Effectiveness of structural funds - microlevel perspective (case of Slovakia)

Cohesion policy and regional policy as a main part of cohesion policy are the most important policies of European Union. This could also be view from the volume of financial resources allocated for these policies. One of the main current research issues is analyzing efficiency and effectiveness of these funds. Examining the effectiveness of funds we can see a number of shortcomings, from which are the most significant deadweight loss effects, subtitution effect, lack of application of the principles of partnership, administrative burden focused on expenses and not results or the low multiplier effects. We have analyzed several of them directly in the case study of some Slovak regions

XXV. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách

Title in English: 25th International Colloquium on Regional Sciences: Conference proceedings The conference proceedings consists of papers presented at the 25th International Colloquium on Regional Sciences that was organized by Department of Regional Economics and Administration FEA MU. It contains 57 articles arranged by topic. The individual articles deal with e.g. socioeconomic disparities among regions, regional policy, territory attractiveness, tourism, or regional public administration

Výkonové financovanie univerzít – prípadová štúdia Slovenska

Innovation and human capital play a crucial role in the economic development. Universities are one the main institutions influencing level of these factors, so states or other public institutions has spent substantial funds on their functioning. Due to political need to spend funds efficiently and effectively, for the last years previous, mainly trust based, funding regimes has been partially replaced by new ways of financing – performance based financing. These new forms have their own advantages and weaknesses, but they are used short time to be able to evaluate their longer term impacts. However, we could see how these forms change the distribution of funding. In this article, we empirically looked at different types of universities funding and compare how this funding affects different universities in case of Slovakia. We show that the different schemes lead to quite different allocations. More than type of funding is important how the criteria for funding are set up and how different sources are complementary to the needs of universities

EU cohesion policy – booster or destroyer of national policies? Case of universities

The cohesion policy is among the most important European policies. Its influence is particularly strong in the new member states, which have become the major recipients of aid under this policy. Cohesion policy is very wide and extends into many areas of development, such as for example education, transport or innovation support so in some member states it strongly influences national policies in various areas. This article aims to analyse the interaction between cohesion policy and national sectoral policies on some examples from Central European countries. It turns out that cohesion policy often leads to a significant reduction in national policies and in some cases may even negate their intentions. The governments need to pay more attention to coordination of these policies and also to proper institutional environment

Support of innovation at regional level

The aim of this article is to evaluate the support of innovation on the regional level and the regional levels in V4 countries. We analyse regional innovation strategies in these countries. The regional development strategies are relatively new phenomenon in V4 countries. Most of the re- gions created their strategies less than five years ago and many of them have been still in imple- mentation phase, so we concentrate more on the creation of innovation strategies rather than on their implementation. The paper has two main parts - theoretical background containing the examples and reasons for innovation support at the regional level as well as key problems for governance of innovation support, mainly the problem of complexity of innovation support, which goes behind officially esta- blished borders. The second part compares activities and measures of 29 regional innovation strategies in these regions and identifies some key differences among them. We found out more similarities among the regions from the same country rather than similarities among the regions with similar level of development (e.g. in metropolitan regions). We deal with some key issues for regional innovation strategies – appropriate level and the role of regional self-governments for creation of strategy, se- ctoral dimension of RIS or “building cathedral in the desert” problem. We also identify dominance of hard infrastructure measures in the strategies. We also compare specific innovation strategies with general regional development strategies in order to identify key differences in governing crea- tion of these strategies. We suggested some improvement in the process of creation and implementation strategies. The concentration of priorities and resources is of crucial importance for success. Better evaluation process is needed to be able to more prioritise the suggested activities and to be more specific on particular regional needs

What factors influence the survival of subsidised start-ups for the unemployed in Slovakia?

