International Economic Relations and Business

During the past decade the Bulgarian furniture industry has witnessed a high growth of its exports, maintaining almost invariably a positive trade balance. In the context of intensified global competition, the aim of the paper is to present an assessment of the current situation and international competitiveness of the Bulgarian furniture industry for the period 2003-2012. A systemic analysis is conducted by using competitiveness indices such as international market share, relative trade balance, revealed comparative advantage and others. The results show that Bulgaria has a comparative advantage in the furniture manufacturing but still falls behind its competitors in terms of quality and unit price. The paper employs a SWOT analysis of the furniture industry, suggesting measures to enhance its international competitiveness.

A number of empirical studies have acknowledged the special properties of manufacturing as an engine of growth such as: dynamic economies of scale in manufacturing; strong backward and forward linkages between manufacturing and other sectors of the domestic economy; strong properties of learning-by-doing; innovation and technological progress; and the importance of manufacturing for the balance of payments. Nowadays many developed countries (the USA, the UK, France, etc.) are pursuing reindustrialization as they are aware of the costs of deindustrialization: external deficits and indebtedness; lowering of the skill level of jobs; decline in potential growth.
The paper looks at the process of deindustrialization which Bulgaria underwent during the economic transformation and the current state of the country’s industrial competitiveness. It is argued that reindustrialization is an objective necessity for the needed sustainable catching up development and has to be fostered by a proper industrial strategy.

The deep political and economic changes after the disintegration of the Eastern bloc in the early 90s of the 20th century affected most unfavourably Bulgaria’s economic ties with Russia. The paper looks at the current status (up to 2012) of Bulgarian-Russian trade relations. Its aim is to show how Bulgaria performs in its bilateral trade relations with Russia during the last decade and to consider the existing opportunities in the context of EU membership for its intensification. It has been argued that given the existing preconditions the bilateral exchange between Bulgaria and Russia, which is predominantly of an inter-industry type, is of a rather low level. Reinvigorating the bilateral trade would require active support from the state administration.

In the European Union industrial policy is pursued at two levels – supranational and national. No matter that the EU has competence only to carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States, it exerts a significant influence on their industrial policies. On one hand the EU has ample constraining powers on the policy space that the New Member States may use to foster economic catching up, but on the other hand it provides financial support through the Structural funds, fosters trade openness, increased flow of foreign direct investment, improved legal and institutional framework. Recognizing the importance of industrial competitiveness, the European Commission launched in 2010 an ambitious new industrial policy as part of the Europe 2020 strategy that gives a clear signal for more active industrial policies on a national level as well. The paper looks at the changes in the EU stance towards industrial policy and the challenges in front of the EU poorest Member State Bulgaria in its efforts to achieve structural transformation and technological upgrading of its economy.

In this paper we have tried to estimate the pollution and resource intensity of Bulgaria’s export to the EU over the phase of European integration and globalization. The environmental impacts of liberalization of Bulgaria’s trade with the EU is investigated by monitoring trends in allocation of resources that could be pursued through changes in composition of exports by factor intensity.

The paper starts by clarifying the concept of human development which was originally introduced as an alternative to the conceptions of development concentrated on economic growth. In the context of the human development paradigm, income and economic growth are a means and not an end to development, and people’s well-being depends on how income is used to achieve higher quality of life standards.
The paper then describes and assesses the economic performance through changes in human development in South-Eastern European countries since 1990. The transition to a market economy proved to be an arduous task for these countries which recorded a much slower social and economic progress and respectively lower index of human development compared to Central and Eastern European Countries. In today’s globalized world healthier and well educated human resources represent the essential prerequisite for a nation’s competitiveness and sustainable prosperity. It is inferred that in order for economic growth to be sustained a focus on human development should be put a top priority in pursuing any national development policies and strategies.

The international flow of systematic knowledge and its successful utilization and absorption into domestic production and management processes are a key determinant for the ability of catching-up economies to compete in the global market and to narrow the technological gaps with developed economies. One of the most important dynamic effects of regional economic integration is the enhanced possibility of international technology transfer among participating countries. The European integration provides such an opportunity for the technological laggard Bulgaria. The objective of the paper is to provide an analysis of market-mediated international transfer of technology to Bulgaria after its European Union accession through the following major channels: foreign trade, foreign direct investment, licensing. The results show that the process of technological catching-up is not an automatic one and Bulgaria does not leverage its EU membership sufficiently to embark on a sustainable path of technological upgrading.

The relevance of the study is determined by the change of technological structure of the Russian economy: digital technologies are becoming an integral part of the fulfilling life of both individual and legal entities. The use of digital technologies in the activities of manufacturing enterprises allows them to become more competitive. However, the change in almost all processes of an enterprise because of digitalization simplifies some of them and reduces their cost but complicates others and makes them more expensive. In addition, the digitalization leads to the emergence of new processes at enterprises that often means the emergence of new risks and additional costs. The purpose of this research is to study the impact of the digitalization on activities of industrial enterprises. Objectives of the study are: to study the concept of digitalization, areas of activity of industrial enterprises as well as consequences of the introduction of digital technologies into each of the activ...

Kazakhstan has managed to benefit from its considerable endowments of natural resources during the commodity price boom in the 2000s. However, the global crisis of 2008-09 has demonstrated that relying on a single sector prone to high price volatility cannot be a viable strategy for development. The government of Kazakhstan well realizes that and for already 2 decades has been pursuing various industrial policy initiatives to build a more diversified and competitive economy. The paper aims to examine how successful were those policies by applying various indicators of export diversification. The results show that progress has been very limited as the country’s export basket is highly concentrated and still dominated by oil. This suggests that Kazakhstan should ensure better implementation, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of its diversification initiatives.

Digitalization affects universities, including management decision-making processes. Different management decisions require different data sets. The paper studies the issues of making managerial decisions at the university on the development and promotion of basic educational programs at the educational services market based on the results of data inventory. Two approaches are proposed: the study of data belonging to the university, and the search for the necessary data in the external environment. The article identifies the areas that need to be studied in order to make managerial decisions on ways to promote the main educational programs at the university, and analyzes the information accumulated both inside the university and in the external environment. The authors of the article proposed an algorithm for database inventory, which involves the identification of data sources, including digital traces, the analysis of the authority to use databases with the necessary registries of...

The Global Recession influenced negatively the Bulgarian machine building, which is an industry with high export orientation largely dependent on foreign markets for selling its products. The aim of the paper is to review what changes have happened in the last 10 years in Bulgaria's machinery branch that, being technology and capital intensive industry producing high value added and having good conditions for innovative development, is identified for support by various state's agencies and strategies. Various indicators on output, turnover, investment, employment, exports, imports, etc. and their dynamics over the last decade have been analyzed.