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Like in all countries in transition, the tax as well as the transfer system have been under serious reform pressures. The socialistic systems were not able to fulfill the necessary functions in providing a certain degree of redistribution and social security, which are inevitable for social oriented market economies. Increasing income and wage differentiation is one of the most important prerequisites for a market oriented ability to pay tax system. But in the transformation period, numerous quasi-legal or even illegal property transactions have taken place, thus leading to wealth concentrations on the one hand while as consequence of the bankruptcy of socialism, enormous poverty problems have arisen on the other. For the political acceptance of the transformation process it is of utmost importance that an efficient and fair tax system is implemented and social security is organised by the state on a level which secures at least the physical minimum of subsistence or – if economically possible – even a social-cultural minimum. Whether the state should go further in providing compulsory social insurance systems has been a hotly debated topic for decades even in the welfare and social states of the Western type. Whereas the basic security systems have to be financed by general tax revenue, for a compulsory social insurance system – due to the insurance character – special earmarked social security contribution are held necessary. Both public goods and services as well as at least basic security have to be financed by total tax revenue. For the acceptance and fairness of the whole system the total redistributive effect of both sides of the budget – the tax system as well as the expenditure system – are decisive. In this paper we will concentrate on the revenue side, e.g. on the taxes as well as on the social security contributions. Adam Smith had already formulated some very simple tax norms which have been transformed in modern tax theory. The equivalence as well as the ability-topay principle are basic yardsticks for every tax system in a democratic oriented market system, not to forget tax fairness. In the historical development process equity-oriented measures have often produced an enormous complexity of the single taxes as well as of the whole tax system. Therefore, reconsidering the Smithian principles of simplicity and of minimum compliance costs for the tax payer would even press many Western European tax systems to undergo serious reform processes which often are delayed because of intense interest group influence. Hence, a modern tax system is a simple one which consists only of a few single taxes which are easy to administer. Such a system consists of two main taxes, the income and the value added tax. Consequently in all countries of transition both taxes have been implemented, while the implementation was fostered by the fact that both also constitute the typical components of the EU member states systems. Therefore such a harmonising tax reform is the most important prerequisite to become a membership candidate. Bulgaria also tried to follow this general pattern in reforming the income tax system starting in 1992 and replacing the old socialistic turnover tax and excise duty system by the value added tax (VAT) in 1994. Especially with regard to the income tax system the demand for simplicity has not been met yet. Complex rules to define the tax base as well as a steeply progressive tax schedule have led to behavioral adaptations which are even strengthened by the effects of a high social contribution burden which is predominantly laid on the employers. In the following some concise descriptions of the tax and social contribution system are given; the paper closes with a summary, in which the impacts of the system are evaluated and some political recommendations for further reforms are presented.
After promising beginnings towards transformation, in 1991 the Bulgarian economy fell into deep crisis in the period from 1995 to 1997. Social policy, already overstrained due to the demands of transition, was unable to cope effectively with the rapidly spreading state of emergency. The following essay analyses the development of the social indicators and instruments of social security in the years 1990 to 1998. In addition to unemployment and unemployment insurance, the issue of pensions and poverty will also be examined.
Im Rahmen dieser Studie soll ermittelt werden, welche Bedeutung sowohl quantitative, als auch qualitative Kriterien für die Beurteilung von Risiken in den Akteursgruppen Manager, Verwaltungsangehörige, Experten und Laien einnehmen. Bei der Beurteilung von Umweltrisiken spielen neben quantitativen Beurteilungskriterien (z.B. der Schadenswahrscheinlichkeit) auch qualitative Kriterien (z.B. die ausgelösten Emotionen) eine zentrale Rolle, wie insbesondere die Ergebnisse der psychometrischen Risikoforschung zeigen.