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to analyse the factors of sustainability of the public policy subsidising start-ups for the unemployed in Slovakia. Design/Methodology/Approach: The analysis assesses the sustainability of subsidies in the period 2012-2016 based on data provided by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Logistic regression was used to identify the key factors. Findings: Research shows that in times of economic growth, policies to support the self-employment of the unemployed are a particularly effective form of active labour market policy, especially in the more developed regions. On the contrary, when serving as a business support tool, they lead to very low survival rates of the subsidised companies compared to results of other studies. In terms of factors affecting this sustainability, the length of unemployment, the amount of support, as well as regional characteristics emerge as the most significant. Practical implications: The results allow for a better definition of the conditions for providing subsidies to the unemployed to start a business in the future, while also showing that this instrument leads to employment retention rather than to the promotion of entrepreneurial activities. Originality/value: The research was carried out under specific conditions that had been little explored so far. The policy was evaluated at a time of strong economic growth accompanied by a significant reduction in unemployment. Also worth noting is that it was carried out in a country with some of the most pronounced regional disparities, which made it possible to compare the impact of the policy in different starting conditions.Namen: Namen prispevka je analizirati dejavnike vzdržnosti javne politike, ki s pomočjo subvencij novoustanovljenim podjetjem na Slovaškem pomaga iz brezposelnosti. Zasnova/Metodologija/Pristop: Prispevek na podlagi podatkov slovaškega ministrstva za delo in socialne zadeve ocenjuje vzdržnost subvencij v obdobju 2012–2016. Za opredelitev ključnih dejavnikov je bila uporabljena logistična regresija. Ugotovitve: Raziskave kažejo, da so politike za podporo samozaposlitvi brezposelnih v času gospodarske rasti še posebej učinkovita oblika aktivne politike zaposlovanja, zlasti v razvitejših regijah. Če pa subvencije služijo zgolj kot orodje za podporo poslovanju, je stopnja preživetja subvencioniranih podjetij precej nižja, kot so ugotavljale druge študije. Med najpomembnejšimi dejavniki, ki vplivajo na vzdržnost, se kažejo trajanje brezposelnosti, višina subvencije in regionalne značilnosti. Vpliv v praksi: Rezultati omogočajo boljšo opredelitev pogojev za zagotavljanje subvencij brezposelnim za ustanovitev podjetja v prihodnosti in hkrati kažejo, da je ta instrument bolj učinkovit kot sredstvo za ohranjanje zaposlitve kot za spodbujanje podjetništva. Izvirnost/Vrednost: Raziskava je potekala v posebnih pogojih, ki so bili do sedaj le malo raziskani. Politika je bila proučevana v obdobju močne gospodarske rasti, ki jo je spremljalo občutno zmanjšanje brezposelnosti. Omeniti velja tudi, da je bila raziskava izvedena v državi z izrazitimi regionalnimi razlikami, kar je omogočilo primerjavo vpliva tovrstne politike ob različnih izhodiščih

Are subsidies really needed?: the case Of EU regional policy in the Czech and Slovak republics

Regional policy is one of the most important EU policies. Large amounts of resources used for support programmes automatically put forward the question of their effectiveness and efficiency. These aspects can be examined both from macro and micro perspectives. In this article we focus on one aspect of inefficiency – "deadweight". This effect occurs if public subsidy is spent on activities that would have happened even without these resources. We examine the effect on selected projects for small and medium-sized enterprises in the Czech and Slovak Republics. The article consists of four parts. First we discuss theoretical background for using the subsidies as development tool. Then we look more closely on the definition of deadweight effect and previous studies analyzing it. In the methodology part we discuss different approaches how to measure this effect and introduce methodology in our research. We also discuss potential problems with interpretation of the results and in the final part we present the results of our research and some policy implications. We found out that the deadweight effect is quite substantial and represents more than 35 % of public subsidies. The project characteristics itself (type of project, amount of budget) has the highest significance for the deadweight effect. The deadweight effect is higher for investments projects compared to the support of education or employment. The probability of the deadweight effect is also decreasing with the total amount of subsidies

Substitution Effect of Public Support Programs at Local Level

The paper evaluates the principle of addi-tionality in public support programs at local level. In the evaluation of public support policies a key question is whether the policy has made a differ-ence over what would have otherwise occurred. This could be measured by different ways as out-put, behavioral or input additionality. In this paper we analyze the impact of public support programs on input additionality as the extent to which the subsidy is refected in increased expenditures by supported subjects through the measurement of substitution effect. We studied public investment subsidies in the case of education support in Slo-vakia. We identifed the substitution effect in 10% of the analyzed municipalities. There are several differences in outcomes.An important factor is the size of the city as larger municipalities reduce their other activities when obtaining the support. We also showed that less developed regions have a lower tendency to misuse the support programs. The more de-veloped regions and cities reduce their own spending on a given priority when obtaining the support

Spatially blind or place based policy?: a comparison of innovation support in the Czech and Slovak republic

With the ongoing changes in development of the European Union, also conditions for fi nancial support are changing. For Central Europe, most fi nancial aid comes from Cohesion policies. The same applies for the support of innovations, which are considered to be a driving force of development. One of the main debates concerning cohesion policy is the issue of “placed based” versus “spatially blind” policies. Their role mainly differs within the area of economic growth. This paper deals with the evaluation of innovation support as a driving force for economic growth from structural funds in two neighbouring EU member states – in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. This article provides a picture of what kinds of policies are implemented and how consequently the resources of the European Union are territorially distributed to support innovation. We especially dealt with the question of the support criteria for projects and their role in the implementation of support. Based on this, the paper tries to identify where assistance is concentrated and how the criteria infl uence the geographical distribution of this support. As a result, we found that, despite very similar spatially blind policies in both countries and very similar systems of providing support, they still have very different regional effects. In the Czech Republic, support was allocated to developed regions and high tech sectors to a greater extent. In the Slovak Republic, support was concentrated more on disadvantaged regions and in traditional sectors with lower added value. It shows the need to pay much more attention not only to policy set up, but also to policy implementation