No abstract

Research background: Social services are the main social tool used for the prevention and solution of social exclusion and its risk. Services of social prevention are focused on the well-being of the whole society and they prevent it from the influence of a wide range of socio-economic phenomena related to social exclusion, understood in multidimensional terms. Purpose of the article: The purpose of the paper is to evaluate districts of the Czech Republic with respect to selected socio-economic factors that lead or can lead to social exclusion, when the emphasis is placed on the exclusion of children and youth, and to identify the causes of differences existing among these districts within the period of years 2011?2016. Methods: The paper focuses on multi-criterial assessment of districts of the Czech Republic using 23 indicators covering main aspects of social exclusion, which are processed with the Technique of Order Preference Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS technique) in combination with the Coefficient of Variance method used to determine the indicators? weight. The results obtained using these methods are completed by the Moran?s index, Shapiro-Wilk test, Mann-Whitney test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Kendall Rank Coefficient and Levene?s test. Findings & value added: A small number of districts with very negative assessment, with the presence of social exclusion and its higher risk, respectively, are identified. Differences among regions are constant and could not be assigned to randomness or disposable changes in the structure of indicators. Higher number of children born to unmarried mothers can be considered a typical aspect of the districts with higher risk of the social exclusion. The methods applied in the research, whose results and findings are presented in the paper, can be inspiring to further studies focusing on the social exclusion in its multidimensionality. The research is framed with the European Union discourse of social exclusion, thus the presented findings also open space for the comparisons and discussions of the factors associated with the social exclusion in other European Union Member States.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) is considered one of the most important external resources of finance that can contribute to sustainable development in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The Czech Republic, as an official donor country, should spend on ODA, with respect to the EU and national targets, at least 0.33% of its GNI by the year 2030. Eradication of poverty in the context of sustainable development belongs to the long-term priorities of the Czech foreign development cooperation, and thus the Czech Republic considers some LDCs, which population is more likely to live in extreme poverty, the priority partner countries. Paper evaluated fundamental trends of the Czech Republic’s ODA flows to LDCs; compared them with the trends identified for the collective flows of all DAC members and for the flows of its four selected members (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia). Identified trends of Czech ODA flows showed clearly that Czech Republic did not meet official commitments regarding the volume of ODA and that level of fragmentation of the ODA flows to LCDs was quite high when these trends were examined during the period 2000–2018. However, the Czech Republic’s development cooperation policy did not differ markedly from the policies of the other four ODA donors. Any significant differences were identified when the fundamental trends of Czech ODA flows were compared with those ones identified for Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Civil society organizations represent important actors in delivery of development assistance. International community recognizes them not only as actors on their own, but also as the contractors of the official governmental programmes and projects. Their involvement in development policies of donor countries has been especially emphasized since the 1990s, and it is generally regarded as valuable in fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Governments of the Central European Countries also cooperate with civil society organizations in development policies, and use them inter alia as the channels for aid delivery. However, the level in which governments use their services in delivery of the Official Development Assistance differs. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify and evaluate territorial and sectoral distribution of the ODA gross disbursements of Czechia channelled using civil society organizations, and to compare this distribution with the ones found in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Through civil society organizations Czechia has allocated nearly 1⁄4 of its total volume of ODA gross disbursements related to individual programmes and projects during the period between 2014 and 2018. However, the Hungarian government cooperated with civil society organizations marginally, and their participation reached a maximum level of 6% in 2018. Civil society organizations, participating in development policies of the Central European Countries, were involved mainly in the programmes and projects concerning social infrastructure and services, which complies with their traditional and most common roles.

P.A. Samuelson, one of the most important economists of the 20 th century, died in December last year. P.A. Samuelson influenced significantly economics in many ways. Revealed preference theory can be considered as his main contribution to microeconomic analysis and as one of the fundamental thoughts in consumer theory. Samuelson´s theory has been extended gradually (e.g. by H.S. Houthakker) and is used in many areas of economics. The aim of this paper is to describe the Samuelson´s process of formulation of basic revealed preference theory thought, to define its relation to WARP and SARP and to show use of revealed preference in index theory to evaluation of consumer´s welfare changes. The paper is conceived as a theoretical one, it can be considered as a basis for possible further analysis.