Excise Tax Policy and Cross-border Purchases of Automotive Fuels

In a small open country such as Slovenia, drivers can either purchase automotive fuel within the country or abroad. A simple demand model is used to test the proposition that changes in excise tax policy caused the decline of purchases in the country, and to delineate the effects of excise tax policy from the effects of the simultaneously occurring economic crisis. To do that, short- and long-run, and direct- and cross-price elasticities are estimated for the purchase of gasoline and automotive diesel in five regions: Slovenia's four border regions and the interior. For the estimation of "volume of transportation" elasticity, vehicle crossings through road sites with automatic traffic meters are used. The simulations indicate that more than half of the decline in the purchase of automotive fuels in 2009 can be attributed to excise tax policy and less than half to the economic crisis, and that the increase in tax revenues generated by excise tax policy significantly exceeded the decrease in the sellers' earnings.retail trade, taxation, time series model

The "Addiction" with FDI and Current Account Balance

The EU new member states (NMS) have been recipients of substantial net capital inflows in the form of FDI. Economic policy makers and development strategists often regard them as the pillar of the development and neglect their potential long run consequences: inevitable deficit in the investment balance. FDI however affects current account balance also indirectly by improving or deteriorating trade balance which might overweigh negative direct effects, moderate them, or add to the deterioration of the current account balance. Capital outflows through the investment account in NMS have been increasing rapidly . Namely, the rates of return on FDI are twice the rates of return on portfolio investments and three times the rates of return on loans. Indirect effects have moderated strong direct effects but could not overweigh structural current account deficit caused by transition. A major problem might arise as a consequence of the “addiction” with FDI. First, the outflows of capital speeded up by the opportunities of multinationals to reallocate production to the countries with even cheaper labor might become larger than new inflows. Second, sudden interruption of FDI inflows could result in an exchange rate crisis.current account, factors services, foreign direct investments

Economics - Slovenia

Analysis of the pre-1989 situation; Redefinition of the discipline since 1990; Core theoretical and methodological orientations; Thematic orientation and funding; Public space and academic debates; Views on further development

Why is Transition in Slovenia Often Considered a Success Story

Economic performance in the first decade of independent Slovenia was satisfactory, and social costs of secession from Yugoslavia and of transition were rather low. The explanation of success can be found in very favorable initial position of the country and in chosen patterns of transition. Many essentials for market economy were being created during endless reforms long before 1989, and transition goals were relatively well defined. Proper mix of graduality, pragmatism and risk aversion regarding devastation of previous institutions together with adaptability of former political elite to new circumstances created conditions for a rather successful transition.La situation économique durant la première décennie dindépendance de la Slovénie aura été satisfaisante et les coûts de la sécession avec la Yougoslavie et ceux de la transition auront été relativement faibles. Lexplication du succès se trouve peutêtre dans la position initiale très favorable du pays et dans les schémas de transition retenus. Beaucoup des conditions essentielles à lexistence dune économie de marché étaient en train dêtre instaurées dans le cadre dinterminables réformes menées avant 1989, et les objectifs de la transition étaient assez bien définis. Un savant dosage de gradualisme, de pragmatisme et daversion au risque par rapport à la destruction des institutions existant antérieurement, couplé à ladaptabilité de lancienne élite politique aux nouvelles circonstances ont donné lieu aux conditions requises pour une transition plutôt réussie.

Violence Before Identity: An Analysis of Identity Politics

Violence is a force for creating integrities as well as one that violates, pollutes and destroys already existing entities. In this paper I address the role of what Ariella Azoulay terms the ‘political imagination’ in constituting social aggregates committed to the defence of a community itself brought into being by the imagining of a force dedicated to its destruction. Such a group’s perception of what Laclau and Mouffe call an ‘antagonism’ spurs it to mark out and defend its boundaries with violence - a violence often manifested aggressively (pre-emptively). Collective perceptions of an other’s antagonism are often overdetermined, either by historical memory or political manipulation, and it is often the case that an enemy is sited and a programme of ‘defensive’ violence inaugurated without any ‘real’ justification. Here I demonstrate, using events drawn from the formation of the State of Israel and the collapse of what is now ‘Former Yugoslavia’, that it is in designating an other against which destructive violence must be mobilized that an entity realizes - through the negation of that it would negate - what it is it fights to defend