Nemanja Karapavlović
Ljubica Komazec and Marko Aleksić
Disturbing media pictures of the deterioration and disappearance of villages in almost all parts of the Republic of Serbia (RS), as a consequence of insufficient progress in the implementation of the paradigm of the rural way of life, desirable and necessary for any community and any economy, are an alarming call to every subject of the society to do whatever they are entitled to and capable of to stop these unfavorable processes. The potentials of a small rural community in RS to survive and develop for its own benefit and for the benefit of the society as a whole have studied in this article. Bearing in mind the fact that relevant social documents have their significance and role in all social processes, but are not a sufficient precondition for their improvement, the authors surveyed and interviewed the local population in the Velebit village about their attitudes, potentials, needs and limitations regarding the establishment of and their permanent involvement in organic agricultural production necessary for the village to survive and improve its economic and social position. The research results show that the inhabitants of the village of Velebit are interested in remaining in the countryside and setting up organic agricultural production, but they need assistance, both advisory and financial, as they lack sufficient capacities for it.
Dragomir Dimitrijević
Financial statements which consist of objective, real and reliable information represent the key basis for making many business decisions. If, when writing financial statements, certain manipulation techniques are used for displaying the best possible results of transactions, the quality of financial reports will be endangered. Many financial frauds have led to a great mistrust in the system of financial reporting and the profession of accounting and auditing, which are often accused of the emergence of fraud and losing trust in the reliability of financial information by many users and economic decision makers. These are the reasons why the paper discusses the techniques of manipulation in financial statements, especially in balance sheets and cash flow statements, since these forms of manipulation are harder to detect and prevent when compared to manipulations of revenues and expenses in the income statement.
Zoran Stefanović
The paper provides an insight into the dominant trends of contemporary evolutionary economics and outlines the important issues related to the articulation of this approach in thinking about the economy. The paper also affirms a proposition on institutions as carrier structures of socio-economic evolution, whose numerous effects at the societal level are decoded through the coordination function. In addition to the market, the process of coordination also employs other non-market institutional structures, whose profile and operational principles are the product of the trajectories of cultural and historical evolution, different among social orders. Projects aimed at the transformation of the economic system are to be sensitized to an objectively conditioned diversity of the institutional structures of the world economy, and in this sense, should be very careful in the installation of „universal” reform solutions.
Nenad Janković
The concept of a twin deficit relates to a budget deficit and a current account deficit. In the literature, there is no unique answer to the question of what the causal relationship between these deficits is. In any case, the existence of these deficits indicates that the spending of a country is higher than its production and investments are greater than savings. The form of financing could be a potential problem, as well as the manner of the use of these funds. Crisis situations contribute to the increasing importance of the issue. In these situations, those countries where a budget deficit chronically appears and which do not have enough domestic savings to finance excessive government spending will be in a worse position. The Republic of Serbia (RS) belongs to the group of countries where a budget deficit is a chronic phenomenon financed by external sources; therefore, the paper will analyze the issue of a twin deficit.
Yuan Xiaoling and He Bin
Given the fact that the existing evaluation and analysis of urban efficiency are negligent of external negative effects on the environment in the medium and long term, this paper constructs an SBM – an undesirable model containing an undesirable output, measures the urban efficiency of 285 cities in China at or above the prefecture level during 2003-2012, decomposes it into urban pure technical efficiency and urban scale efficiency and makes a comparative analysis of them separately. The results show that, when the environmental factors are taken into account, the level of urban efficiency in China is low, but is a large room for it to improve. The impact of the decomposition of urban scale efficiency on urban efficiency is continuously enhancing. From a regional perspective, urban pure technical efficiency is the highest in the eastern region, only to be followed by the western region, whereas it is the lowest in the middle region. From the point of view of the scale, urban pure technical efficiency represents a „U-type” change and urban scale efficiency represents an „inverted U” change. Therefore, this paper suggests that in order to improve urban efficiency, we should adopt different urban development policies for cities located in different regions and on different scales.
Vlastimir Leković
The research, focusing on the specific key aspects of economic inequality as well as economic equality, by analyzing numerous theoretical, methodological and empirical views concerning the mentioned socioeconomic phenomena, aims to identify the following related and relevant aspects that affect the efficiency of the functioning of a modern economy: a) economic inequality that has a stimulating effect on the creative, productive and innovative use of all production factors positively affects the functioning of the economy and is socially justifiable; b) a high level of economic inequality, which shows a tendency to further increase, has a negative effect on the economic system indicators as well as the stability of the society and the political environment, therefore resulting in a weaker economic performance and a lower economic growth rate; c) economic equality (certainly not egalitarianism), by contributing to greater social and political stability, which in turn reflects positively on economic stability and efficiency, is the basis for a greater success of the modern economy and dynamic economic growth rates. The main result of this study is assessing the basic factors of high and rising economic inequality and its implications for the functioning of modern economies, and accordingly, pointing to the need to implement economic policies that would lower economic inequality and mitigate its adverse consequences for the economy and the society.
Slavica P. Petrovic
Issue 2 of Volume 17, Year 2015 of the Economic Horizons scientific journal contains three original scientific papers and two review papers, the preliminary communication, a book review and the acknowledgements to the reviewers of the manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Board of the Journal in 2014.