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This paper tackles the economic impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the labor markets and human capital. Specifically, it looks into the issues the pandemic brought upon the human resources and personnel during coronavirus lockdowns. Our results identify that in spite of all the adverse effects of the pandemic such as the excessive burden on the healthcare system, great economic losses and disruptions on the labor market (such as the loss of human capital and widening gaps in gender inequality) due to the lockdowns in many countries intended to slow down the spread of the infection with the purpose of flattening the curve representing the numbers of the COVID-19 patients, the current situation had many positive economic effects. For instance, we find that the recent pandemic helped to increase the financial inclusion and enabled broader access to financial system. In addition, during the past few months, digitalization and the use of information technology deepened and progressed in both large and small enterprises as well as in the higher education institutions. Moreover, COVID-19 pandemic helped to develop the awareness about the climate change among many people by demonstrating how the decrease in economic activity can have a profound effect on cutting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, we find that COVID-19 pandemic contributed to optimizing work load and cutting unnecessary work in many large and small business companies and public institutions. It is likely that most of them will continue with this optimization and digitalization of work after the pandemic is over. Last but not least, we note the enhanced family life and interpersonal relations that would without any doubt contribute to the quality of human capital and the level of happiness. Our results might be useful for public officials and labor market specialists who would want to grasp the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and to find ways how to smoothen its impacts.

Agriculture constitutes a very important sector in the Slovak economy that generates in addition to the basic food production also services, provides jobs, has a significant impact on regional development and provides nutrition of the population. One of decisive factors influencing the economic stability of agriculture is production efficiency which is strongly linked to support policy, through which partially is ensured the financial availability of enterprises. The use of subsidies by the EU is very important tool for ensuring economic sustainability of agriculture in the Slovak Republic conditions. The aim of this paper is economic evaluation of primary agricultural production in manufacturing and economic conditions in the Slovak Republic and their alternative comparison with selected EU Member States. The paper also refers to differences in level of subsidies in selected countries in the EU and their impact on possibilities of investing funds into the production development. Our calculations showed that without the intervention of the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU (especially subsidy policy) would be Slovak agriculture economically unprofitable, what could lead to its failure.

NAGYOVŚ, Ľ., ROVNÝ, P., STÁVKOVÁ, J., ULIČNÁ, M., MAĎAROVÁ, Ľ.: Consumer perception of bread quality. Acta univ. agric. et silvic. Mendel. Brun., 2009, LVII, No. 3, pp. 115-122 The aim of this paper is to evaluate consumers' perception of bread quality in Slovakia. Bread belongs to essential foodstuff s and we all have it served on our table every day. Cereal products keep their importance in people's nutrition mainly because of their preventive effects on health. They saturate about 40 % of the daily energy need of an average European, who in avera ge acquires from cereals about 30 % of proteins, vitamin B1, niatin and phosphorus, around 1/6 of fats (out of it 19 % of linol acid), almost 60 % of saccharides, ¼ iron and about 13 % of vitamin B2 and calcium. If we add some cereal fi ber which is an eff ective prevention factor of cardiovascular di seases, metabolic and oncological diseases of colon and anus, we will get a complex picture about positive eff ects of cereals in our nutrition. If we were to mark any foodstuff which has been accompanying the mankind in the course of history, it could be bread. Its consummation is spread in the whole world. Only the ones who once suff ered from its lack have recognized its value. It results from our research that consumers in Slovakia prefer consuming the wheat-ray bread (38.5 %). The respondents -consumers prefer at choosing buying bread in terms of the external, subjective factors, the overall shape when choosing bread (45 %) and dark color of crust (25 %). They showed minimum interest in white color crust and packaging size. In terms of the internal, objective factors, the most important factor for respondents, for women as well as for men was freshness of foodstuff s followed by fi ber (with a big diff erence) (12.82 %). Almost 60 % of bread consumers claimed that they did not have any possibility to obtain the required information regarding bread in supermarkets and hypermarkets because it is not possible to fi nd professional staff providing them with the required information. A diff erent situation is in the classical, small, self-service, and specialized stores, where personal contact of a shop-assistant and a cus tomer is more o en. Results of the performed marketing research of consumer behavior in the market with bakery products will become a sort of the initial basis for departments involved in the research. The team of co-authors have the task to defi ne bread quality on the basis of chemical analyses in accordance with consumers needs.consumer, bread, quality, external -subjective characteristics, internal -objective characteristics Food consumption belongs to people's joys and pleasures of life and is o en perceived by con sumers as an activity which should be paid much more attention, especially in connection with health. The reason for the concern of the public is the news propagated by media about unhealthy and even harmful eff ects of foodstuff s. Some statistical fi gures point to an enormous increase of diseases caused by foodstuff s. Fo...

