SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLES

International financial organizations and the East European policies aimed at systemic transformation

László Csaba.

The paper conducts a comparative analysis of how relevant the economic concept of the 1MF was for the economic policies of the Eastern and Central European countries aiming at systemic transformation. It presents the significant self development of the concept. It proves at the same time that, even in extreme cases, these approaches merely played a secondary role in shaping the economic management practices of some given country in a given period. Relying on official publications the study also examines whether it is the pillory of a onesided preponderance of the monetarist concept or that of enforcing a surplus in the balance of payments into which the two international financial organizations wish to squeeze the economies of our region - which are otherwise nicely developing according to their own rules.

Expansion of the private sector and the companies' economic performance between 1988 and 1992

Iván Major

Privatization has been progressing for six years now in Hungary. Although we cannot see the end of the road yet, new issues are emerging as crucial ones besides the search for new privatization techniques and institutions. Namely, we are eager to know what comes after privatization, i.e., how does the penetration of private ownership affect the companies' economic performance? This study is based on a survey of profitability, efficiency and productivity of all Hungarian companies with double entry accounting for the period of 1988 to 1992, in the context of the changes of their ownership structure. This group of companies accounts for 80 to 90 per cent of employment, fixed assets and the GDP in Hungary. From the results we may conclude that private companies performed poorer than state­owned enterprises as regards their probability, i.e., the efficient utilization of their fixed assets. But the level of productivity was higher in the private firms than in the state­owned enterprises. At the same time, we could observe a huge dispersion of the companies' efficiency and profitability indicators in each group.

The unexpected results mentioned above may lead someone to the conclusion that the companies' performance could be improved by slowing down or by stopping privatization. However, this would be a false conclusion. On the contrary. The comparative advantage of private companies over the state­owned enterprises can only surface if private property rights were firmly established and private ownership rather than state control dominated in the economy.

Profit mechanism - profit function

György Simon

The study discusses the mechanism of profit formation (of gross profit) and the modeling of this process. According to the author the two main components of gross profit are the innovation profit and the so­called technological profit which the market recognizes first of all under the impact of the natural monopolies taken in the wider sense. The basic factors determining the profit are: the stock of capital (fixed capital), the research and development experts, the total number of workers and the volume of labour (in terms of man­hours). The profit function reviewed in the study is linear homogeneous. Verification of the model has been performed with econometric methods, using the 1951-1992 data of five leading economic powers - the USA, Japan, the FRG, the UK and France - in a breakdown by industries.

Dilemmas of the health insurance system now becoming independent:
Functional disturbances of the price support to medicaments

Péter Vince

The operation of the health insurance system that is now in the course of transformation has been for years determined by ever more pressing financial limitations. In addition, in the operation of one of its most important activities - in supporting the prices of medicaments - it is also struggling with a confusion of roles. The reason is that, for the time being, the health insurance's independence from government administration presents a lop­sided picture. On the one hand, the health insurance system only partially disposes of the rights necessary for fulfilling its tasks, while on the other hand it is forced to perform duties of government administration nature, too.

Changes in the regulation of the obligatory reserve rate of banks

Zsófia Árvai

The role of the obligatory reserve rate has changed in recent decades several times. Initially it was intended to serve the liquidity and solvency of the banks, then the emphasis gradually shifted to its role in monetary regulation. The obligatory reserve rate, namely, is instrumental - as a factor of the money­multiplier - in determining the quantity of money in circulation. In our days, however, this role is ever more fading away. All over the world a tendency is observable which aims at the reduction of the reserve rate, in some countries even at is abolition. There are several arguments for following this practice also in Hungary.