Industrial Policy and Social Strategy at the Corporate Level in Poland: Qestionnaire Results
This paper presents results from a survey of industrial policy of the state and the social security system at the corporate level in Poland. Previous reports in this area indicated preferable directions of research to be taken in order to prove various hypotheses of the purposefulness of an integral approach to industrial policy and social security in the analysis of economic processes in transition (see Weikard 1997). This paper summarises the results and draws conclusions from a questionnaire study on subsidies, social benefits and economic policy in Polish firms during the process of transformation. Our results and conclusions show the scope and character of the processes in the area of industrial and social policy in the period 1994 to 1997. The paper is divided into five parts. The first part concerns the aims and methodology of the questionnaire; it also gives a brief description of the sample. The second part shows how enterprises dealt with the issues of employment and wages in this period. The third part characterises industrial policy at the corporate level, while the next presents results from the survey of various social schemes pursued. The final part aims at an integral approach in the analysis of various processes taking place in Polish enterprises. The survey was conducted in the period April to June 1998. Its aim was to observe certain phenomena occurring at the corporate level. The questionnaire was distributed among the managers, directors and presidents of large-size enterprises, which had been selected to satisfy the following three criteria. Firstly, the number of employees had to be considerable (over 300 workers). This criterion was applied following the consideration that certain social phenomena are more conspicuous in enterprises with large manpower. Secondly, only operating enterprises were selected, the enterprises which closed down were disregarded. Finally, for the purposes of the survey the units differed as regards their legal situation and form of ownership. Out of over 1800 enterprises 370 units were drawn where we sent the questionnaire. Unfortunately, as many as 51.9% of the respondents refused co-operation, questions to a certain extent puts the representativeness of the sample in question. Finally, 178 questionnaires were subsequently completed and returned for analysis. However, not all of these questionnaires included full answers to all of the 75 questions; therefore, while discussing the results of the survey we have indicated the number of relevant answers we have received.
Poverty, Human Capital, Life-cycle and the Tax and Transfer Bases: The Role of Education for Development and International Competition
The paper is based on an individual life-cycle model, which describes the purely economic components of human capital. The present value of human capital is determined by all future income flows, which at the same time constitute the individual as well as the total tax base of a nation. Therefore, the income of the productive population determines the total tax revenue, which is spent for public goods (including education) and transfers (for poverty reduction). The efficient design of the education system (by private and public education investments) determines the quality of the human capital stock as well as the future gross income flows. The costs of public goods and the transfer expenditures have to be financed from the total tax revenue, which also affects the individual tax burden via the specific tax bases and tax rates. Especially the redistribution of income is connected with serious disincentives, influencing the preferences for work and leisure as well as for consumption and saving. An efficient tax and transfer system being accompanied by an education system financed in public private partnership, which treats equally labor and capital income, sets positive incentives for the formation of human, financial, and real capital. An important prerequisite for a sustainable growth process is the efficient design of the social security system, being based on the family as well as a collective risk equalization scheme. If that system is diminishing absolute poverty in an appropriate time period by transfers and vocational education measures for the grown-up as well as high quality primary, secondary and tertiary education programs for the children, the transfer expenditure would decrease and the tax bases (income and consumption) increase, lowering the burden on the productive population. For the first time, this micro model presented in this paper pools all the relevant variables for development within a simple life-cycle model, which can also be used for a powerful analysis of the current failures in existing tax and transfer schemes and fruitful empirical investigations. Hence, an efficient tax and transfer scheme strongly contributes to an improved national position in the global competition.
Fungal Biotransformations in Pharmaceutical Sciences
The regio- and stereoselective conversion of complex substrates represents one of the major advantage of microbial biotransformation. This chapter covers the biocatalytic capacities of fungi to derivatize bioactive small molecules, both from natural sources and from synthetic compounds. We focus particularly on sterol and taxane biotransformation. We also present examples at the interface of biotransformation and pathway engineering using recombinant organisms, with an emphasis on the production of lovastatin derivatives. Finally, we highlight selected studies on fungal xenometabolism which serves as a model to study the breakdown of drugs in mammals.