Inhalt: Unternehmenspolitik und Standortpolitik -Relevanz übergeordneter unternehmenspolitischer Zielsetzungen -Räumlich-geographische Orientierung von Unternehmen -Tendenzen der räumlich-geographischen Unternehmenspolitik: Auflösungstendenzen (nationaler Strukturen) und territoriale Enthaftung, Beharrungstendenzen und territoriale Verhaftung, Dualität von territorialer Enthaftung und territorialer Verhaftung Standortstrategien internationaler Unternehmen -Grundlegende Merkmale der Standortstrategien -Ziele von Standortstrategien: Markterschließung durch lokale Präsenz, Technologie- und Know-how-Erschließung, Kosten- und Produktivitätsziele, standortpolitische Zielbündel als institutionalisierte Anreize zur Standortsuche -Räumlich-geographische Vorauswahl durch Standortsuchräume: allgemeiner Charakter von Standortsuchräumen, Einflussfaktoren bei der Festlegung von Standortsuchräumen, die Standortsuchräume der befragten Unternehmen -Ergänzende strategische Entscheidungsfelder Organisationale Standortentscheidungsprozesse internationaler Unternehmen -Akteure der Standortwahl: unternehmensinterne Akteure, unternehmensexterne Akteure -Standortbezogenes Informationsmanagement: Informationsquellen, Informationen: Standortfaktoren, Methoden und Verfahren zur Bewertung von Standorten -Standortentscheidung Beurteilung und Perspektiven des Standortes Deutschland -Stärken und Schwächen des Wirtschaftsstandortes Deutschland -Implikationen der Standortpolitik internationaler Unternehmen für den Standort Deutschland: Implikationen unternehmenspolitischer Tendenzen, Implikationen der Standortstrategien internationaler Unternehmen, Implikationen aus der Analyse organisationaler Standortentscheidungsprozesse internationaler Unternehmen
Inhalt: Theoretische und methodische Grundlagen -Methodische Grundlagen: kognitive Strukturen und mentale Modelle, das Ziel-Mittel-Ketten-Modell der kognitiven Struktur, die Laddering-Methode zur Erhebung von kognitiven Ziel-Mittel-Ketten Design der empirischen Untersuchung -Erhebungsinstrumente: methodische Anforderungen an die Erhebungsinstrumente, inhaltliche Entwicklung der Erhebungsinstrumente -Datengrundlage -Methodische Umsetzung: Das Laddering-Verfahren Ergebnisse der empirischen Erhebung -Die kognitiven Pfade der mentalen Standortrepräsentation -Zusammenfassende Interpretation der mentalen Standortrepräsentation
In der Praxis stellt die Korrelation eines der wesentlichsten Zusammenhangsmaße dar. Doch die Anwendung dieses Instruments ist in vielen Fällen sehr kritisch zu beurteilen. So enthalten gerade bei Zeitreihen die Ausgangsdaten oft temporale Trends, die zu einem zu hohen Zusammenhangsmaß führen. Gerade bei der Arbeit mit Finanzdaten wird allerdings mit den Differenzen oder sogar mit den prozentualen Änderungen gearbeitet. Hier sind die Trends im wesentlichen extrahiert. Die Daten sind somit fast immer stationär und die Instrumente der linearen Regression damit anwendbar. Auch die Korrelation kann somit problemlos ermittelt werden. Doch gerade bei solchen transformierten Daten sind praktisch kaum noch signifikante Zusammenhänge nachweisbar. Daß die Wahrheit manchmal in der Mitte liegt, versucht diese Arbeit mit Hilfe der Kointegration aufzuzeigen. Immobilienanlagen sind aufgrund ihrer geringen Korrelation mit Aktien und Renten v.a. im Rahmen langfristiger Anlagestrategien interessant, da durch sie hohe Diversifikationseffekte zu erzielen sind. Die risikoreduzierende Wirkung wird mit Hilfe der Korrelationskoeffizienten begründet. Dieses Vorgehen ist jedoch zweifelhaft, da die Korrelationskoeffizienten typischerweise anhand der periodischen - und damit kurzfristigen - Abweichungen bestimmt werden. Ein zwischen diesen Vermögensklassen aufgrund des gleichen ökonomischen Hintergrunds plausibler langfristiger Zusammenhang wird daher ggf. nicht erfaßt, die tatsächlichen Diversifikationseffekte werden somit möglicherweise über-, Risiken damit unterschätzt. Im Gegensatz zum Korrelationskoeffizienten ermöglicht ein neueres statistisches Verfahren, das Fehler-Korrektur-Modell, die Berücksichtigung von kurz- und langfristigen Zusammenhängen. Anhand eines Vergleichs der nach den unterschiedlichen Berechnungsmethoden festgestellten Zusammenhänge wird daher überprüft, ob der Korrelationskoeffizient als Entscheidungsgrundlage für langfristige Anlagestrategien tatsächlich geeignet ist. Es zeigt sich, daß er die Zusammenhänge in vielen Fällen offensichtlich gut beschreibt. Allerdings ergeben sich Hinweise auf unberücksichtigte langfristige Zusammenhänge. Sie signalisieren, daß die Diversifikationseffekte überschätzt werden. Das sollte Anreiz für weitere Untersuchungen sein. Denn sind langfristige Zusammenhänge feststellbar, investieren langfristig orientierte Marktteilnehmer, die auf Basis "kurzfristiger" Indikatoren entscheiden, möglicherweise in suboptimale Portfolios. Das bedeutet zum Beispiel, daß sie bei gleichem Risiko einen höheren Ertrag erwarten könnten.
