Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Petr Dvořák
Title: What has the Bologna Declaration Brought us?
Abstract: Dear readers, it has been 13 years since the signature of the Bologna Declaration. When we consider main goals, which stand behind this declaration and other documents that followed, the effort to develop higher education in the EU cannot be denied. Yet even after 13 years the question still remains, if the ways this process is based on, are right for reaching these achievements. In this short text it is impossible to analyze all areas that were affected by the Bologna Declaration, so let us try to focus rather on the main philosophy of this process and review the most apparent achievements. Despite partial problems, the official documents mostly highlight the significant progress, which was accomplished. “From almost exclusively national systems of higher education, which had differed in structure of the studies and whose study programs were hard to compare … a system of national systems with a relatively harmonized structure arranged into three levels - bachelor, master and doctorate - was established.”1. This evaluation relatively clearly shows the way the Bologna process has mainly taken - unification of structure of higher education and principles, on which the higher education is built. It might have made the life of statisticians easier in monitoring of the results, but an unanswered question remains whether this process has contributed to the development and higher quality of higher education in Europe. We do not want at all to question the development of international cooperation of universities and a significant growth in students’ exchanges that has taken place in the past period. Nevertheless, in this field the importance of formal unification of higher education is being overestimated. Also, as last discussions about the EU budget shows that e.g. for the development of students exchanges, financial support is the crucial and “unified” credit system is left behind on the second place. It is necessary to realize that this unification of the national systems has taken place on formal level but not on material level. Although we have three unified levels of higher education, European credit system, we come up with the same qualification frameworks etc., the result is not and also cannot be the same level of schools, of difficulty of studies, of the subject of studies etc.. In this context sometimes the overemphasized effort of formal unification is not only unnecessary, it also can mislead the attention from substantial content matters. The formal unification will never have the same meaning as the real unification. It is not a problem e.g. to formally unite the content of subjects. Still it will never mean, that whoever and wherever absolves the subject, will have the same knowledge. It always depends on the school tradition, teacher’s personality, self-motivation and competition among students etc. Despite formally the same, the real result will be different. Instead of trying to create a formal unification, we should focus on gaining more pieces of information about the content and quality of certain school, comparing their real level and interfacing different systems. The unification must take place where the competition among schools is present and represents the incentive. If some models show more viability, others will follow them. It is not our target to have unified schools, but to push the development through the competition. Its specialization and originality of a certain school is that which could lead the quality and development of higher education. In our country the most apparent result of the Bologna process was the division of studies into three-levels with a pyramid structure of the number of students in each level. What has it brought us? It has brought us an amount of bachelors, who leave schools, although they know, they will not get another part of their studies and the praxis is still not willing to accept them in full extent. The idea of students’ migration among bachelor and following master studies and among schools is fulfilled very, very little. The system of quotas for numbers of bachelor and master students does not allow schools to specialize noticeably in master studies and therefore the incentives and options for changing school for master studies are not sufficient. As well the idea of starting master studies after a few years of professional experience was dubious at the beginning (the longer the pause after completing a bachelor degree, the harder it is to manage more demanding subjects of master studies, starting in older age is hardly acceptable also because of financial reasons, leaving job and returning to studies is a change of lifestyle, which, after few years inbusiness, hardly a few desire…). The separation of bachelor and master studies has brought more administrative burden for schools, but the real benefits for the development of quality of higher education remain somewhat hidden. For European future, the education including higher education will be very important, if students, teachers and scientists have the opportunities to meet, it can among other things have a significant impact on the strengthening the perception of the sense of belonging in Europe, which deteriorates nowadays. The path does not run through expensive formal unification, which often discourages through its bureaucracy, but through strengthening of the autonomy and originality of schools, which will certainly find their own most effective forms and ways in cooperation under the growing competition on the field of education.
