The objective of this paper was to explore the labor productivity growth and employment changes, thereby describing structural changes in the economies of Slovakia and Czech Republic in the time span of 1996-2016. As the main research method we chose shift-share analysis. The decomposition of the method identified the factors behind structural changes. The results shown that during the study period, the main driver of labor productivity in both economies was the upgrade of productivity itself within the industries (the socalled "within effect"). Slovakia was able to outpace Czech Republic in case of industrial production, agriculture and professional services. Employment had been evolving in both economies differently, particularly, Slovakia recorded the drop in employment in the sector of industrial production, whereas Czech Republic did not. Both economies have recorded labor switch from the primary sector to the services sector or to manufacturing. Overall taken, despite of very similar natural and geographic conditions, same political integration trends, and also similar economic background, perhaps due to the influence of sovereign policies and institutions, these two economies have been evolving differently. 314This topic is particularly important for the EU member states due to the presence of the European single market which fosters competitiveness, however, it might contribute to rising regional gap between "more" and "less" productive member states. Moreover, if particular EU states are integrated into European Monetary Union, the macroeconomic imbalances might have more profound impact on the structural stability of the whole monetary block.Recent analysis has pointed on substantial productivity growth rates in the 1990s and 2000s for the new EU member countries, particularly in the case of Czech Republic and Hungary. For instance, in the case of Czech Republic the average annual labor productivity growth rate was observed through several consecutive time periods (: 3,03%). As we can see from these numbers, impressively strong pace of growth soon became rather moderate. The analysis also indicates that the contribution of sectoral employment shifts to productivity increase is rather limited. The results identified are a likely reason for productivity gains and the shift of workers to more productive sectors (Mitkova & Dawid, 2016).Economic developments in the new EU member states during the transition period were also characterized by large shifts in the sectoral composition of GDP and employment, indicating a clear tendency of adjustment towards the broad economic structures in the EU-15. These broad shifts may thus be summarized under the headings of de-agrarization, de-industrialization and tertiarization (Havlík, 2005).The objective of the paper is twofold. First, it is to evaluate and compare the magnitude of structural changes in labor productivity and employment rearrangement across the industries of the national economies of Slovakia and Czech Republic. The second one is to identify the main fa...

Competences in the construction sector of the Slovak Republic (SR) under the current legislation are exercised at the local level of the state both by institutions of local self-government (municipalities) and state administration (district offices). The building authorities with the authority to decide on building permits are currently the municipalities to which the state has delegated building competences by Act No. 50/1976 Coll. on spatial planning and building regulations, as amended. However, the new construction legislation, effective from 1.4.2024, leads to a retroactive transfer of construction competences from municipalities to the state, to the newly created regional construction authorities. The long-awaited change in the legislation in the field of building regulations is expected to shorten the permitting processes and improve the functioning of building authorities. Municipalities will carry out the spatial planning, but the issuance of decisions on construction will be the responsibility of the state. The research presented in the paper, conducted through guided interviews with municipalities and district authorities in two selected regions of the SR, demonstrated the lack of state preparedness for the operation of the new state policy in the construction sector. We have come to a similar conclusion by theoretical analysis of the opinions of domestic and foreign authors. Optimal functioning of cooperation between state and local authorities would be possible with future legislative adjustments to the redistribution of construction proceedings between state and local self-government.

Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia, is currently experiencing a period of intensive suburbanisation, which in turn creates demand pressures and increases the price of urban land located in its hinterland. This paper investigates several locational factors, which likely significantly influence the demand for land plots and modulate `price-maker' conditions. Based on the population sample of 102 units, the results indicate that built-in infrastructure facilities on land under analysis, advanced transport connectivity in municipalities, and various amenities in the municipality cadastre tend to elevate land prices significantly. Moreover, the factor of distance from the city of Bratislava plays a major role in household location, which was identified by the apparent decreasing rent gradient pattern.

