O10 - Economic Development: GeneralReturn

A. Toffler was an American writer, a journalist, a speculative and futurist-sociologist often referred to as the "guru" of futurology, and the author of a number of influential world bestsellers. He is famous in the wider public through works concerning the impacts of modern technologies, digitalisation, the information revolution, and great civilization waves in the rapidly approaching future.

Europe 2020 is a set of eight indicators used by the European Commission for monitoring headline targets of the Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth, which is considered to be the successor of the Lisbon Strategy. Values of these indicators vary among the European countries. Because some countries can be identified as outliers, robust regression as an acceptable analytic tool was applied. The aim of the paper is to construct relevant regression models for each Europe 2020 indicator as a dependent variable. The targets of the Europe 2020 indicators can be achieved by targeting some specific economic, social and environmental indicators.

The aim of this paper is to describe the current situation of the least developed countries (LDCs). After briefly explaining their historical development, this paper presents the current definition criteria for LDCs as well as their up-to-date list. The position of the LDCs within the international community is briefly explained on the example of changing strategies of international development partners towards achieving progress in the LDCs. Finally, the progress of the LDCs towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is assessed. The assessment shows that if the current development is not accelerated, the majority of the MDGs will not be met by 2015 as planned. In the recent past it was thought that the right way to speed up the economic and social developments in the LDCs is their growing engagement in international trade. This paper shows empirical evidence of the impacts international trade has had on the LDCs' economies in the recent past. It proves again that the solution for the LDCs does not lie in any single measure. To significantly decrease the proportion of the population living in poverty in any country, the country must be able to provide its people with a sufficient number of paid employment opportunities.