Today's economic and social life tends to be fundamentally affected by the development and products of software industry. In the era of "information society", the changes and movements of this field have significant impacts on many segments of the society. In our study, one of our main purposes is to reveal the most important tendencies of the software industry recently. We also intend to detect the changes orienting the most probable future developments of this market. In order to complete our purposes, we concentrate our work not only on global and local trends, but we also introduce the histories and current characteristics of some typical software companies of our time.

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

The aim of the following paper is to unfold some factors that affect the young skilled workers’ chances of getting a job, doing further studies and using the learned profession at work or school. The survey examined the start of the labour market career of young skilled workers who have finished trade school or vocational school in the previous year. The survey focused on the question whether the skilled entrants could or wanted to enter the labour market in a 9-months long period after finishing trade school or vocational school. The results are based on a joint database of yearly databases between 2009 and 2012 that contains data of 10,104 young skilled workers. The results show that higher educated parents’ children have better chances on the labour market and unemployed fathers’ children encounter a higher risk of getting unemployed. The chance of getting a job or using the learned profession in a job or further studies is increased by choosing the profession matching the personal interests, by fulfilling a traineeship at a company, good scholastic records, knowledge of foreign languages and getting a high-school graduation. Further studying results in tangible wage premiums in the short run and in a labour market position stabilized by the skills of getting new knowledge in the long run. As a conclusion we believe that acquiring good general knowledge and studying skills is very important for young skilled workers: the continuously renewing requirements of the labour market and the frequent change of jobs and professions make lifelong learning necessary, thus improving flexibility and skills of knowledge renewal became an important task of the vocational training system.

For the complete evaluation of the social and economic trends of the past 20 years, we should know more about the processes that took place after the transition and how these affected the regions of Hungary. What happened in a landscape, region or micro-region in the past 20-23 years. What changed about the job opportunities, income of the local people, how did the structure of the industry and agriculture change, catching up or falling behind characterize the local economies. The latest research paper of MKIK GVI (The socio-economic profiles of the Hungarian regions) provides basic information to anyone interested in these issues and uses the most important social and economic indicators to depict the socio-economic situation of the Hungarian regions and counties and their path in the development since the transition to the present.

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

April 2013 was the thirty-first occasion of the HCCI Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) business climate survey which is based on the cumulative response of more than 14,000 companies and conducted in April and October of each year, with the participation of regional chambers. It is the largest and most extensive business climate survey of its kind in Hungary. The research is part of the 14 million enterprise-wide Eurochambres survey of the European economy. In April this year 3,500 firms filled out our questionnaire -- our study is based on these responses.

The IEER business climate index rose 2.3 points from the October level of 1.9 points, and now stands at 4.2 points. This is still characterized as a weak positive result, which is underscored when the data is compared to the level in April of each year: this is the second lowest level since the start of the study (1998). The value of the uncertainty index is at the 43.6-point level. This suggests that within the business community there is still no clear or unanimous opinion of current trends. In addition, together with data available on the current performance of the Hungarian economy and the IEER business climate data, our attention is drawn to the slight decrease in uncertainty surrounding the current year

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

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.

Paper written for the CIRET 2012 conference

In this paper we attempt to examine the applicability of Google Insights for Search in terms of household consumption, retail sale trends, and the nowcasting of car sales in Hungary. There have been several successful attempts to use Google data in a similar way, usually in connection with U.S. economic indicators. Our goal, however, is an analysis of consumption indicators on the basis of Internet search in a country where Internet penetration is lagging behind that of the U.S. and Western Europe.

Suppliers of large retail chains and daily consumer goods operating in the domestic market

We examined in our research relations and operating mechanisms of the suppliers of large retail chains and daily consumer goods operating in the domestic market using qualitative and quantitative approach. In our survey conducted in the first half of 2007 we contacted managers of supplying firms with interviews (15 of them) and with a structured questionnaire (392 firms). Due to the sensitive nature of the research we experienced a high rate of refusal, yet the statistical reviews performed corroborate that this fact did not distort research outcomes.

Global trends indicate that there is increased concentration underway in the retail industry, in the result of which large-scale retail chains play a so-called „gate-keeper” function in accessing the consumer, thus suppliers increasingly depend on them.

Research outcomes have corroborated that the waybuyer powermanifests itself, including the abuse of it, is well known and tangible in the Hungarian market also. The more powerful a retail chain is in terms of its size and the development of its organisation and tools, the more it avails of the potentials of these tools. Our research result suggests that it is not so much the firms that are weaker and more vulnerable in terms of their size and revenue that are affected to a greater extent, but rather the more powerful and dynamic firms the fundamental interest of which is to access an increasingly broader consumer pool and which, by the same token, have a greater potential to contribute to economic development.

It can also be established from the research outcomes that the impact of commercial chains on suppliers is contradictory: their prevalent power supremacy in their business relations and the consequential uncertainty and unpredictability that evolve in such business relations may result in market distortions. On the flip-side, however, a motivating impact of chains can also be ascertained manifesting itself in increasing innovation and product development on the supplier side.