The development of human resources is an important condition for ensuring the sustainability of the society and the development of the national economy. Knowledge is becoming more and more one of the basic factors for society sustainability and development. In the 21st century economy, which is based on knowledge, the innovation becomes one of the major factors to increase the competitiveness. It is confirmed by the experience of leading economic systems when investing considerable resources in the society educating. It is especially important for the Baltic States in the context of the creation of the knowledge based society declared in the EU space. Thus one of the basic aims of the Latvian economy policy is to create efficient, competitive and sustainable economy. One of the basic priorities of an up-to-date state development strategy is a modern education and science system as the education level and the development of human capital are the most important indicators that are creating the competitiveness and sustainability of the country. In the article there are considered the global tendencies of the higher education; also the connection of education with innovation and sustainability are analysed. The aim of this study is to focus on sustainable competitiveness concept and provide in-depth understanding of higher education impact on ensuring sustainable competitiveness on national level. In the research there are used primarily quantitative comparative research methods. Quantitative indicators are used to characterize specific features of the higher education impact on economics in the Baltics and Nordics. For the calculations, methodology and definitions the OECD methodology and World Economic Forum, global competitiveness concept is used.
Pension system efficiency is very sensitive topic to every citizen of the country. It is very common to criticize established pension systems in search for better solutions. The authors in the present research paper attempt to find out whether the criticism is deserved by evaluating the efficiency of Latvian pension system from the future pensioner’s point of view in the context of the state pension financed from two sources: state pension and state funded pension. Additionally, the authors highlight a number of aspects of pension system the sustainability in Latvia. Private pension is not considered.
According to the EU Competition Policy Brief on the new state aid rules for a competitive aviation industry issued in February 2014, the regulation for the financial public subsidies of any art on the EU national or regional level for regional airports will be a considerably striker. The strategic aims of these new regulations, among other things, are to motivate and encourage the Member States (here: regional airports) to implement more efficient market stimulation measures, make airports work on cost efficient and profitable basis and establish transition periods for regional airports. In practice it means that public subsidies may be granted only to those regional airports that proved to have a sustainable and realistic business model that shall clearly demonstrate the durable financial stability. The authors took part in two air transportation initiatives in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) and were lead partner in the EU Project Baltic. AirCargo.Net, which deployed a number of empirical measures in selected regional airports in the BSR. This paper presents success factors of sustainable business development models for the regional airports in the BSR based on cases studied during the project lifetime
The extent of the sustainable tourism is increasingly linked to the development of information and communication technologies, especially the Internet and for a long time the online market is becoming a key aspect of its further secure development. Current technological development brings with it significant digitization of all processes and significantly affects how today’s companies are entering and communicating on the online tourism market. Similarly, as a result of these changes, the significant change occurs in consumer behaviour, and across all age groups. With the development of these technologies, today’s consumer is not only knowledgeable and more experienced, but is increasingly being constant online part of this market. The development of online tourism market is thus increasingly strongly linked with the growth of the total Internet population and currently also the one, that is using to the Internet access the cellular infrastructure and equipment. From the perspective of the Internet population the Czech Republic is the fourth largest online population in Central and Eastern Europe, which creates a good starting point for its further application on the growing Central European online travel market. This article aims to analyse current consumer behaviour of Internet users in the Czech Republic in the field of tourism.
The paper aims at distinguishing the assumptions and component parts of financial system sustainability formation. Partly, sustainability of financial system can be expressed through the functions of financial system. Three financial subsystems are distinguished in the research: public finance, business finance and personal finance. The sustainable and efficient operation of each subsystem contributes to the sustainability of financial system as a whole. Also, sustainability of each of the subsystem can be measured by different indicators. In order to determine the strength of impact of various financial functions to the financial system such indicators as capital investments into financial and insurance activities, financial and insurance activities’ value added, as well as value of production and purchase of goods and services by the financial companies is analysed. Finally, the scheme of financial system sustainability is presented. The key conclusion of the research states that the synergistic effect of sustainable development of three fields of finance influences the sustainable development of the whole financial system and even can spread its impact beyond the limits of financial system.
The presence of organized crime strongly affects sustainable waste management in Italy. In particular, illegal trafficking of waste has become one of the fastest growing areas of crime and one of the most lucrative industries among organized criminal activities, which has now infiltrated both the Italian urban and hazardous waste management cycle. In this study, we aim to investigate the determinants of the illegal trafficking of waste using waste, economic, and enforcement data in a panel analysis over the period 2002-2013. The topic is particularly relevant, given the high heterogeneity across Italian regions which also relates, and eventually leads, to different environmental performances. Our main findings reveal that, in most Italian regions, enforcement activities do not exert a significant deterrence on criminal behaviors; a negative relationship between enforcement and illegal trafficking of waste can be identified only for very high levels of enforcement efforts. Moreover, we find that the major determinants influencing the rate of illegal trafficking of waste differ between northern-central and southern regions, confirming the existence of a regional dualism. In particular, while in the northern-central area the crime rate is positively related to the level of education and negatively to the adoption of environmentally sound policies, in southern regions the organized activities for illegal trafficking are negatively related to the degree of education attainment and positively to the endowment of waste management plants.
This research article presents sustainable model system based framework derived from the scholarly investigation into the existent research literature on social entrepreneurship. The social entrepreneurship is emerging as a viable alternative to the traditional institutional setups for making a sustainable impact and reach towards the underserved needs of the low-income population living in the developing economies. The existing research on social entrepreneurship lacks focus on creating an integrated framework thereby posing a limitation to the entry, growth and penetration of the social entrepreneurship based market setup. The sustainable model system comprises a combination of the constraining conditions and key choices. The constraining conditions include the environmental and firm-specific constraints like need addressed, mission type and socio-economic objectives. The relative impact and significance of the key choices vary for different social enterprises depending upon the applicable constraining conditions.
The article analyses an in-house procurement concept in the contexts of scientific doctrine, substantive law and legal practice. The Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EC is discussed in the part of provisions regulating cases where a public contract between public entities is not a subject to public procurement procedures. In addition, statistical data of in-house procurements in Lithuania are presented and threats of in-house procurement concept application as well as possibilities of improvement thereof are assessed.
Do foreign controlled firms exhibit a different environmental performance from domestically controlled ones for ‘developed countries’? The aim of this paper is to examine whether foreign firms are more environmentally sustainable than their domestic counterparts, i.e., the Pollution Halo Hypothesis generally analysed in developing countries. By using firm-level panel data over the time period 2002-2006, this study explores the differences in environmental performance -measured by air and water pollution emissions—of Italian dirty-firms with different types of ownership: Foreign multinational enterprises (FMNEs), National multinational enterprises (NMNEs) and Domestic enterprises (DOMESTICs). Econometric results show that foreign ownership does not influence air and water pollution emissions, suggesting the lack of evidence of a Pollution Halo Hypothesis in developed countries.
The goal of this research is to formulate the notion of sustainable dispute resolution and distinguish main characteristics of those dispute resolution procedures that can be considered to be sustainable having an idea of bringing together sustainability, law and dispute resolution. Thus the object of the research – dispute resolution procedures, their main features and capability to be qualified as sustainable. The research is composed of introduction, two parts and conclusions. Introduction provides a brief overview of the object of that research and its goal, part one describes main criteria for distinguishing the sustainable dispute resolution, in part two analysis of sustainability in main dispute resolution processes (negotiation, mediation, conciliation, arbitration and litigation) is presented. Conclusion gives main ideas of the assignment of that work in brief.