Introduction. The increasing measurability of performances in the public sector in the countries of the post-soviet region, including Hungary, has come to the limelight in recent decades. Accrual accounting, adopted in Hungary in 2014 on the recommendation of the European Union, provides decision-makers with reliable information and simultaneously improves transparency in spending. Purpose and Methodology. This study focuses on the impacts and synergies of the parallel comprehensive reforms in the public finances and the adoption of the accrual accounting system. We conducted an empirical research among 2425 budgetary organisations (during June 2018 - January 2019) and analysed the correlation between the variables with cross-table analysis. Our survey covered 19.1 per cent of all the budget organisations in Hungary. Thus, thanks to the sample size the survey results analysis gives a comprehensive view of the entire country based on the real feedback regarding the implementation of the new practices. Results. In the course of the survey, the organisations were asked to describe how they were affected by the transition to the new accounting system, how they had prepared for the statutory changes and compliance, what additional tasks the adoption of the new system required of them, and how they evaluated the impacts of the application of accrual accounting after five years. The inquiry focussed on the impact this new accrual-based accounting system had on the business management of the given organisation and thus the efficient use of public funds. The results confirm that the historical background and the peculiarities of managing public funds in a country should also be taken into account during the adoption of reforms along with thorough preparation. Our research also sheds light on the fact that the successful 2014 adoption of accrual accounting could achieve its full purpose in an environment ensured by comprehensive public finance reforms and laws adopted after 2010. In other words, the precondition of enforcing the new rules of accrual accounting applied in the public sector included the reinforcement of budgetary regulation and control procedures. Conclusion. The study reports more favourable public sector procedures, proves that the adoption of accrual accounting has been justified and that the higher focus on performance and efficiency achieved through accrual accounting is important.

Recently, the management of the green financial sector has been widely influenced by global socio-economic concerns such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate, besides their environmental attitude, what opinions and experiences the affected stakeholders have about the sustainability-related processes in the Hungarian banking sector in the early 2020s. To assess this subject extensively, two questionnaire surveys were conducted in two consecutive years (2020/2021 and 2021/2022), involving 600 and 1,600 participants randomly chosen from banking databases, respectively. The results indicate that both residential and corporate participants have various but broadening knowledge of green financial instruments. Hungarian residential customers have pointed out the inconveniences of the most popular green loan product (Green Home Program), while there appears a distinct difference in green investment preferences between the two groups of respondents. Hungarian stakeholders are quite eco-conscious, and so are banks adopting sustainability and climate risk assessment actions, however, the implementations have much potential to exploit. Respondents also identify the energy crisis-related risks, while their trust in the banking system remains high even under volatile circumstances. These findings demonstrate that the Hungarian green banking sector has a high degree of crisis resistance with residential and corporate stakeholders behind giving trust and thereby the driving force toward the successful green transition.

A környezeti (E), szociális (S) és kormányzati (G) kritériumoknak való megfelelésről a vállalatoknak az ún. nem pénzügyi információkra vonatkozó közzétételek szabályrendszere (keretrendszer) szerint kell beszámolniuk. Tanulmányunkban azt vizsgáljuk, hogy milyen jellemzői vannak az ESG-jelentéseknek, azok tükrözik-e az egyes piaci szereplők fenntarthatósági tevékenységét, és melyek a kérdéskör legkurrensebb problémái. Kutatásaink során arra a megállapításra jutottunk, hogy számos egymással párhuzamosan létező – eltérő adatok közzétételét előíró – kötelező és önkéntes közzétételi előírás van, amelyek ezért csak részlegesen alkalmasak a vállalkozások fenntarthatósági tevékenységének az összehasonlítására. A vállalati jelentések egy része emellett csak alapelvi szinten foglalkozik az ESG-kérdésekkel, és csak kisebb hányaduk számol be konkrét intézkedésekről és elért eredményekről. Éppen ezért megfogalmaztuk azokat a javaslatokat is, amelyek a vállalatok ESG-mutatók alapján történő összemérhetőségét támogatják.

The study focuses on corporate social responsibility, which is of pivotal significance in the banking sectors of the countries of the so-called Visegrád Group, located in the Central European region and representing similar levels of economic development (V4). The aim of this paper is to examine the changes in the CSR activities of notable banks in the V4 countries between 2007, 2013 and 2018. The study consisted of three phases: first, it determined the relevant CSR goals based on the content (document) analysis; then, a questionnaire survey was conducted among banks for three years (2007, 2013, 2018); and finally, the data were analyzed using variance analysis. As a result of the first phase, 15 CSR activities were identified, and as a result of a questionnaire survey, the focus of each CSR area was presented on a spider-web diagram showing a shift in the “priority order” of CSR areas and target groups, in other words, the intensification of activity towards social groups closer to the activities of banks or even clients. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this study confirmed with primary research that the focus of CSR activities in the V4 countries has shifted from general societal challenges to climate protection and the development of financial culture. These results were also evidenced by multivariate statistical methods proving a significant change in 66% of the examined areas.

This paper explores the characteristics and inter-relationships of tax systems in the OECD countries over the period 2014–2020, i.e., from a relatively consolidated economic period until the end of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. A predictable tax system is essential for the proper functioning of the economy. One of our two main research objectives was to develop a composite indicator for taxation, consisting of tax rates and tax administration time. This composite indicator was then tested using multivariate statistical methods. Our second research objective was to explore the correlation between tax rates, tax burden indicators and macroeconomic indicators over the period 2014–2020, focusing on three years, 2014, 2019 and 2020. An important criterion for the choice of the study years was that 2014 was considered the first overall year of recovery from the crisis, 2019 the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2020 the first year affected by the pandemic. We investigated the significant differences between the composite indicator categories and the tax burden macroeconomic indicators, and examined and tested correlations between the variables under study (tax rates, tax burden and macroeconomic variables). We found that the amount of working time spent on tax administration is decreasing, presumably due to the increasingly digitalised environment, but this trend has been slightly interrupted by the pandemic. Furthermore, we found that countries with more complex tax systems with a high tax burden perform worse on certain macroeconomic indicators, mainly in southern Europe from a geographical perspective; however, these potentially more burdensome, higher-rate tax systems of more developed countries do not put these countries at a competitive disadvantage. This reflects on the fact that these countries rely on the monetarist school rather than the Keynesian school, a fact which was also compared and considered in our paper.