Social Progress Index for Urban and Rural Areas of a Region: Evidence from Peru

The present study describes the methodological process proposed by the Social Progress Imperative Global Organization to calculate the Social Progress Index in urban and rural areas of the province of Huancayo, Peru, in 2020. The survey was based on 229 observations regarding basic human needs, foundations of well-being and opportunities. The result produced an index of 56.04 for urban areas and 53.98 for rural areas; results that are in the low and low middle range respectively, identifying deficiencies in the quality of economic policies, with respect to the sanitation service, where more than 30% do not have access to drinking water, and others. It was concluded that the index showed no improvement with respect to 2019, likewise the social gaps still persist and the well-being of the aforementioned population was not increased.

A Critical View on Pension Savings in Slovakia

In almost all countries around the world, pension systems are based on several pillars. This is also the case of Slovakia with its three-pillar pension system. The paper presents a case study underlying the risks that can seriously affect the amount of future pensions. The case study clearly indicates that current pensions in Slovakia paid under all three pillars do not correspond with the expectations from the implementation of the three-pillar pension system. The aim of the paper is to the risks that can seriously affect the amount of future pensions. Our own contribution is the determination of the amount of pension for a specific pensioner specified in the presented case study. Within the saving phase of pension contributions the development of investment fund returns, the amount of future pensioner´s contributions, as well as administrative costs are analyzed on a monthly basis. The payout phase is modelled using actuarial functions applying the mortality tables of Slovakia.

Use of Administrative Data for Waste Statistics in the Czech Republic

The Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) changed the calculation of the total volume of waste and also changed the definition of municipal waste compared to the previous methodology. This was made possible by the wider use of the existing administrative data source, the Integrated Environmental Reporting System (ISPOP). The change in the definition of municipal waste was a response to recent Eurostat activities, which led to a more precise definition. The original method no longer meets this definition.

Determinants of Economic Growth in the European Union Countries

This paper reassesses the long-debated relationship between the financial system development and economic growth. We use not only indicators for financial access, efficiency, stability and depth of the bank-oriented financial sector, but we also consider Eurozone membership, corruption perception and competitiveness of countries to examine the determinants of economic growth. We apply a panel data approach to 27 European countries over the 2004–2017 period. By splitting the time span, we examine whether the effect of financial system development, Eurozone membership, corruption perception and competitiveness on economic growth is affected by the occurrence of financial and debt crises. Our results indicate that loans to private sector do not always support economic growth. Our research also reveals that corruption perception has a negative impact on economic growth, and so does membership in Eurozone during a crisis.

Approximate Valuation of Life Insurance Portfolio with the Cluster Analysis: Trade-Off Between Computation Time and Precision

Valuation of the insurance portfolio is one of the essential actuarial tasks. Life insurance valuation is usually based on a projection of cash flows for each policy which is demanding computation time. Furthermore, modern financial management requires multiple valuations under different scenarios or input parameters. A method to reduce computation time while preserving as much accuracy as possible based on cluster analysis is presented. The basic idea of the method is to replace the original portfolio by a smaller representative portfolio based on clusters with some weights that would ensure the similarity of the valuation results to the original portfolio. Valuation is then significantly faster but requires initial time for clustering and the results are only approximate – different from the original results. The difference is studied for a different number of clusters and the trade-off between the approximation error and calculation time is evaluated.

Food Consumption and Availability in Czechia in the Years 1993–2019

The article deals with comparison of consumption of food and beverages in the Czech Republic in the years 1993 and 2019 as well as of two main sources of food and food materials, their domestic production and cross border movements.

Analysis of the Impact of Expenditures on Education and R&D on GDP in Central European Countries

The main purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of public spending on education and research and development (R&D) on the formation of gross domestic product (GDP) in nine Central European countries, which are divided into two clusters – "old" and "new" EU members. The study took into account official Eurostat data of both the EU and national statistical organizations for the period 2010–2019. The analysis of this impact was carried out using a system approach, statistics and econometric framework including panel data regression, Wald, Breusch-Pagan, Hausman tests. The main finding of the present study is the identification of additional income in terms of GDP in Euro per capita for selected countries, which is obtained from adequately spent public funds for education and R&D. Our results showed that the strongest influence of these expenditures for the "old" members was in Germany and Austria, and for the "new" – in Slovenia and Czechia. It is proved that this impact is different in individual countries and is determined by the public financial policy of national governments.