The following analysis was prepared within the framework of a joint quarterly research project entitled "SME Perspectives", involving the HCCI Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) and Volksbank. For the survey a sample of about 300 small and medium enterprises with similar structures and elements were used.

In our analysis we try to find out to what extent does the perception of corruption affect satisfaction with the institutional environment, and what kind of corruption experiences have the greatest effect on this satisfaction. First, we present the company managers' perceptual changes towards corruption and also how their satisfaction with the institutional environment has evolved during the period from 2005 to 2010. Then, we search the variables that affect the development of this satisfaction. Our analysis shows that the higher the degree of corruption, the more negatively managers regard the institutional environment. Among the different corruption experiences cited, what makes managers significantly dissatisfied is, firstly, when they feel that their company has to pay bribes in order to get anywhere economically and, secondly, whether they consider corruption to be a major problem or not. Research of corruption is partly based on perception. Our analysis shows that subjective opinions are still relevant in the sense that much depends on personal experiences with corruption.

On the following link an English summary of the paper can be downloaded.

The following analysis was prepared within the framework of a joint quarterly research project entitled "SME Perspectives", involving the HCCI Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) and Volksbank. For the survey a sample of about 300 small and medium enterprises with similar structures and elements were used.

In our analysis we try to find out to what extent does the perception of corruption affect satisfaction with the institutional environment, and what kind of corruption experiences have the greatest effect on this satisfaction. First, we present the company managers' perceptual changes towards corruption and also how their satisfaction with the institutional environment has evolved during the period from 2005 to 2010. Then, we search the variables that affect the development of this satisfaction. Our analysis shows that the higher the degree of corruption, the more negatively managers regard the institutional environment. Among the different corruption experiences cited, what makes managers significantly dissatisfied is, firstly, when they feel that their company has to pay bribes in order to get anywhere economically and, secondly, whether they consider corruption to be a major problem or not. Research of corruption is partly based on perception. Our analysis shows that subjective opinions are still relevant in the sense that much depends on personal experiences with corruption.

January 2013 was the thirteenth occasion of the quarterly business climate survey of the Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER). For this study, a total of 400 companies are followed every quarter that are representative of the economic performance and sector distribution of firms operating in Hungary. A survey of changes in ten different business climate indicators related to the business situation and prospects of firms are analyzed and summarized in the format of the IEER Business Climate Index.

The latest results reveal a more favourable economic condition compared to the previous quarter. The IEER quarterly Business Climate Index increased significantly; following a low point from the previous quarter, it jumped to a level last measured in the second quarter of 2011. For both the current business situation of enterprises and short-term expectations positive changes uniformly took place in late 2012: in the following half-year all indicators had risen sharply. In terms of expected changes in staff numbers, optimism hitherto never before seen in the history of the survey was reported. After high growth in indicators for expected investment activity, those representing intensification of investments entered positive territory. The value for the uncertainty index compared to the previous quarter slightly decreased, indicating a decrease in the diversity of opinions on views toward the current and expected business situation of enterprises

On the following link an English summary of the paper can be downloaded.

Within the framework of the IEER's macro-economic project an analysis of the most important characteristics of the Hungarian and European macroeconomic situation is examined, particularly the long-term impact of the 2008-2009 economic crisis and the following period, the unfolding process of the Euro zone crisis, and near-future trends.

The macro-economic indicators show that the 2008 global economic crisis was a very serious shock for advanced economies. The recovery from this has more or less been successful, nevertheless the debt that has long been accumulated by European economies, the government reforms stalled and the euro crisis developing from this presents another major challenge for the leaders of the economy and the EU.

In terms of the Hungarian economy, the ensuing crisis in late 2008 permeated the growth phase to the core and hit the Hungarian economy very hard: production declined, foreign trade shrivelled, investments collapsed, and unemployment soared. The post-crisis recovery occurred in 2010, but the process was not strong enough, almost all the countries in the region are ahead of the Hungarian economy. The negative impact of the euro crisis has once again set back growth, hence in 2012 Hungary is once more in recession and business confidence indicators suggest that a significant recovery is not expected in the near future.

Autumn 2012 marked the seventh collaboration between the Hungarian Labour Inspectorate and the Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) for an empirical study into the short-term forecasts of the economic prospects of the private sector and the labour market decisions of firms. In the latest survey into short-term labour market projections, 6,782 company managers were interviewed about current and future workforce prospects.
The results showed that a slightly positive intention to hire more workers can be detected in the expectations of the Hungarian private sector for the coming year. While in 2012 the number of companies that increased their workforce was 10 percentage points higher than those that decreased their employee numbers, in 2013 the corresponding figure was 14 percent. Accordingly, more companies are expected to hire next year than was the case for this year.

In 2013, the likely scenario is of 0.2 percent decrease in the number of employees in the private sector. A pessimistic scenario sees a 0.8 percent decline while an optimistic scenario sees a 1 percent increase in the number of employees in the private sector. The likely scenario is that the number of industrial employees may grow by 0.5 percent. By contrast, all other economic sectors are likely to fall, especially agriculture, where a 1.8 percent decline is expected. It is important to emphasize that the agricultural sector is also expected to decrease under the optimistic scenario as well.