Gegenstand der Studie sind Risikobewertungen als Teil von Entscheidungen über die Akzeptanz von Risiken. Dabei handelt es sich nicht nur um einen Problembereich für Experten. Auch die Wirtschaft, die Verwaltung, die Politik und die interessierte Öffentlichkeit ist an solchen Entscheidungen beteiligt. Inhalt: Gegenstand der Studie Ziele der Studie Theoretischer Rahmen Hypothesen Methodische Grundlagen Ergebnisse -Das Kategorienschema -Häufigkeit und Inhalte kognitiver Kategorien: Zentrale Kategorien -Graphische Auswertung: Hierarchical Value Maps: HVM für gentechnisch verändertes Getreidesaatgut, HVM für Kunststoffzusatz, HVM für neues Arzneimittel, Gesamtanalysen
Im Rahmen dieser Studie soll ermittelt werden, welche Urteilsmodelle bzw. -konzepte Manager, Verwaltungsangehörige, Experten und Laien zur Bewertung von Risiken verwenden. Dazu wird eine Untersuchungsmethode, die Conjoint-Analyse, verwendet, die mit spezifischen Problemen der psychometrischen Risikoforschung besser umzugehen vermag und die u.E. noch nicht in der Risikowahrnehmungsforschung eingesetzt wurde. Inhalt: Ziel der Untersuchung Fragestellung Die Conjoint-Analyse Das Design der Studie Stichprobe und Datenerhebungsprozedur Ergebnisse: -Risikoakzeptanzwerte -Entscheidungswichtigkeit der Risiken -Gruppenanalyse
The attractiveness of foreign direct investment in Russia and Ukraine : a statistical analysis
(1999)
In this paper a comparative exploration of the potential for foreign investment and real inflow to Russia and Ukraine are examined. The analysis showed that primarily both countries enjoyed significant comparative advantages in attracting foreign capital. Since the foundation of independent states in 1992 attractiveness began to diverge dramatically. This difference is clearly explained by the determination of the Russian government to reform the economy earlier than the Ukrainian government. The transition to a market economy is closely connected with the development of a favorable investment climate in both countries. It includes the foundation of a stable system of property rights and a conducive legal environment.
Inhalt Einleitung - Grundlagen - Methodische Hinweise Voruntersuchung - Nachweis der Konzentration - Abgrenzung der KMU von Großunternehmen Auswertung der Gewerbezählung - Entwicklung der Beschäftigten in der Elektrotechnik - Anteil der Größenklassen an den Beschäftigten in der Elektrotechnik - Veränderung der Beschäftigten gegenüber der vorherigen Zählung - Anteil der Beschäftigten in KMU - Entwicklung der Betriebe in der Elektrotechnik
This paper presents in the first section a methodological introduction concerning statistics of consumer prices in Georgia. The second section gives a general idea of the development of consumer prices from January 1994 till September 1999. A detailed regional analysis is added in section 3. The fourth section analyses the development of consumer prices for the eight main groups included in the total CPI. Section 5 compares the changes in Georgian CPI with the movements of foreign exchange rates in Georgian Lari. This paper ends with a summary including a short outlook to the next years.
