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The aim of the paper is to find out what is the effect of different types of government spending and taxes on economic growth in developed economies. The analysis is performed on a sample of 27 OECD countries in the period 1997-2011. It is based on the neoclassic growth model extended with the level of human capital and fiscal variables. Those include particular types of government spending (according to the COFOG classification) and taxes (according to the OECD classification), and state budget deficit. From a methodological point of view, panel data estimation is used. We support the view that only some types of government spending are growth-enhancing, and only if they are financed through indirect taxes. However, the results show that only expenditure on defense, education and health, and general public services may be labeled as productive. In addition, we show that direct taxes, especially corporate taxes, negatively affect the growth, also in case they are used to finance productive spending. Adapted from the source document.

The article documents the development of life satisfaction in four transitional Central European countries since 1991, in comparison with Germany and Austria. After presentation of data sources and the overview of the literature regarding the effect of transition on life satisfaction, surveys of European Values Study 1991, 1999 and 2008 are analysed together with macroeconomic data. First, satisfaction levels are correlated with GDP and then, individual characteristics of income, gender, education and family status are regressed to as explanatory variables of life satisfaction. While the explanatory power of GDP is found as very weak for the entire period, the effect of objective characteristics has peaked in 1999 and the effect of subjective perceptions in 2008. The survey information on trends after 2008 differs but no dramatic change of the life satisfaction due to the economic recession has so far appeared. Adapted from the source document.

This paper deals with the topic of measurement of education services. The main part of output of education services is considered to be non-market in the Czech Republic and it is estimated a sum of related costs. Deflation has been traditionally done using input method i.e. recalculation of each component separately. The main drawback of this method is an assumption of direct correlation between changes in inputs and changes in output. Productivity can not be estimated therefore output methods based on direct volume measurement are now preferred for individual services. Methodology of direct volume measurement of education services has been developed in the paper. This approach is based on number of students in detailed breakdown weighted by costs in order to include changes in the structure of fields of study. Estimates are available since 2004 as data sources are available. Besides estimates of development of non-market output development of all education services is estimated. Adapted from the source document.

The Roma minority is one of the most vulnerable social groups in Slovakia, they are affected by poverty and social exclusion. Most of the marginalized Roma face low education level, long-term unemployment and very low Incomes (they are mostly dependent on the social benefits). In this paper we focus on time preference rates of the marginalised poor Roma. The measurement of time discounting and present-biased preferences is based on standard methodology where the respondents are asked to choose between receiving smaller amounts earlier at the time of interviewing or larger amounts with three months delay. The same choices are asked at a future time frame (smaller amounts in six months and larger amounts in nine months). In order to control for potential confounds due to lower credibility the 'front end delay' method is introduced. According to the results there are almost 48 percent of people with time-inconsistent preferences (27 % have present-biased and 21 % future-biased preferences). Men and people with higher level of education are more likely to have consistent preferences than women and people with lower level of education. Adapted from the source document.