The paper's main objective is to investigate the differences in competitiveness among the EU member states. Each nation's competitiveness is determined by its government's management capabilities on the national, regional and local levels and thus poses substantial implications to economic growth. For this purpose, hierarchical clustering as the primary method of investigation was selected. The data mining process was based on extracting GCI score data about individual member states. Based on the GCI score evaluation, the cluster analysis showed two groups of EU member states, according to the 'traditional' division of old member states (OMS) and new member states (NMS). Results showed a statistically significant gap in GCI scores between the OMS and NMS. Furthermore, the within-class variability in the OMS cluster appears to be higher than in the NMS cluster, which underlines growing disparities among old member states. Most significant differences among both groups prevail in the field of institutions, ICT adoption, business dynamism and innovation. Finally, the link between achieved GCI score and average economic growth has been investigated. Contrary to expectations, more developed member states (OMS) showed, on average, relatively lower economic growth rates over the investigated period than the less developed member states (NMS). The results showed a moderately negative link between the GCI score and economic growth, which suggests that a higher GCI score does not mean achieving higher economic growth, whereas member states with lower total GCI scores could outpace the higher ones in terms of economic growth. In many aspects, the EU still resembles two rails in Europe, and a significant gap between OMS and NMS prevails. Relatively higher economic growth of NMS might help reduce the gap over time. However, it may prove a short-sighted, and significant lags in many crucial factors will stiff the competitiveness in the long term.

The main objective of the paper was an investigation of the structural relations between the industries affecting the macroeconomic performance of the Slovak economy. The scope of the paper focuses on evaluation of the productive efficiency, labor intensity and employment productivity, considering multiple backward and forward linkages among the industries. The highest production efficiency recorded Electricity & Water supply and waste management (D+E), Construction (F), and Administrative support services (N), whereas Arts and Recreation (R), Public administration (O) and Heath care (Q) recorded the lowest one. The results have also shown a moderately negative link between the productivity of some particular industry and labor intensity, which suggests that highly productive sectors need fewer jobs. As a lowest labor intensive industries became Electricity & Water supply and waste management (D+E), Financial and Insurance services (K) and Professional, scientific and technical activities (M). Moreover, considering the ratio between employment multiplier and the coefficient of the labor intensity has shown, that Real estate (L) and Energy & Water supply sector (D+E) is able to sustain most jobs per one unit of the labor intensity, whereas the Education (P) least. For sustaining competitiveness, Slovakia should prioritize high productivity industries or try to foster productivity in lagging ones.

The main objective of the paper is an evaluation of the development of the use of the RES in V4 countries compared to the EU-28 average and assessment, if national strategic goals regarding the share of the RES on gross inland energy consumption are achievable till 2020. To achieve the main aim of the paper it was decided to apply Brown triple exponential smoothing model as a main research method. Based on gathered results and using the extrapolation for making the forecast till do 2020 it was found out, that Slovakia might track the national target with point estimation of 16.25% (90% CI: 13.98:18.53), Czech Republic 12.75% (90% CI: 10.44:15.06), Poland 19.9% (90% CI: 16.42: 23.37). In case of Hungary, it might fail to reach the national target with point estimation of 10.42% (90% CI:8.87:11.98) and overall EU in average will not be able to reach common target with point estimation of 15.94% (90% CI:13.08:18.8).

Paper is focused on regional disparities and structural changes of economies of the V4 countries: the Slovak Republic and Hungary. The results have shown increasing regional differences between the capital regions, including their adjacent areas and the rest of the countries in case of both countries, based on empirical data and documented by the Lorenz curve. We can also observe an increasing difference between Western and Eastern areas of both countries. In terms of structural changes in the economy during the analyzed period 2001-2009, we can see a substantial shift in employment from primary sector (agriculture etc.) mainly to tertiary sector (services etc.) and also to secondary sector (industry etc.). The results are based on empirical data from secondary sources.

The main objective of the paper was to investigate a possible link between the urban structure and regional economic performance in Slovakia, at district level (LAU1). Based on the selected urban indicators, we identified distinct patterns in terms of urban structure and economic performance in Slovakia through the Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC) method. The “inner” urban pattern includes districts located predominantly in the central part of the country with some extension to the west and east. Common characteristics of this pattern are higher centrality, clustering, and monocentric urban cores. The “outer” urban pattern includes districts located predominantly at the periphery, along the borders. The common characteristics of this pattern are the dispersed urban patterns and polycentric settlement structures. The underlying urban structure was matched with the economic conditions prevailing in each district for evaluating the degree of concordance. The kappa coefficient of concordance has shown a scant relation between the urban structure and economic performance of regions at the district level (LAU1). According to the main findings, underlying urban pattern (clustered or dispersed one) in any particular district does not preclude economic success or failure of its regional economy.