Problems and environment of small businesses in the Czech Republic

The impressive and spontaneous build-up of the private small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic in 1990–93 coincided with the similarly dramatic changes in the public administration and in the whole environment for decision-making. The resulting problems of SMEs in the Czech Republic seem to be common to all economies in transition. A lot of the problems are caused by the macroeconomic policy for which this sector is not the most important part of the national economy. The paper shows some conflicts between macroeconomic anti-inflationary (monetary and fiscal) policies, and interests of small businesses. The authors stress the importance of SMEs during the period of transition. Informal aspects of the functioning of small firms are discussed, especially their relation with banks and public administration. The paper offers some empirical evidence and available statistics on SMEs developments during 1990–94 focusing particularly on manufacturing.     

Moral Pragmatism as a Bridge Between Duty,Utility, and Virtue in Managers’ Ethical Decision-Making

Journal of Business Ethics - The decline of empirical research on ethical decision-making based on ethical theories might imply a tacit consensus has been reached. However, the exclusion of virtue...     

Dynamics of price level changes in the Visegrad group: comparative study

Quality & Quantity - In Poland, as in many other countries, to measure inflation, expressed both by the CPI and HICP, the Laspeyres price index with weights from the base period is used. Thus...     

Tax-benefit systems and differences in aggregate labour force participation: Comparative evidence from the Czech Republic and Hungary

This paper investigates the extent to which cross-country differences in aggregate participation rates can be explained by differences in tax-benefit systems. We take the example of two countries, the Czech Republic and Hungary, which – despite a lot of similarities – differ markedly in labour force participation rates. Using comparable individual-level labour supply estimates, we simulate how the aggregate participation rate would change in one country if the other country’s tax and social welfare system were adopted. The estimation results for the two countries are quite similar, suggesting that individual preferences are essentially identical in the two countries. The simulation results show that about one-third of the difference in the participation rates of the 15–74 year-old population and more than two-thirds of the participation of the prime-age population can be explained by differences in the tax-benefit systems.     

Do Neighbours Influence Value‐Added‐Tax Introduction? A Spatial Duration Analysis

The spatial survival models typically impose frailties, which characterize unobserved heterogeneity, to be spatially correlated. However, the spatial effect may not only exist in the unobserved errors, but it can also be present in the baseline hazards and the dependent variables. A new spatial survival model with these three possible spatial correlation structures is explored and used to investigate the implementation of value‐added tax (VAT) in 99 countries over the period 1970–2009. Estimation is performed by a Bayesian approach through the Markov chain Monte Carlo method. The estimation results suggest the presence of a significant spatial correlation among the VAT introductions of neighbouring countries.     

Assessing social support networks in cross-national comparative surveys: Measurement issues

In recent years many cross-national comparative surveys, such as Gender and Generation Programme, International Social Survey Programme, European Quality of Life Survey, or General Social Survey, have included assessment of social support networks. Generally, two approaches were used; the name generator approach and the role relation approach. As more cross-country surveys are conducted every year, it may seem reasonable to use such data sets, since they provide high quality comparisons across countries. However, one should pay close attention to the measurement instruments, as these may cause unintentional but systematic variability in the observed data. While the data from each survey can be of high quality ??per se??, we claim that results from these surveys are not comparable, owing to their different measurement approaches and survey instruments. In this paper we present data from several experiments which show that scientific findings from these surveys depend significantly on questionnaire design.     

A multi-criteria assessment of tourist farm service quality

Farm tourism is a significant means of supplementing farmers' incomes. This paper presents a methodology for ranking tourist farms by using a multi-criteria model based on the qualitative multi-criteria modeling methodology, DEX, to assess service quality. The software tool DEXi was used to achieve this end. The model was then applied to seven tourist farms with data derived from questionnaires completed by tourist farm operators and guests. The results are shown as service quality assessments for individual farms. The potential of the model for assessing the farms is demonstrated with the aim of providing a comprehensive explanation and justification of the assessment technique. It also indicates potential improvements that farms can make through “what-if” analysis and visualization. Despite limitations, such as use of qualitative data only, the approach is proposed as being both appropriate and advantageous when compared with other means of ranking enterprises.     

Mean squared error of the empirical best linear unbiased predictor in an orthogonal finite discrete spectrum linear regression model

The mean squared error (MSE) of the empirical best linear unbiased predictor in an orthogonal finite discrete spectrum linear regression model is derived and a comparison with the MSE of the best linear unbiased predictor in this model is made. It is shown that under weak conditions these two mean square errors are asymptotically the same.