O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic DevelopmentReturn

In 2000 the European Council adopted to the European Union for a period of 10 years the aim to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more jobs and better working place, including social cohesion and respect for the environment. The Lisbon strategy was than followed up by the Europe 2020 strategy, which incorporated the revised goals of the Lisbon Strategy in order to become the most competitive economy in the world. Howerver the concept of the competitive state remains unclear. This article aims to show the major currents of thought and definitions, respectively, the concept of competitiveness of countries. The article is based on literary research, and summarizes the main concepts and definitions of competitiveness of nations, the concept of "external competitiveness", the concept of "aggregate competitiveness", the concept of "multi-criteria competitiveness" and finally, the concept of "systemic competitiveness". The main contribution of the article is the clear description of the conceptual and theoretical concept of the competitiveness of the countries and the identification of decisive factors and determinants of the competitiveness of the nations.

The topic of the relationship between human capital and economic growth has been intensively examined in empirical studies since the 1980s. Although the positive impact of education and human capital on growth has been repeatedly confirmed, there are still doubts about the strength and probable inverse causality of the relationship. The quality of human capital is frequently mentioned in the empirical literature as an important factor which can help to understand and properly determine the link. The quality of human capital is a key focus of this paper. It tests and confirms the hypothesis that the quality is an important factor which significantly influences the intensity of the relationship. The main hypothesis has been tested using the dynamic panel data technique (GMM estimation) on panel data covering 65 countries in 1960-2005. It has been confirmed that the years of schooling have a higher positive impact on economic growth in countries with a higher quality of education.

The study describes the concept of the Czechoslovak economic reform prepared in 1964-65 and introduced gradually in 1966-68. The reform was, however, never fully implemented, and was scrapped following the political changes of 1968/69.
The brief introduction gives an outline of the causes which created the conditions favouring the elaboration of the draft of a new economic system which was subsequently accepted by the political leadership of the country.
The next section of the study summarizes the origin, development and demise of the reform, whose nature can be expressed by the motto from "decentralization to democratization". The main part of the study is the chapter devoted to the description and analysis of the major features of the proposed reform concept as it was formulated during the Prague Spring of 1968. These basic features are: (1) macro-economic planning, (2) a regulated market mechanism, and (3) the democratization of decision-making.
The concluding part of the study puts forward the view that the mentioned three features point to a system presenting an alternative to those that exist in the East and in the West. The statistical appendix lists and comments on data illustrating the economic results of the reform endeavour. A selection of literature compiled at the end is confined to studies published on the subject mainly by Czechoslovak economists living in the Western "exile".