ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIETY OF HUNGARIAN ECONOMISTS IN ROMANIA (October 6-7, 2006, Baile Felix)

ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIETY OF HUNGARIAN ECONOMISTS IN ROMANIA (October6-7, 2006, Baile Felix)Author(s): Tamás KovácsSource: Acta Oeconomica, Vol. 57, No. 1 (March 2007), pp. 93-96Published by: Akadémiai KiadóStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40729623 .

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CONFERENCE REPORTS 93

distribution of firms is extremely skewed: 5% of firms produce 50% of output. Second, the size dispersion is much higher within industries than across industries. Third, for a given cohort of firms, the size distribution is relatively stable over time. Based on these stylised facts, the speaker argued that the change in firm size is non-Markovian: the size of firms is determined primary by their initial size. Consequently, firms do not converge to an ergodic size distribution, because initial conditions matter. This conclusion is in contrast with some of the earlier theories, in which firm growth is mainly determined by "luck". This can lead to a new theory, in which initial size of firms determines their growth path. Miklós Koren presented such a model, in which the founders of the firm decide about the "capac- ity" of the firm. They base this choice on their management skills.

János Vincze (discussant) suggested to include small firms into the model, and to analyse how multi-plant firms fit into that. He also suggested analysing the dy- namics of the model further.

The Institute will organise its next Summer Workshop in 2007. Details can be found at the web page of the Institute (www.econ.core.hu).

Balázs Muraközy

ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIETY OF HUNGARIAN ECONOMISTS IN ROMANIA (October 6-7, 2006, Baile Felix)

The program of the Annual Conference opened with a plenary session with over 200 participants which was followed by sessions in the afternoon. The plenary session was opened by the Honorary President, József Somai, and the new Presi- dent, Tibor Coltea. Although the lectures covered a wide range of subject areas, they had a common thread: EU enlargement and the need to be prepared for a globalised world.

Sándor Kerekes, Dean of the Corvinus University Budapest, gave a lecture on the ever-relevant questions of sustainable growth and the challenging definition of competitiveness. Competitiveness improvement achieved through damage to the environment or a loss of non-renewable natural resources harms the long-term growth potential of the economy, and should therefore be promoted with extreme caution. This warning has a great degree of relevance for the Romanian economy on her EU accession since an important part of the country's export potential still depends on her stock of natural resources. Furthermore, Romania has to solve a string of pollution problems at the same time as some parts of her territory belong to Europe's last reserves of unspoiled natural beauty.

Acta Oeconomica 57 (2007)



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Kerekes' presentation was followed by a lecture on the Knowledge Economy delivered by Zoltán Pitti, researcher of Corvinus University Budapest, who high- lighted the importance of education and research. He also addressed the issue that only 1% of joint enterprises in Hungary conduct some sort of research and development, while also referring to the European Union's various projects that sup- port such activities. Gheorghe Postelnicu of the University of Timisoara gave a brief overview of globalisation, contrasting and summarising various pro- and anti-globalisation theories. Postelnicu emphasised that even the definition of "globalisation" and its historical context would deserve a conference. Radu Nechita, Faculty of European Studies, University Babes-Bolyai, Cluj, spoke about tax competition and the diverse tax systems of the world, focusing on the idea of a potential world tax. He repeatedly referred to European practices, and to the fact that the EU is trying to standardise, or at least harmonise the fiscal policies of the member states. His speech was well-illustrated, logical and thought-pro- voking. The subsequent speaker, Radu Bufan, of the University of Timisoara, dis- agreed with what had been previously said on several points. Focusing on the Eu- ropean fiscal harmonisation and the reform of the Romanian tax system, Bufan's entertaining lecture revealed inherent difficulties and potential loopholes in har- monising the two systems. The plenary session was concluded with a presentation of Somai' s new book, Economy and Economics in the Oeuvre of Samuel Brassai".

Four sessions took place in the afternoon. The first, entitled Go East: Exploit- ing the Potential of the East-European Banking Market, offered the participants the opportunity to attend a lecture about the transformation of the Romanian banking sector, and its growth perspective. The program of the second session, Opportunities ofSME 's in a Globalised World, was organised on a slightly more pragmatical basis including highly relevant case study material and some kind of consulting service. Many members of the audience received helpful advice and pragmatic ideas on firm creation and management at the end of the session.

