In this article, we have examined the effectiveness of teaching economics through project-based learning. For this purpose, we carried out an experiment at secondary schools in the Slovak Republic. We divided 123 students into control and experimental groups. In both groups, teaching was carried out on the same topic by the same teacher in the same time frame. The control group completed the traditional verbalvisual teaching with the help of a blackboard. The experimental group completed project-based learning. Then, in both groups, the students' knowledge was ascertained in the same way. We compared the results with inductive statistics to see if the difference between the results of the two groups was significant. For comparison, we chose a parametric two-sample t-test, which is used to compare the mean values of two independent samples. We managed to prove higher efficiency of teaching using project-based learning compared to traditional verbalvisual teaching. We think that project-based learning has its place among teaching methods, as it can have also other advantages over traditional teaching. This is also indicated by the results of a questionnaire, which we used to find out the opinions of students after the end of the experiment. Almost all students expressed the belief that project-based learning is very interesting.

The business sector represents one of the most important parts of the modern economy. It creates and secures most products and services, contributing to most of the sales tax revenues. Business development is not possible without creating a favorable business environment and suitable conditions for creating and entering new business into the market. This paper focuses on the evaluation of some business environment factors in starting a business. Attention is attended to the business environment and funding activities management, including the managerial assessment of proactive, innovative, and business-supporting activities. Besides, this study encompasses the issues of obstacles and barriers to starting a business. The interest of the article is to point out the state and problems in the field of start-up entrepreneurs and the importance of supporting motivational factors and removing barriers by improving the business environment. Methodological tools of the research are classical methods of science analytics, synthesis, and data selection. The basic heuristic approach consists of professional literature on the subject matter, and secondary sources obtained from European Commission, Eurostat – Flash Barometer, and the World Bank to monitor selected indicators of the business environment and SMEs in Slovakia, EU-27 countries, and the world. The primary information was represented with the questionnaire-based survey conducted throughout the Slovak Republic, in which a total count of 426 respondents participated. For hypothesis testing, the Friedman Test, Kolmogorov – Smirnov test, and Kruskal – Wallis test was used. The empiric results confirmed the significant differences between motivational factors for starting doing business. At the same time, there are still significant barriers to enter the business in Slovakia, which considerably limit the further development of doing business in Slovakia. The article provides recommendations for improving the business environment’s current status and entering into business in the Slovak Republic. Keywords: small and medium entrepreneurship, innovations, business barriers and opportunities, business management.

If a company wants to succeed in a tough competitive environment, it must consider all the options to be more visible. One of these possibilities is advertising, which exists in a considerable variety of forms. Therefore, our goal was to conduct a survey on the attitude of customers in Slovakia to several modern and traditional forms of advertising, which are used by companies for their visibility. Data were obtained from the questionnaires filled in by 244 respondents. We were interested in opinions on advertising oversaturation, the influence of advertising, annoyance by advertising, and credibility of advertising. In each of four topics, we investigated opinions on 21 different types of advertising, using non-parametric tests to determine the significance of differences, which means we used inductive statistics. According to respondents, the advertising on social networks has a higher influence than most other types of advertising. At the same time, it is not one of the most trusted forms, nor one of the most bothering forms. The right marketing strategy choice concerning time, money, form, and efficiency is a key factor to companies. Therefore, it is important for companies to use the right form or combination of forms of advertising to make themselves known depending on the type of product and its target group. To increase the sustainability of a company in the market, it is important to use the right form or combination of forms of advertising considering the product and the target group.

Cities and municipalities provide their citizens with a certain range of public services that ensure the level of the overall comfort of life in the local environment in which they live. Their intensity is higher especially in the cities, where there is a higher concentration of the population. The higher the concentration of the services and

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