Inhalt: Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnung (VGR) -Entstehung und Ziele der VGR -Methodik und Umfang der VGR -Ausgewählte Indikatoren und Kennziffern -Grenzen der Interpretationsmöglichkeiten Umweltökonomische Berichterstattung (UB) -Ziele der UB -Umsetzungsansätze einer UB -Problembereiche der UB Die Regionalisierte Ökologische Gesamtrechnung (RÖG) -Zielsetzungen der RÖG -Modellvorschlag und Indikatorenauswahl -Möglichkeiten und Grenzen bei der Umsetzung Umsetzung der RÖG innerhalb von GRANO -Denkbare Anwendungsgebiete -Praktische Rahmenbedingungen der Anwendung in GRANO
Privatisation and ownership : the impact on firms in transition survey evidence from Bulgaria
(1999)
Previous papers in this Special Series, have described in detail the theoretical background and development patterns, along with some empirical results, for the privatisation processes in Bulgaria and Poland. A range of issues have been raised which demand closer empirical investigation. For this purpose, the research group has developed questionnaire studies for Bulgaria and Poland. In Bulgaria, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) carried out the case studies between February and April 1998. The problems of the questionnaire set-up were identified in apre-test study, but unlike the Polish case, they led to only minor differentiation. Since financial limitations prevented a larger sample size, a sample size of 61 mid-sized and large Bulgarian enterprises was selected. Failure to respond was not a serious problem, unlike with the Polish questionnaire; this is because the NSI has maintained good links to the enterprise sector and management were prepared to give detailed answers, even on questions of their firms' financial status. However, as the Polish experience suggests, it has become obvious that the privatisation process is also associated with management's increasing reluctance to answer comparatively 'intimate' questions. Thus, future questionnaire studies must take a much higher rate of refusals into consideration. The pre-selection procedure in Bulgaria was determined by the project target, which sought to analyse the effects of the privatisation process on firm' s behaviour during the transition process, and hence only firms which had already existed before the changes were included. For small and medium-size enterprises (SME's), most of which were founded after the changes, partly due to the legal processes of spontaneous privatisation, some empirical, as weIl as analytical, studies were carried out. Thus, the research group limited the scope of investigation to enterprises with more than 250 employees. The underlying hypothesis is that employment problems are concentrated in larger firms, in particular amongst those still (partly) state owned. Because of the former ownership structures and relatively slower capacity for management change, the assumption is that state-owned enterprises (SOE's) which have only been recently privatised might still have traditional links to government even after privatisation. On the one hand, the SME's are obviously more prone to, and linked with, market processes. As a result, they don't have the financial potential and incentives to follow job-hoarding strategies. On the other hand, there are almost no SME's which are still stateowned. Hence, the prevailing opinion in the literature is that 'larger industrial firms were apt to be least efficient, most often producing inadequate and non-competitive products, with a high degree ofunder-utilisation oflabour and most inflexible to change' (lones & Nikolov 1997, p. 252). Thus, as mentioned above, though there may be some limitations with regard to firm representation, our sample characterises a number of enterprises that offer fertile ground for the analysis of firms' adjustment to the newly established market realities in a transition economy. Our study is unique in the sense that existing empirical studies on privatisation and enterprise restructuring generally cover the time period just before and after the initial stages of transition, e.g. 1988/89 to 1992. In those studies, samples of firms in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria recognise that behavioural adaptations at the enterprise level had taken place just before the actual privatisation process materialised. Therefore, almost all of the firms under examination were still state-owned. The firms were usually divided according to their performance as 'good', 'average' and 'bad' enterprises. The main findings of those early studies have shown that the macroeconomic adaptations (i.e., macro-level changes which induced micro-level adjustment by the firms), as well as emerging market structures, have created enormous pressures which in turn have influenced firms' economic behaviour, reallocation of resources and consequent restructuring. This evidence supports the hypothesis that the SOE's started restructuring and adjusting their behaviour and performance, in response to the harsh realities of more open markets, before privatisation actually started. In this paper, we seek to present some results on these developments in Bulgaria, at the later stages of transition and privatisation (1992-1996). The aim of our questionnaire study is therefore to show the effects of the privatisation process and ownership on the behavioural adaptations of firms which had once been state-owned or continue to be owned by the state. The period under investigation is 1992 to 1996. For 1990 and 1991, the number of missing values is reactively high and, where relevant, we partly exclude these observations from our analysis. The paper contains seven sections. Section 11 outlines the macroeconomic environment in which our sample firms operate, provides some specifics of the Bulgarian privatisation process, and discusses data quality. Section 111 concentrates on the analysis of privatisation, the specific forms of ownership that resulted from it, and firm size. In Section IV, we describe the trends of the main economic variables within firms (such as employment, wages, labour productivity, etc), and a number of proxies of firm viability, while Section V presents some regression results to corroborate the discussion of the previous section. Section VI gives an overview of survey results of the impact of enterprise determined wage policy, trade union activity and membership, government control, and social benefits on enterprise restructuring. Section VII is a summary of our findings.