The main purpose of this research is to assess the energy efficiency in Russia on its path towards the modernization of its energy systems. This modernization can be seen as an effective means for promoting decarbonization and energy-saving initiatives. Our methods include a comprehensive overview of the development of the energy sector in Russia, which is distinguished by the high concentration of state-owned enterprises, the absence of clear market mechanisms, as well as the domination of the fossil fuels represented by natural gas and oil. Furthermore, we present the perspectives of developing the renewable energy technologies in Russia. Our results enable us to create an in-depth analysis of the perspectives of modernization of the Russian energy sector and to draw the key connotations for its further development. Moreover, the outcomes of this paper can provide useful policy implications and guidelines for modernizing energy efficiency and energy systems for Russian stakeholders and policy makers, supporting their efforts to reduce the dependency on carbon fuels and to embark on the path towards the sustainable economic growth and development.

PEPRNÝ, A., KUBÍČKOVÁ, L., ROVNÝ P.: Method of evaluating the success of the small and medium-sized enterprises. Acta univ. agric. et silvic. Mendel. Brun., 2010, LVIII, No. 3, pp. 183-188 At the time of increasing globalization and homogenization of the global markets, the development of information infrastructure technology and world market becomes accessible not only to large multinational companies but also for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This has resulted in increasing competition in the domestic market which domestic fi rms have to face. Therefore the process of internationalization of business is a step that allows businesses performing their activities in the domestic market to enter foreign markets and to exploit the opportunities and potential which these markets off er. The paper is focused on the dra of the method for quantifi cation of the factors, which determine the success of the SMEs in foreign markets. In the proposed method the multidimensional assessment of indicators of success of SMEs in foreign markets are used, ie. not only the proportion of sales from exports is observed, but also the profi tability of international activities in an absolute and in a relative rate. Other indicators of success are the satisfaction of the company management with international activities and the success of achieving defi ned targets for business activities in foreign markets. Evaluation is made up of both the objective and the subjective indicators of success. Among the objective indicators of success is included the intensity of international activities of SMEs, which is detected as the sum of revenues generated from international activities in relation to total sales company, the profi tability of international activities, (ie. whether the foreign activities are profi table or not), and the relative profi tability of international activities, where it is ascertained whether the foreign activities generate higher profi t than the activities at the domestic market. The next subjective indicator of success is the success of objectives -it was found how many objectives related to operations in foreign markets has been achieved. Another indicator is the subjective satisfaction of the company management with existing activities on foreign markets. Overall performance on foreign markets of the company is quantifi ed using an assessment of objective and subjective indicators of success. Using the defi ned evaluation it will be possible to determine which of the SMEs are more and which are less successful in foreign markets. Finally, this evaluation will be used for future research aimed at identifying characteristics aff ecting the success of SMEs in the foreign markets.small and medium-sized enterprises, internationalization, indicators of success, evaluating of the success of the SMEs V poslední době dochází v celosvětovém měřítku k urychlení a prohloubení procesu globalizace, která velkou měrou ovlivňuje chod a rozvoj fi rem na celém světě. Její dopad na chod ekonomiky je nezpochybnit...

Small business in the Russian Federation is actively developing not only in large cities, but also in small rural settlements. This is facilitated by the demand for agricultural products grown in ecologically clean territory. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation is developing support programs for rural entrepreneurs, which allows you to start a business without high costs. This paper discusses farming in detail as the form of small agricultural business. The theoretical part involves an analysis of the essence of the concept of a farm, the legislative aspect, the process of opening and the difference from other forms of management. From a practical point of view, the place of farms in the Russian Federation was determined in the structure of agricultural production. The study was conducted by systemic and monographic methods. As a result, the advantages, disadvantages and prospects for the development of farming in Russia were identified.

This paper focuses on the strategies that employ the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks in the optimal management of demand-side response in the future energy systems with the high penetration of renewable energy sources (RES). It also provides a comparison between advantages and challenges of 5G networks in demand-response renewable energy grids. Large-scale renewable energy integration always leads to a mismatch between generation and load demand in the short run due to the intermittency. It is often envisioned that 5G wireless networks that were recently launched and would most likely be fully deployed worldwide by 2035 would bring many technological and economic benefits for a plethora of the future high-renewables grids featuring electric transport and heating as well as prosumers generating renewable energy and trading it back to the grid (for example, in the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) framework) and among themselves using peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Our paper offers a comprehensive analysis of 5G architecture with the perspectives of optimal management of demand-side response in the smart grids of the future. We show that the effective deployment of faster and more reliable wireless networks would allow faster data transfers and processing, including peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trade market, Internet of Vehicles (IoV) market, or faster smart metering, and thence open the path for the full-fledged Internet of Energy (IoE). Moreover, we show that 5G wireless networks might become in the future sustainable energy systems paving the road to even more advanced technologies and the new generations of networks. In addition, we demonstrate that for the effective management of energy demand-side response with a high share of renewables, certain forms of governments funding and incentives might be needed. These are required to strengthen the support of RES and helping to shift to the green economy.