On the following link an English summary of the paper can be downloaded.

October 2012 was the thirtieth occasion of the IEER business climate survey which is based on the cumulative response of more than 14,000 companies conducted in April and October of each year with the participation of regional chambers. It is the largest and most extensive business climate survey in Hungary. The research is part of the 14 million enterprise-wide Eurochambres survey of the European economy. In October this year 3,182 firms filled out our questionnaire -- our study is based on the responses of these companies.

The results inform us of the worsening business prospects and expectations surrounding a high level of uncertainty felt by Hungarian companies. Based on the expectations of firms, stagnation and a worsening business climate are expected in late 2012 and early 2013 for the Hungarian economy. Although the IEER Business Climate Index remained in the positive territory, the value declined from +8.7 points in April to +1.9 points. The IEER Uncertainty Index has not changed significantly since April, and is still at a high level. The economic crisis has strongly affected all sectors, with the construction industry in particular still reeling from the impact of the economic crisis. This sector has so far not shown any signs of recovery.

Analysis within the framework of the IEER ad-hoc business climate research project shows the change in the propensity of emigration according to the frequency of internet search terms relating to foreign employment. Google Trends provides a system for retrieving time series data with the frequency of different search terms characterized by the Google search service. Our prior assumption is that the internet is a significant part of pre-migration enquiries and the Google search engine is used in this process, thus search volume carries relevant information for our calculation with regard to migration trends.

The results show that in general, the frequency of search terms for working abroad not related to a specific country peaked twice between January 2007 and September 2012, first in 2009 and then in January 2012, while in December 2010 it was at a minimum. The most popular search destinations were Austria, Germany and Great Britain during the period under review. In all three countries, 2012 showed an increased interest in employment opportunities; the search volume peaked in January of this year. Employment in Austria was of interest to those mostly in the western part of Hungary, while for Germany the same can be said for those living in the counties of Komárom-Esztergom and Tolna. For job opportunities in England the north-eastern part of the country showed the greatest interest for the period under review. The data shows that – with the exception of Austria – Hungarians very rarely look for work in neighbouring countries.

In January 2005 the Figyelő, the IEER and the Volksbank launched a joint research examining the business situation and short-term prospects of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) along with an assessment of the economic and institutional aspects affecting this business group. In this study, a total of 300 companies from the manufacturing, construction and services sectors are consulted on a quarterly basis and the results are analyzed subsequently. The structure of the sample remains the same from quarter to quarter and the companies surveyed represent the small and medium-sized firms of Hungary by economic performance and sector distribution.

The second quarter of 2012 witnessed a slight increase in the values for the current business situation indicators of small and medium enterprises, however they remained below the results experienced over the past year. Future expectations have changed in the opposite direction over the past three months: of all indices only investment activity increased over the previous quarter, all other indicators declined. Overall, stagnation can be observed in the value of the SME Business Climate Index in July 2012, which is significantly lower than the level measured for the same period of last year. Following an increase of the Uncertainty Index in the previous quarter, in the second quarter of 2012 it declined again, which means the differences of opinions over the current and future business prospects lessened among the small and medium-sized enterprises.

Within the framework of the ad hoc business climate research program started by IEER, we examined the estimation possibilities of the unemployment situation in Hungary by Google Insights for Search (GIS) application. In Hungary the Hungarian Central Statistical Office discloses data on unemployment on a quaterly basis and are published in the middle of the quarter that follows the relevant quarter. It would be useful to achieve results earlier on the unemployment level experienced during each quarter. GIS would be the solution for this since it is capable to demonstrate the keywords and the number of Google searches in time and field breakdown. The esteemability of unemployment is backed by the assumption that job search is done partly through the internet. In the research program all our keywords were in connection with job search. Besides, we examined two indices related to the labour force market: one on the unemployment data, the other on the number of registered job seekers. The outcome of these models – compared with our basic model – show that we can achieve a lot better one if we do utilize the information acquired on the search activity. Accordingly, in the unemployment estimation process the models estimated by GIS data reached a better goodness-of-fit than the other type of models.

Paper written for the CIRET 2012 conference

The purpose of our study is to find an answer to how real economic processes and their online media representation are connected, that is, whether the economic crisis of 2008-2009 has generally changed the way how Hungarian journalists use economic terms and expressions and whether a learning procedure has begun of a more informed and proficient form of journalism about economic processes.

Based on our analysis we can state that the occurrence of economic terms in connection with economic policy, foreign trade, companies and the crisis contain a break in the trend at the start of the crisis. We can say that because of the crisis the word usage rates within the above word groups increased significantly – except in the case of the foreign trade group, where it fell.

We can also say that knowledge of the occurrence of the economic policy, credit, macroeconomy, financial market, company and crisis word groups provide additional information to estimate industrial sales about a month in advance as compared to if we only use the previous two values of the time series for our estimation.