Search results

Discussions about monuments usually revolve not around the visual and aesthetic expression of monuments. Looking at the ongoing debate, one can assume that it is about how we understand what Lithuania is and what Lithuania is not – what we need to remember and what we need to forget in the narrative of Lithuania represented through monuments. In other words, they are related to certain collective images of Lithuania and the world around it. Although this assumption is made in the public debate, it is not verified at academic level. The objective of the research is to analyze what kind of identity of the Lithuanian state is created and represented through the monuments that stand in the public spaces of Lithuania. The author seeks to reveal the theoretical possibilities of the participation of monuments in the formation and representation of state identity and to show the role of monuments as identity construction practices in Lithuania. An analysis of monumental practices reveals that the debate about monuments is primarily shaped by political factors.

The object of the work - the minimum wage. The aim - to study the impact of the minimum wage on labour market indicators. The results of the research showed showed that the level of the minimum wage is set by the state, employers and by consensus of the trade union. Currently, more than 90 percent of all countries in the world have laws and regulations that set a minimum wage. In the European Union, 22 of the 27 Member States currently have a minimum national wage, although countries such as Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Australia and Italy do not. These countries choose to set minimum wages through collective bargaining. The size of the minimum income is determined in two ways: as a certain percentage of the average income or on the basis of the minimum subsistence income. Economic indicators should be taken into account by policy makers when setting the minimum wage. If the minimum wage is set too high or increased too much could have an unexpectedly large impact on the country's population and labour market performance. The literature identifies 16 key labor market indicators that are designed to analyze, compare, and then apply a variety of solutions to improve countries' economic development. The impact of the minimum wage on labor market indicators in 2008–2021 has been performed. The analysis showed that Granger is the causal link between the minimum wage and gross domestic product, the unemployment rate, the inactive population, the number of job vacancies and labour force participation. This means that the minimum wage affects these indicators. The result showed that a one-euro increase in the minimum wage would increase the gross domestic product by 105.06 million, the number of inactive population decreases by 0.028%, and the activity of the labour force increases by 0.075%. The model developed between the minimum wage and the number of job vacancies is insignificant, so the impact assessment could not be assessed.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the orientation towards climate change neutrality have fundamentally changed the way we look at competitiveness. Global challenges have increased interest in countries' competitiveness. Thus, in the final master's project the competitiveness of the European Union countries is evaluated according to the most important determinants, ecological footprint and the countries are clustered according to the obtained analysis results. In the literature review the latest concept of competitiveness is presented, 9 groups of competitiveness factors and 52 factors-indicators are identified. The missing values are filled in by MICE method, and after evaluating the correlation, 42 factors-indicators are further used in the study. Three methods are used for clustering - hierarchical Ward linkage method, K-means and machine learning method t-SNE. After the cluster analysis, the countries are clustered into four groups. Neighboring countries have been found to be most similar in terms of competitiveness. Country cluster profiles are interpreted using the results of the PCA method. According to the identified groups of factors, the competitiveness index developed by the author of the project revealed that the most competitive EU countries are Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. The least competitive countries are Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Assessing the link between the ecological footprint and competitiveness, positive progress is seen in the EU. In addition, EU countries are moving from low competitiveness and low ecological footprint to high competitiveness and low ecological footprint.

The processes of privatization state property, which were executed in the Baltic States during 1991–2000, were very important not only for employees of privatized and technologically related companies but also for branches of economy, in which investors were attracted, as well as for social and economic progress of each Baltic State and for the strategic development direction of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in long perspective. At the beginning of the analyzed period, when the state ownership in the Baltic States was absolutely dominant, and dependence on former USSR (particularly on Russia – the successor of duties and rights of USSR) in economic-commercial areas was over 90 per cent, and they were obliged to use ruble as the only means of payments and settlements, the Baltic States started to implement complex of reforms in legal, social and economic areas. The Baltic States implemented these reforms as quickly as possible (except for Lithuania in 1993–1996), reducing their dependence on the emerging corruption-oligarchic system in Russia, which became much stronger by Russia's choice of a faulty privatization model, the results of which had impact on the economic-commercial processes of the Baltic States. Having no analogs in the world practice, the Baltic States implemented reforms in their economic-commercial and social areas, enacted both general laws governing the activities of the state and specific laws regulating management of enterprises, and within a minimum time period prepared for the privatization of state property. The author of this article tried to take into account new aspects of the main features of the privatization management methods in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, advantages and disadvantages of these methods, as well as basic factors (usage of the investments certificates, preferences for employees and attraction of strategic investors), which in the first stage of privatization considerably influenced this process. The implementation of the German privatization management model in the ...