The creation and consistent implementation of the National Development Plan is of crucial importance for Hungary and Romania alike. The third session of the conference, chaired by the new President of the Society of Hungarian Economists in Romania, covered the topic The First National Development Plan - An Alter- native to Globalisation? Some of the presentations touched upon Hungarian experience, while others discussed Romanian approaches. Hungary's example may teach Romania that cohesion funds of the European Union do not open up auto- matically to new member countries, and a clear and consistent development policy line with explicit choices on priorities is inevitable for an efficient access to Community funds. Priorities such as infrastructure, human resources, environment or competitiveness may be supportive of each other, but it is risky and coun-




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ter-productive if the ranking of these priorities on both the national and the re- gional levels simply reflects the interests of political and sectoral lobbies.

The fourth session, chaired by Ádám Török, Pannon University, Veszprém gave an opportunity to PhD students, for the first time, to deliver a presentation on their research, thus formally presenting themselves at a conference. Lectures were given on economic history, business economics, management studies and trade policy.

Gyöngyi Csuka and Tamás Kovács gave a presentation entitled Nationalisa- tion on the Firm Level, with a Focus on the Hungarian and Romanian Experience on post-nationalisation joint ventures in the member countries of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). While nationalisation took place in the member countries of CMEA in a similar manner, in some countries, such as Hun- gary and Romania for example, a small number of previously private enterprises continued to function as joint enterprises, with a certain degree of foreign ownership. Between 1945 and 1956 the typical structure of ownership was a Soviet- Hungarian joint venture in Hungary. By the mid-1950s even these companies were gradually transformed into state-owned entities. The lecture presented the historical and political context of the creation of these enterprises, as well as the condition of their establishment, their operation and the legal solutions used to liquidate them.

Zsuzsanna Nagy and Gabriella Dancsecz talked about the satisfaction of em- ployees and other stakeholders as a determining factor of firm success. As a result of economic growth and the information explosion purchasable factors became available to anyone and therefore lost their competitive edge. This fact made soft, human factors more important in improving competitiveness. The need emerged to have a high degree of harmony between the two aspects in order to be success- fill in a long term approach. This view is epitomised in the European Foundation for Quality Management, which, as the basis for the majority of national and re- gional Quality Awards offers a practical tool of self-assessment in order to im- prove process management and overall corporate performance.

Hajnalka Fekete, Melinda Klausz, and Eszter Sipos presented the tools of mea- suring and managing corporate performance and property by contrasting the ad- vantages and disadvantages of the various methods used in practice. The speakers intended to illustrate that it is the companies' task to take into account their own characteristics when choosing a reference framework, but more importantly, companies must seek and find the factors that truly influence success within the broad framework of their choice. Such analysis makes it possible to anticipate di- rections in preparing for future challenges.

In her presentation Strategic Trade Policy, Hidden Restrictions within the WTO Adél Németh talked about the GATT/WTO, going beyond traditional free




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trade, and protectionist foreign trade theories aimed at the implementation of free trade, and the dismantling of tariffs and other trade barriers. As a result of trade negotiations, tariffs and non-tariff barriers lost their importance and new, hidden factors appeared in the way of free trade. Some of these are tolerated, or even per- mitted by governments, but the majority of them have a negative effect on the competitiveness of the industry or country concerned. The presentation shed light on new types of the so-called "Red Tape Barriers" which are protectionist tools used by WTO member countries without sanctions from the organisation. These are hidden, intangible, strategic or non-tariff measures constituting entry barriers to imports. Following a structured overview of such tools, the speaker illustrated the most frequent and most flagrant cases in the past years.

The session was concluded with the lecture of Judit Poor, Helga Fehér and Elvira Böcskei focusing on how Hungary's accession to the European Union af- fected the country's trade policy. The EU applies basically four different trade policy systems. Before the preparation for accession to the EU and the customs union, Hungary belonged to three of these systems. In the 1980' s discriminative trade barriers were in place against Hungarian products. A bilateral economic and trade cooperation agreement between Hungary and the EEC provided for the elimination of these barriers and secured the most preferential tariff treatment that the Union has been applying. The Europe Agreement, which was a specific type of association agreement between the European Union and the associated and candidate countries, established a partial (industrial) free trade area. Hungary's accession did not bring about significant changes in most fields of her trade policy, because so many had already taken place during the preparation for accession.

The conference clearly achieved its main objective: it provided a forum where both the latest research findings and current scientific trends could be presented and discussed by experts, of interest for the Hungarian economists in Romania, as well as to the general public.

Tamás Kovács




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ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIETY OF HUNGARIAN ECONOMISTS IN ROMANIA (October 6-7, 2006, Baile Felix)