Electronic Library of Scientific Literature - © Academic Electronic Press

Volume 51 / No. 9 / 2003

• Peter BALÁŽ – Martin LÍNER: Fundamental Economic Reform – the Tool of Resolution of the Financial Crises in the South East Asia (in Slovak) 1045

• Renáta VOKOROKOSOVÁ – Štefan ČARNICKÝ: Slovak Compara-tive and Competitive Advantages Under Global Trade Environment (in Slovak) 1065

• Viliam PÁLENÍK – Vladimír KVETAN – Jana HRIVNÁKOVÁ – Ján ĎURÁŠ: Development Scenarios and Convergence of Slovak Economy Towards the European Union Average (in Slovak) 1077

• Jaroslav NĚMEC: Relations between the External and Internal Imba-lance in the Slovak Economy (in Slovak) 1098

• Peter MARKOVIČ: Determining the Fair Value of the Derivates Con-tracts (in Slovak) 1113

• Jana ŠNIRCOVÁ: Financial Health Indicators for Prediction Models of Slovak Firms’ Financial Situation (in Slovak) 1127

• Dagmar LESÁKOVÁ: Research and Education in the “New Marketing Era” (in Slovak) 1146

• Anna HARUMOVÁ: Valuation of Claims at Cesia (in Slovak) 1158

• HUŠEK, Roman – PELIKÁN, Jan: Applied Econometrics: Theory and Practice – J. Husár (in Slovak) 1174

• BEŇOVÁ, Elena a kol.: Finances and Currency – J. Sokira (in Slovak) 1179

• Selected Economic Informations – I. Šujan, M. Šujanová (in Slovak) 1182

Peter BALÁŽ – Martin LÍNER

The paper analyzes the economic development in certain South East Asian countries hit in 1997 by the most extensive financial crises in the recent history of this subcontinent. Beyond this, there is yet no unanimity about its root causes nor about the solutions. The dif-ferences of views are being debated in academic circles, by experts (especially of IMF and World Bank), economists and reflected in media. It focuses on the evaluation of the re-form process, particularly in South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
The authors assess the fruitfulness of the adjustment measures in respective countries, especially regarding the operations of financial institutions, banks and corporate sector. They point out some success stories in the field of non-performing loans, bank capital adequacy, banks’ consolidation and creation of special institutional networks to solve accumulated problems.
The financial crisis has been transformed to a full-blown recession in the real econo-my of production. The influence of the recession on the selected branches was very different a different was the success by the restoration of its economic growth.
Regarding the restructuring of the corporate sector the emphasis is put on the issues of indebtedness and insolvency and the changes of corporate management while presenting achieved results country by country. Furthermore, they target the field of sharehol-ders’ protection, the bankruptcy provisions and the changes in accounting and audit. Analyzed results have proved that countries hit by the crises managed to start an upward growth-trend after five years since the crises, however, this trend does not show the evidence of a permanent stability, it seems to be its objective presumption. The continuation of this process will depend on the positive changes in the global economy, especially in NAFTA and European Union region.
Most of recession-strickend business areas in Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia were trans-formed through the special system of economic agencies (managing by the governance struc-ture). In the year 2003 should be finished its activity (except Indonesia) because of recycling of the domestic economies, which should be able to continue in its economic development.

