The goal of this paper is to examine whether certain national cultural dimensions facilitate or hamper social entrepreneurship. The paper offers a conceptualisation of the possible associations between Hofstede's cultural dimensions and social entrepreneurial activity as defined by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, along with its empirical testing across more than 40 countries around the world. Based on correlation analysis that was controlled for the countries' level of economic development, there appears to be a negative association between the national power distance level and social entrepreneurial activity. In addition, the rate of young social entrepreneurial ventures is associated with lower levels of masculinity. The cultural dimensions of individualism and uncertainty avoidance have no direct linear association with social entrepreneurial activities of any kind. In factor-driven economies, lower levels of masculinity appear to support the development of social entrepreneurship. On the other hand, in innovation-driven economies, social entrepreneurial ventures emerge more often in those cultures characterised by shortterm orientation and indulgence.

This paper focuses on investment in research and development as a factor of labour productivity and economic growth. Our analysis confirms the link between expenditure for research and development (expressed in % of GDP) and labour productivity (expressed in the number of hours worked) based on selected data for EU Member States in the period 1995-2013. A causal link between variables of the concave parabola was confirmed, and the value of expenditure for research and development (2.85% of EU GDP) maximising productivity (per hour of work) was determined based on the examined data. In accordance with these findings, EU's target of reaching 3% of GDP spent on research and development to be achieved by 2020 seems in support of reaching maximum productivity in the EU.

This paper studies cyclic patterns in the Slovene economy with spectral analysis. It examines if the transition in Slovenia was marked by a statistically significant movement of aggregate economic activity, which corresponds to the definition of business cycle proposed by Mitchell and Burns (1946). It finds that in the period 1992–2000 a statistically significant cyclic component is present. The cyclic component oscillates with the frequency of 33.3 months. The results obtained in this paper suggest, that in the observed period two full-length cycles can be identified.

No abstract

No abstract