the same time. Despite its territorial proximity and many common characteristics, these countries have reached different values of competitiveness in the international stage. The aim of this paper is to present the economic situation of these countries, evaluate their international competitiveness and identify opportunities and threats to improve the competitive position.
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