Renáta VOKOROKOSOVÁ – Štefan ČARNICKÝ

Slovak foreign trade deficit pace is being closely associated with the development of its macroeconomic indicators – economic growth, structure of aggregate demand, and unemployment rate. Persistent deterioration of Slovak trade course is said to be the result of lower effectiveness of the hitherto economy restructuralisation. Its running is so far dedicated to keeping the Slovak trade competitiveness by way of cost competition exploitation (low wages, simple less sophisticated products). There is also an insufficient rate of foreign investment as improving the industry restructuralisation, putting up the productivity and profitability of sophisticated production. An appreciable part is still being specialised in simpler steps of production processes as connected with intensive exporting and importing activities. Slovak export commodity structure is remarkable for its low values added and increased importing requirements being reflected in the dete-rioration of terms of trade and finally trades balance. Our production structure is still raw and material abundant. The low effectiveness of supply side of our economy has its reflection also in the proexporting capabilities.
Slovak business entities are able due to the low flexibility and quality of sub delivery system and insufficient technological basis of our production to cope with their increased exporting demands mainly with enhancing importing.
There are different approaches to the definition of competitive advantage. Very often it is considered to be a certain combination of comparative advantages and prevailing market failures. Competitiveness of a country can be perceived as an ability to produce and sell products on the world market with the aim to achieve a certain level of return of factors of production. Those are finally being compared with possible benefits earned at exploitation of factors of production to alternative activities. The present research of comparative and competitive advantages is based upon the usage of statistical methods for assessing the revealed comparative advantages. Successful country's position under the severe competition depends on the effectiveness of its trading activities towards the rest of the world. Authors of the complex index of revealed competitive advantages are Vollrath and Vo, while Balassa developed the index of revealed comparative advantages. The present theory of competitiveness is based on the application of a great variety of indices, e. g. DRC – Domestic Resource Costs, NSP – Net Social Profitability, or Michaely index and CTB – Contribution to the Trade Balance.
This article highlights the diagnosis of selected commodity structures being observed by RCA, CTB and Michaely indices with a corresponding theoretical inquiry into the present state of the theory of competitiveness. However, we put our attention just for selected postulates from their vast hierarchy reflecting the topic most complex.

Viliam PÁLENÍK – Vladimír KVETAN – Jana HRIVNÁKOVÁ – Ján ĎURÁŠ

Considering the substantial differences between the discussed scenarios of future development of Slovak macroeconomic indicators, we assume the per capita gross domestic product in purchasing power parity a crucial parameter ranking the progress of aimed-at achievement of economic performance of the EU average.
Taking the approximate calculations in a constant PPP into account, it is possible to stretch the prognosis horizon from 2010 onwards to estimate the time SR needs to achieve the EU average. The results of such extrapolation are presented in Table 1.
According to the non-entering reference scenario presuming continuation of the heretofore development, SR would achieve the economic standard of the average EU-15 member state in 2040 (Approximate calculations based on the constant 2010 PPP and 2 per cent real per capita GDP EU-15 growth rate presumptions). In the entering pessimistic scenario, the EU-15 average would be attained in 2035 and in the entering optimistic scenario it would be reached already in 2031. In the case of SR terminating the admission process, the date of achieving the economic standard of average EU-15 member state would amount to 2058.

T a b l e 1
The Year of Achieving the Economic Standard of EU-15, resp. EU-25 Average

* Deviation from the reference scenario, in years.

Due to the current political and economic situation, it is reasonable to consider the entering optimistic scenario the most probable route of future Slovak economic develop-ment. As a consequence of successful EU admission, the growth rate of Slovak GDP would yearly increase by nearly 1 percentage point additionnally compared to the reference scenario. Such a positive dynamics of GDP would create an encouraging environment enabling Slovak Republic to achieve the average EU-25 economic standard in 2027. Besides, the criterion of 75 per cent of enlarged EU-25 average economic performance would be met in 2013 by the Slovak Republic.

