Thursday, July 26, 2007

Draxler on globalization in FT

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d7692fa0-3b26-11dc-8f9e-0000779fd2ac.html
Would the author be able to convincingly show how comparative advantages can be 'created'?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Is Hillary inspired by Slovakia?

In a provocative article, the president of the Cato Institute suggests that a well-known U.S. senator might be a nationalist, in spite of her party membership.

This rings a bell - perhaps it even sheds some light on the structure of the Slovak government, which should be unthinkable in theory but is alive and well in practice.

Is it a good thing that ideological differences seem to be getting smaller? Slovakia has been described as "lab" before and something tells me there will be a lot of evaluating to do after the present administration's term. Patience is required in the meantime.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

IHT on Skilled Labor Shortage in Central Europe

An International Herald Tribune article based on a report by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies.

"Slovakia could soon become the world's biggest car producer per capita - if it can find enough skilled workers to assemble the vehicles." [...]

"The problem is particularly acute in the automotive industry in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but it also affects segments of such high-skill service occupations as health-care personnel, architects, civil engineers and Internet technology experts, he [one of the report's authors] said.
In 2003, the Czech Republic began a program, appropriately called Selecting Qualified Workers From Abroad, which entails offering permanent residence permits to those who have lived and worked in the country for two and a half years. Poland said last month that it was introducing a similar program."

Perhaps a policy inspiration for the Slovak government? (The government recently made the requirements for obtaining citizenship tougher.)

Thanks to Michal Onderčo for this post.

PS: A careful observer might spot a mistake in the target year of euro adoption in Slovakia. It is not 2008, as in the article, but 2009.

Draxler on Globalization

A very intervention-leaning account by a Slovak CEPS research fellow, but still a nice overview of what is out there in this regard.

Update (21 September 2007): here's the complete report for the Directorate-General.