Suchergebnisse

The present study is a follow up to a previous paper by the same authors that aimed to systematize the similarities and differences of the economic structures of the countries of the European Union. This errand has been expanded to include the countries of the OECD. The starting point of the study is the share of employment in the 14 sectors of the economy as well as that of the 10 branches of manufacturing on the basis of which 3-4 latent principal components will be synthesized. These components will be used to explain the typology of the countries. The first two components are a repeat of those found in the EU study and differentiate three groups of countries - evolved service based economies, tourism based economies, and manufacturing based transition economies. The following two components on the other hand are new and present a differentiation based on the proportion of employment in the public and private sectors. The connection between the principal components and the sectors' relative productivities (in relation to national averages) will also be examined and a primarily inverse relation with share of employment is determined (structural burden). In addition to the above, the present study takes an in depth look at the positions of two specific countries - Estonia and Korea - among the developed countries of the world. It appears that in some ways the two are similar but in others they are polar opposites.

Professor Heiki Müür had his successful professional career mainly during the soviet period. Heiki Müür was born in 1932 in Tallinn. In 1954, at the age of 22, he received the diploma from the Tallinn Technical University, honouring him as a good specialist in socialist economy. This educational background allowed him to continue the post-graduate studies in the Moscow Institute of Economics. In 1959, he defended PhD thesis (candidate in economics), and in 1976, was approved as the habilitated doctor in Economics. Heiki Müür started his academic career at the Tartu State University in 1956, working initially as a lector and later as a docent and a professor. He published several books in Estonian that were actively used by the students as well as practitioners: Management and Planning, 1964; Prices and Economic Reform, 1971; Economic Planning, 1971; Economics and National Economy (editor of the series of books, 1972-1974; National Balance and Planning (1987, co-author). During his academic career, professor Heiki Müür demonstrated good abilities for leadership working as a vice dean and the dean at Tartu State University, and after 1990s, as a head of the institute of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Tartu. During the years 1981-1986, he was the director of the Research Institute, which worked for the Soviet Estonian government in Tallinn; during these years, he also continued to work as a part-time professor at the university. We, as his students of the field of "economic cybernetics" (mathematical economics) and successors, appreciate particularly highly his activities and success in establishing and promoting education in mathematical economics at the Faculty of Economics of the Tartu State University. The new specialisation in the soviet economic education with the name "economic cybernetics" was opened at the Tartu State University in 1967. Professor Heiki Müür devoted lots of his energy, time and knowledge to create the school of young economists who have good knowledge in applying mathematical and statistical methods for analysing economic problems in Estonia. The knowledge in economics and research methodology of these graduates was not heavily related to the soviet rules of the economic mechanism. In collaboration with the young postgraduates, professor Müür started to develop applied research for the soviet firms examining the relationship between the working conditions and economic outcomes and implementing modern mathematical and statistical methods by conducting economic analysis. He was one of the initiators and organisers of the high scientific level economic conference on applying modern methods for analysing economic processes in Tallinn in 1981. L. Kantorovitš, the only soviet economist who got Nobel Prize (1975) in relation to elaborating and developing linear programming methods, was among the participants of the conference. Professor Heiki Müür was innovative and flexible in starting to restructure the curricula and study process at the University of Tartu after Estonia regains its independence. He was the initiator of offering new study courses in market economy not only for the students of the Faculty of Economics, but also for students from other faculties as well as for practitioners. The graduates, who obtained diploma in "economic cybernetics" and belonged to the school of the Estonian economists established by the significant contribution of professor Heiki Müür continued his work being the initiators and developers of the new economic curricula and of restructuring economic education and research in compliance with high level international requirements