Jaroslav NĚMEC

The article opens with a statement on the long lasting propensity of the Slovak econo-my to deficit in the balance of trade and balance of payments in the foreign trade. The author does not accept that this propensity might be caused by preferences of home consumers to the imported goods, or simply by lagging imports behind the exports. He does not deny the growing demand for imported goods and increase in the foreign trade share on the home market. However, he considers it as a fact which is inevitably connected with integrating every economy in the world trade and principally it is impossible to resist it. However, since import in every country depends on sources gained by exporting own goods and services, the import cannot grow independently from export. This dependence does not either allow to indicate lagging exports to be the cause of breaking the foreign trade balance.
The imports can for a longer time and in greater extend exceed exports only in case when there appear on the side of home demand purchasing means gained other way than by export of home goods and services. It takes into account that in every national economy there exist savings as available funds which do not enter the flow of goods imme-diately after gaining them (after sale), and these funds may – under certain circumstances – evoke deviations in sales, including purchase of imported goods and services. This happens usually when an unfavourable price, boom or monetary development is expected. Use of these means in a greater than usual volume may bring about a temporary deviation, but hardly to set up any longer tendency. Such a tendency presumes a lasting need and a lasting inflow of these means. However, the existence of available funds, among which the author includes besides credits also privatization proceeds, “tunnelling” and similar channels, does not explain the growing need of additional sources (mostly foreign ones). This need manifests itself year by year through a growing pressure on the level of firms, state and public institutions, whereat deficits of all these subjects are apparently growing. For the time being the foreign means used did not result in such an acceleration of creating own sources which would at least moderate the need of foreign sources. This could not prevent exerting impact on relations of foreign trade and on currency development.
The need of explaining the reasons for chronic propensity of foreign trade in the Slovak Republic to advanced imports over exports led the author to question the source of the enormous demand for foreign sources in our country. Why the Slovak economy and other actors participating in the foreign trade have such an extraordinary need of new and new credits till the above level exceeding up to now the possibilities of paying them continuously?
The reason has been found inside the economy. The author finds out that as early as since the 90’s the sources produced do not cover consumption of the fixed, but neither of the circulating capital in the firms and the taxes together with other state receipts the public consumption. Deficit in sources has gradually been and is being transferred in all other parts and has been manifested/is manifested most expressively in growing debts.
The total of debts, presented in the article by data of official statistics, documents the volume of means required for settlement of consumption over the individual years which could not be covered from own sources. All debts, may they originate in whatever reasons, must by paid through formation of sources in this country. A turn in the situation depends on the success as to how much could the formation of sources be accelerated or how much reduced the consumption down to the level of home formation of sources. Unless this happens, the need of foreign sources will continue, and their use either for capital recovery, public consumption settlement (state budget deficits) or final consumption, will reflect finally in the foreign trade balance. Its deficit will grow always whenever consumption in the country and paying the debts exceeds the hitherto total coverage by sources (own and foreign ones). It will be moderated by accelerating own formation of sources and/or by reducing total consumption in the country.
Changes in the amount of foreign trade deficit have reflected up to now in the Slovak Republic also on the currency development (the exchange rate of the crown for main convertible currencies). However, the foreign trade balance impacted the exchange rate of the crown also because of some further factors. Over the last year stabilization of the crown was significantly influenced by extraordinary privatization proceeds, by inflow of foreign investments and also by several restrictive measures which resulted in slowing down the demand for imported products. However, all this does not throw doubts on the conclusions arrived at by the author’s analysis of relations between imbalanced state of the Slovak economy and foreign trade development up to now.

Peter MARKOVIČ

Harmonization of Slovak legislation for the conditions of the European Union brings a longs full variety of changes in understanding some economical and financial categories. One of them is the process of objectivisation the value of assets and liabilities for actual value, i. e. determining the fair value. Intro-financial theory there were presented many times the approaches, which can quantify relatively exactly and with the sufficient time advance the change of value of shares, bonds, event. Other kinds of securities under the thumb of change of some market variable. But implementation of these approaches requires the research of background, accessibility of qualitative and certain information, but also the adequate knowledge base about the crucial factors of success. The situation obtaining on out financial market doesn’t enable full utilization of all methods and techniques of evaluation the financial instruments. But there is need of positive appreciation of the consistent improvement, mainly in the area of the information flow between companies and the subjects of the economical background.
Fair value of the financial instrument complexly deposes about sense of the entity, actual and potential effects brought by its holding. Subjectivity of understanding of benefits of the financial instrument can guide the evaluator (expert, accountant, auditor, financial analytic) to different conclusions. In favour of maintenance of objection and continuity in evaluation there is recommended using the generally accepted methods based on fair value of the financial instrument, estimation using the specific valuation model (e. g. with evaluation of the derivate contracts), in excessive case coming out the historical value.
Final interpretation of the acquired results must overshoot in context of entered input values, by which is eliminated the influence of consecutive change of the market variab-les to the fair value of the financial instrument. It is recommended for evaluator, in behalf of the demonstrativeness of the accounted fair values, to define exactly conditions, which determined his opinion.