Pages: 4-6
Volume: 2012
Issue: 3
Year: 2012
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/download.php?jnl=efaj&pdf=1.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/1
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlefa:v:2012:y:2012:i:3:id:1:p:4-6

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Marcela Žárová
Title: New Aspects in European Accounting Regulation of Micro-entities
Abstract: Dear readers, this year, become important one, from the perspective of European accounting and financial reporting regulation of micro-entities. Microentities, a sub-group of micro-enterprises, have been introduced to cover companies with lower size criteria for balance sheet total and net turnover than those laid down for micro-enterprises. New directive 2012/6/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2012 on reporting of micro-entities that has been developed and proposed by the European Commission was based on different research studies, particularly International Federation of Accountants. The reporting needs of micro-entities are fundamentally different from those of larger companies. Although the Directives (4th Directive 78/660/EEC and 7th Directive 83/349/EEC) contain exemptions for small and medium-sized companies from certain obligations, overall, these were often still subject to the same rules as larger companies. Complexity and wide scope of the Accounting Directives' requirements have led to extensive costs which divert resources from the core business activities of small companies. Consequently, the economic burden on the smallest enterprises was disproportional as compared to the larger enterprises. Therefore, it should be possible to exempt micro-entities from certain obligations that may impose on them an unnecessarily onerous administrative burden. However, micro-entities should still be subject to any national obligation to keep records showing their business transactions and financial position. The Accounting Directives as well as International Financial Reporting Standards were developed with the investor protection as an overarching objective. Thus they contain numerous measures to ensure that minority stockholders have proper information, that the valuation methods are appropriate and give a true and fair view of the company, that all subsidiaries are properly consolidated, and finally that independent auditor presents opinion on the quality of the reports. It has been a consensus for the last decades that such investor oriented financial statement will also serve most of the needs of other stakeholders in asatisfactory manner. Therefore, the Directives have not introduced specific accounting rules for SMEs or micro-entities or even microentities, but instead, they contain certain opt outs from the rules designed for bigger companies. Generally, the stakeholders of very small companies are limited and differ significantly from those of big corporations. These companies are effectively owner managed and statutory financial statements do not have significant relevance for the owners in reviewing the company's performance. Moreover, investors into these entities are often limited in number, frequently directly involved in running of the company and with direct insight into company's accounts. The source of financing is not stock market but own resources, credit from banks or other financial institutions. Thus the main users are banks and tax authorities and other small companies, not an anonymous investor. It is common that especially tax authorities have special reporting needs known as tax accounting which differs significantly from financial reporting. Also banks demand more information that will allow them to assess recoverable amount of assets in case of bankruptcy and thus are not interested in sophisticated accrual accounting vehicles such as deferred tax or goodwill. Moreover banks and tax authorities have direct contacts (as opposed to anonymous investor) with small companies and often demand tailor made information. Consequently, the users of micro accounts are more likely to demand information on recoverable amount of assets (banks) or taxable profit (tax authorities) rather than various disclosures or sophisticated accrual accounting information. Therefore, companies that have to produce essentially investor oriented accounts devote time and money to accounting techniques that use no purpose and only satisfy legal requirements. They often need help from external accountants to prepare these accounts as the techniques are often complex and not the core competence of the managers of micro business. For the same reason the statutory accounts provide seldom useful information for the managers to utilize. It is appropriate that these companies will be able to follow the Directives' accounting rules as transposed by the Member States on a voluntary basis as well as have their accounts audited if necessary. Proper bookkeeping is essential for the management of any company. Member States have bookkeeping requirements for companies and these will continue to be in place. The Commission proposal will enable Member States to align their accounting requirements to the needs of the users of financial reporting needs of micro-entities are rather basic and the statutory accounts are not the only source of information for their stakeholders. Despite the fact that publication of annual accounts can be burdensome for micro-entities, micro-entities should still be subject to any national obligation to keep records showing their business transactions and financial position. On the other hand Member States should be permitted to exempt micro-entities from a general publication requirement. The only obligation of micro-entity is that the balance sheet information is transmitted to the business register, so that a copy should be obtainable upon application. An exemption from the Directives' requirements will result in cost savings for the micro-entities including their external accounting and audit costs. The aim of the Directive on micro-entities is to enable Member States to create a simple financial reporting environment for micro-entities. A report on the situation of micro-entities taking account in particular of the situation at national level regarding the number of companies covered by the size criteria and the reduction of administrative burdens resulting from the exemption from the publication requirement should be submit to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee by the Commission in 2017.
