The Impact of Social and Tax Policies on Families with Children: Comparative Study of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

The paper compares the impact of government measures focused on families with children in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The ageing of population and the decline in fertility rates will in future importantly influence economic as well as social environment in the European countries. One of the responses on declining fertility rates is the promotion of demographic renewal in Europe through various kinds of policy measures ranging from better availability of quality provisions for combining child care and work, child care facilities and family support. We focus on the overall financial impact of governmental policies on families with children in the four examined countries. The paper evaluates impact of government subsidies and tax systems in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia on the net income of families with children compared to the childless couples.family policy, income taxation, subsidies, fertility

The Financial Impact of Government Policies on Families with Children in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia

In the presented paper we focus on the two ways in which family policy influences life of the society. Firstly, we discuss incentives that the family policy provides to families when they are deciding about having a child. Secondly, we describe the impact of family policies on standard of living and well-being of the families with children. European countries already acknowledged the fact that increase in the fertility rates would be natural solution of the ageing of the European population and family policy is seen as one of the tools available to achieve higher fertility rates. At the same time empirical evidence suggests that the families with children are overrepresented among the population at risk of poverty and family policy can be seen as an instrument for alleviating the financial burden of the families with children. Presented study compares the impact of the government policies on the net income of families with children in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Comparative ana lysis of the birth grants, the maternity allowances, the child-rearing allowances and child allowances in the four examined countries is undertaken followed by the assessment of tax systems in these countries. Second part of the paper is devoted to the discussion of the income situation of the families with children in the four countries and tries to shed light on the impact of family benefit system on the households with dependent children. Our results indicate that family provisions in the Czech Republic and Hungary are relatively generous with the Czech system working simultaneously as a social assistance to poor families and the Hungarian system working on much less of a sliding scale of benefits. Poland provides only very modest financial support to families with children and the burden imposed by the parenthood is much heavier than in the three other countries. Czech and Slovak family support systems are similar in its structure but amounts paid to Slovak families are lower.Family policy, income taxation, subsidies, fertility, family benefits

Strategic Referring in Labor Market Social Networks

We present a model of job search in which information about job opportunities is available either through direct search at the labor market or through network of socially tied individuals. We consider two cases - altruistic and self-interested agents that maximize their utility function. We show that optimal strategies range between full and no referring cases. Altruistic individuals tend to refer more than selfinterested agents. Strategic referring allows agents alleviate employment variation and leads to higher average utility levels and lower unemployment rates.agent-based modeling; networks; strategy; job referring

ERAWATCH Country Reports 2012: Croatia

This analytical country report is one of a series of annual ERAWATCH reports produced for EU Member States and Countries Associated to the Seventh Framework Programme for Research of the European Union (FP7). The main objective of the ERAWATCH Annual Country Reports is to characterise and assess the performance of national research systems and related policies in a structured manner that is comparable across countries. The Country Report 2012 builds on and updates the 2011 edition. The report identifies the structural challenges of the national research and innovation system and assesses the match between the national priorities and the structural challenges, highlighting the latest developments, their dynamics and impact in the overall national context. They further analyse and assess the ability of the policy mix in place to consistently and efficiently tackle these challenges. These reports were originally produced in December 2012, focusing on policy developments over the previous twelve months. The reports were produced by independent experts under direct contract with IPTS. The analytical framework and the structure of the reports have been developed by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the Joint Research Centre (JRC-IPTS) and Directorate General for Research and Innovation with contributions from external experts.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

Primjena hlađenja za konzerviranje živežnih namirnica

Hlađenje je jedan od starih i poznatih načina, kojim se konzerviraju živežne namirnice. Pored ovog načina možemo namirnice sačuvati od kvara tako da ih kuhamo, sušimo, dimimo itd., a pritom se njihov vanjski izgled, okus i kemijski sastav manje ili više promijeni

Hlađenje mlijeka

U mljekarstvu se potroši najviše hladnoće za hlađenje mlijeka, pa ćemo stoga istražiti, koliko nam je potrebno vode za hlađenje mlijeka

Generalizations of Tucker-Fan-Shashkin lemmas

Tucker and Ky Fan's lemma are combinatorial analogs of the Borsuk-Ulam theorem (BUT). In 1996, Yu. A. Shashkin proved a version of Fan's lemma, which is a combinatorial analog of the odd mapping theorem (OMT). We consider generalizations of these lemmas for BUT-manifolds, i.e. for manifolds that satisfy BUT. Proofs rely on a generalization of the OMT and on a lemma about the doubling of manifolds with boundaries that are BUT-manifolds.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Diffusion processes on complex networks

In this paper we apply agent-based methodology on an issue that is fundamental for economic prosperity and growth: the diffusion of innovations. The diffusion of innovations is one of the topics where agent-based simulation is an extremely fruitful method allowing not only the observation of stable states but also the process and development of the diffusion. Furthermore, empirical studies revealed that the topological structure of interactions among individuals importantly influences the diffusion's course and outcomes. We analyze diffusion outcomes for five different topologies, assuming markets where individuals are highly influenced by the adoption decision of their peers and innovations are introduced into the markets in two different ways: mass media campaigns and seeding procedures. Our results indicate that the topology of the relations among individuals importantly influences the speed and development of the diffusion process as well as final market penetration. Scale free topology seems to promote fast innovation diffusion, at the same time being characterized by the high uncertainty of the diffusion outcomes. Less heterogeneous networks (small worlds, two-dimensional lattice and ring) yield a much slower diffusion of the innovation, at the same time being much less unpredictable than scale free topology