Jana ŠNIRCOVÁ

The analyses of both external and internal environment of Slovak business sector have led us to the following result: the business conditions as well as the firms’ economic efficiency cause very different level of financial ratios of the Slovak firms compared to their level in the firms operating in the standard market environment. That’s why it is not possible to expect the comparable results in the incomparable conditions.
The results of the realized analysis document that – in spite of the fact that both economic environment and firms results as well are not standard – it is possible to identify the differences of certain financial ratios level in the compared groups. In the sense of the prediction methodics these indicators represents potential indicators of the Slovak firms’ financial health. The analysis based on quantiles has shown the expressive distinction of these indicators as well as the stability of differences in time.
From the methodological point of view our analysis resulted in the knowledge that it is possible to create the prediction models with the adequate reliability. That means we are able to identify the Slovak firms financial health indicators. These indicators are not identical with the ones used in the foreign models. At the same time we realize that our research represents only a first step in the prediction models creation. However, the identification of the financial health indicators is the important starting point for both the approaches used in Slovak economy for their creation – empirical as well as mathematic and statistical (mainly by means of the discriminatory analysis). We can not forget more and more deepening trends taking into account the nonfinancial and nonquantifiable factors for the Slovak firms’ financial health evaluation (i. e. the innovative potential or management quality).
To ensure informatically the prediction models creation, i.e. to obtain the informative and examining sample of firms we recommend to concentrate on the representative database administrated by the DataCenter (Slovak Rating Agency and INFIN). The possibi-lity of an annual actualization of models (solving the possible influence of expected fundamental changes of Slovak economic environment), completing of the built financial analysis system of Slovak business subjects as well as the extension of their application into both bank and non-bank sectors are considered as undoubted advantages of the mentioned institutional and organizational assurance proposal of the Slovak prediction mo-dels creation. The conception of the electronic register of financial statements published in accordance with the Commercial Code would help the creation of the informational base for the realization of the mentioned analysis.

Dagmar LESÁKOVÁ

The paper aimed at problems in marketing research and marketing curricula deve-lopment, especially as a result of information technologies progress. Four areas have been stressed:

· implications of the shift towards database marketing;
· consequences of the changes in the nature and methods of marketing research;
· links between relationship marketing, one-to-one marketing and CRM concept;
· social responsibility of the “new marketing era”.

It has focused on new development trends in assessing and implementing marketing data within the strategic and tactical marketing concepts. Data driven marketing requires from marketing education to equip graduates with serious skills in data mining, quantitative research methods and statistics. However, this cannot be understood as a substitute for understanding the insight processes and the value systems.
On the other hand, “old fashioned” understanding of customers, in the sense of understanding the behavioural underpinning and the value and nature of qualitative research is extremely important in providing marketers with the substantive skills that should again help to dispel the development of the core of marketing theory.
An additional problem is that there is sometimes a tendency to measure what is easy to measure, rather than what is insightful, for example measures of customer satisfaction, or customer loyalty. The root of the problem seems to be little evidence of consideration by marketing managers as to the complexity and multifaceted nature of many marketing phenomena and hence not clear vision of what should be researched.
We explore the nature of strategic marketing in terms of a more expansive domain. The development of networks, partnerships, alliances etc. requires broader marketing curricula and marketing research that go beyond the traditional marketing knowledge and isolated marketing function.
The shift of power to customers has created the need of deep knowledge in organisational behaviour and implications of being “managed by customers” rather than managing customers.
This paper, it must be emphasised, does not claim to be the last word on present marketing curricula. Nevertheless, it does try to raise a number of significant topics, which warrant carefull consideration – especially in these times of new millenium.
Hardly someone would not accept the contention that marketing is essencially an applied discipline and therefore borrowing from and searching for methods in other disciplines (such as sociology, psychology, semiotics, statistics, etc.) can not be avoided. On the other hand – if the discipline has to move forward – it has to look for appropriate application of these methods and complexity in delivering solutions.
Marketing should consist of a process of activities that leads to the delivery of superior value to the customer. From this point of view a change in traditional understanding of 4P’s/marketing communications driven marketing departments can be advocated. In this sense, marketers become facilitators of customer orientated practice within the firm.

Anna HARUMOVÁ

There is a need to stress out a selective approach when evaluating claims. Each business case represents a specific operation from which a claim is developed. An important role also plays an economic information about creditor which are necessary for claim evaluation. A problem is in accessibility of that information which is sometimes very low.
Very important aspect when evaluating claim is a time viewpoint. The time viewpoint represents the reality that claims are recorded in accounting it their nominal value. The majority of claims have character of trade-loan claims and each subscriber pays his/her claim after some time period. The later the claim is paid after its payment period, the lower is its value.
The main duty of each creditor is to pay his/her claims on time, because of large amount of company’s money that those claims carry. The value of claims is always connected with the state of the creditor. That is why there is an importance of creditor’s financial analysis first when we want to analyze claims. If a claim is not paid on time it can either decrease or increase its value.

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