With the public discussion absent, Slovakia introduced strict cash payment limits. Only 7 member countries offer stricter limits. Yet, the problems of the “age of cash” have not disappeared – and new risks emerged. March 2012 parliamentary elections, which came after the premature fall of the center-right wing government, gave Slovakia one-party government for the…
Tom is the most expensive cat in the world. The Chinese bought him from a young Slovenian couple for a billion dollars. Even from our own local experience, we know that the Chinese buy any damn thing. So what? If you have children, you probably know the talking cat Tom. The cat with huge eyes…
The slowdown in raising the deductible item did exactly what the government needed. More taxes are paid to the budget and people have not even noticed it. Have you noticed that the basic rate of income tax has been changed in tax law? Of course, the number 19 percent stayed unchanged. However, what has been…
On April 28, 2017, INESS in cooperation with Austrian Economics Center organized in Slovakia Free Market Road Show, a part of a series of conferences and panel discussions that tours all over Europe – from Scandinavia to Montenegro, from Spain to Ukraine. Over 400 experts participate overall, presenting aspects of key economic questions in 45…
Robert Miskuf, CEO and founder of Pedal Consulting, a business development consultancy based in the Slovak Republic, started working in European public procurement eight years ago — and his job was mired in paperwork. “Every morning, I had to visit 27 websites and look for newly published calls for tenders,” he said. For any given…
Unless you were hiding in the woods, you couldn’t have missed the screaming headlines about Oxfam’s inequality report last month. Much outrage was directed at the eight men who own the same wealth as half the world does. If you weren’t already hiding in the woods, you might have been tempted to head in that direction. The blood…
In recent months the media have begun to discuss the cashless economy, which does not use physical cash but only credit cards or other forms of electronic payment (e.g. PayPal). It seems that the inconspicuous but intense war against cash is taking place gradually – cash transfers are being limited step by step in most of the…
Small entrepreneurs in Slovakia spend 140 hours annually — about 17.5 full working days — navigating the country’s complex regulatory red tape. That’s one of the startling findings from the new “Bureaucracy Index” launched by the Institute of Economic and Social Studies (INESS), an Atlas Network partner based in Slovakia. Those 140 hours of regulatory…
The rich know how to evade taxes better than the middle class. After the Panama papers leak, this much should be clear even to the less well-informed. Every name plucked from the Panama bag, over-brimming with appalling news as it is, adds to the allure of Asian property and income anonymization schemes. Migrations towards the…
Long term unemployed employment support is missing a building block. (Notes from an expert seminar). Panelists at the expert seminar: Radovan Ďurana (INESS) (presentation) Peter Goliaš (INEKO) (presentation) Marek Radvanský (Institute of Economics, Slovak Academy of Sciences) (presentation) Tomáš Smutný (HUMANex, s.r.o.) More than 20 representatives of NGOs, Roma employment organizations, journalists, politicians, embassies’ representatives…
Speech given in Bratislava on the 12th August 2014 to the Institute of Economic and Social Studies (INESS) by Sean Gabb. It is a point of orthodoxy among British advocates of the free market that Britain should leave the European Union. This is an orthodoxy that, between 1999 and 2001, I did much to impose…
