ChatGPT will refuse to write you a farewell letter. However, if you alter the context slightly – for example, by saying it’s for a school essay – it will comply. Unfortunately, there have already been tragic cases where such a letter has reached its intended recipients. There are growing calls to recognise that a new…
In mid-May, opposition MPs submitted a bill on healthcare fees to parliament. A few days later came a signal from the ministry that it was preparing changes to so-called "supplementary office hours" – likely connected to the same issue. Fees come up at every other healthcare conference, and it's no secret that the ministry has…
Finding a Slovak politician willing to comment on the new EU budget proposal is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Unfortunately, the topic dominating the news these days is more whether the Commission might halt the money pipeline over resolutions from the European Parliament. Yet a meeting in Brussels has since taken place…
Two world-renowned economists, Stiglitz and Piketty, have come out of the closet. They've admitted to the world that they are degrowthers. Writing in The Guardian, they argue that "economic growth is a doomed strategy." If the goal was to grab attention and shock people, they succeeded. If the goal was to help solve poverty and…
In recent years, Slovakia has been engaged in a debate about being "stuck in the middle-income trap," about having "exhausted our growth model," and about the need to move "from assembly line to brain gain." This debate matters. The trouble is that its vocabulary tempts us into a far too mechanical view of prosperity. Let…
There is no shortage of confident predictions online about how AI will trigger a major wave of lay-offs. The professions said to be most at risk are those that leave behind digital traces. These traces can be collected, turned into large databases and then used to train AI models to identify patterns and generate their…
On April 22, 2026, INESS organized an international conference “The 2026 Free Market Road Show” at the Pálffy Palace in Bratislava in cooperaction with the Austrian Economics Center. The title of the conference was “Regulatory Detox – Awakening Dormant Growth.” (Richard Ďurana – Director of INESS – during his opening remarks) This discussion was also…
The EU healthcare challenge Healthcare systems across Europe face a structural crisis. Ageing populations, staff shortages, and rigid competency boundaries are intensifying pressure on services across all member states. In Slovakia, there are around 20 people over the age of 70 for every nurse – a ratio expected to rise to 30 by 2030. Similar…
Jews cannot feel completely safe in the Western world even in the 21st century. Therefore, we have decided to publish a paper whose aim is to contribute to combating antisemitism through an economic analysis of Jewish institutions.
In nature, it is common for organisms to adapt to their environment through evolutionary processes. Giraffes in the savannah have long necks and camels in the desert have humps with fat. However, humans are the only species that have gradually adapted their environment to their needs. We have built cities and developed sanitary and energy…
The EU began negotiations with South America's Mercosur on a trade agreement in 1999. It is therefore easy to overlook how much progress has been made. In early January, the European Council authorized the signing of a partnership agreement with this South American trade bloc, whose members include Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. It…
Economists have been fascinated by the question of the origins of prosperity since the very beginning of their discipline. Today, we know much more about it than Adam Smith did 250 years ago when he wrote The Wealth of Nations. In the mid-20th century, economist Robert Solow developed a model explaining economic growth through capital…