Pages: 7-9
Volume: 2012
Issue: 3
Year: 2012
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/download.php?jnl=efaj&pdf=2.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/2
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlefa:v:2012:y:2012:i:3:id:2:p:7-9

Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Vratislav Izák
Title: Household Indebtedness and Economic Growth (Empirical Analysis)
Abstract: One important aspect of the resulting indebtedness in full-fledged market economies is the mutual influence between different economic sectors. Therefore, alongside the government indebtedness, one must take into account also the debts of private agents, especially of households and non-financial corporations. In this paper our effort is concentrated on the household sector, especially the impacts on economic growth. We have gathered data for the time period 1995-2010 for the sample of 17 European OECD countries. The main descriptive statistics reveal high and still increasing indebtedness (ratio on the net disposable income) especially in Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden and still low indebtedness in postsocialist countries. In panel regressions (fixed effects) we add loans as another explanatory variable into growth equation and examine the impacts on the growth rate of real GDP. The main result shows that a 10 percentage point increase in the ratio of household loans to the net disposable income is associated with about 30 basis point reduction in lagged economic growth. More profound looks give the study of both cross-specific and period-specific coefficients. Last but not least we have examined more homogenous panel of 13 countries putting aside 4 postsocialist countries.
Keywords: Households loans, Economic growth, Panel analysis (fixed effects)
Classification-JEL: E1, H3, O4
Pages: 10-32
Volume: 2012
Issue: 3
Year: 2012
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/download.php?jnl=efaj&pdf=3.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/3
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlefa:v:2012:y:2012:i:3:id:3:p:10-32
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Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Hana Vomáčková
Title: Changes in Accounting Solutions for Transformations of Business Companies and Cooperatives since the Beginning of 2012
Abstract: It can be concluded from an analysis and comparison of the legal and accounting concepts related to the amendment of the Transformation of Business Companies and Cooperatives Act and Regulation 500, that the amended regulations are characterized by an extensive right to choose in terms of business regulation. While the legal and accounting regulations until the end of 2011 addressed transformations generally as purchasings, the commercial and accounting regulations from 1st January 2012 provide solutions mainly for transformations of the restructuring type. The amendment offers a high degree of choice and thus provides space for both factual concepts, however, this fact is not specified in any of the appropriate regulations. The availability of all these possible variants, from the decisive date at the very beginning of the preparation and implementation of the transformation to the recognition of an entry of a transformation in the Register of Companies, as the record date, i.e., a combination of the decisive date and the effective date, leads to a complicated accounting view that is time-consuming, often confusing and, unfortunately, does not define the conditions for recognising a transformation with the substance of a purchase and a transformation with the substance of a restructuring. Highlighting the reflection based on individual accounting transactions for the participating companies, and especially in the unusual method included in the so-called opening balance sheet method, leads to a suppression of the information links between summary financial information from the financial statements on the entry into the transformation and the summarized financial information in the form of an opening balance sheet of the successor company.
Keywords: Commercial law, Acquisition, Merger, Methods for business combinations, Financial Accounting, Accounting methods for transformations in Czech law, Balance sheet date for measurement, Date of acquisition, Goodwill
Classification-JEL: M41
Pages: 33-62
Volume: 2012
Issue: 3
Year: 2012
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/download.php?jnl=efaj&pdf=4.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/4
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Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlefa:v:2012:y:2012:i:3:id:4:p:33-62
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Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Leoš Vítek
Title: Regulatory Impact Assessment in the Czech Republic
Abstract: In 2007/2008, the Czech Republic has introduced governmental Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) to the central government level. This procedure has established formal rules binding to all legislative bodies. The process administration of RIA was entrusted to the Panel for a Regulatory Reform and Effective Public Administration and its permanent Committee for Quality Control of the Regulatory Impact Assessment. At the end of 2011, the RIA process has been changed and a new, independent Committee for the control of RIA proposals has been established. Based on minutes from the Committee’s discussions, the presented paper analyses fundamental trends in the RIA process in the 2008-2012 period. The general statistical overview indicates that the volume of legislation reviewed under RIA gradually decreases. On the other hand, the number of proposals not recommended by the Committee for an approval decreased from 7.1 % in 2008 to 6.9 % in 2011. After introducing the new RIA rules, the number of proposals not recommended by the new Committee for an approval during the first discussion of a proposal has dramatically increased to 81 %.
Keywords: Czech Republic, Government policy, Regulation, Regulatory impact assessment
Classification-JEL: H83, L51
Volume: 2012
Issue: 3
Year: 2012
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/download.php?jnl=efaj&pdf=5.pdf
File-URL: http://www.vse.cz/efaj/5
File-Format: text/html
Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlefa:v:2012:y:2012:i:3:id:5
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