Burgas regularly tops the list of best places to live in Bulgaria. Whether enjoying a walk through the resplendent Sea Garden, relaxing on the beautiful central city beach, or enjoying a drink and ...fresh grilled fish at one of the many outdoor bars and restaurants, it is easy to see why tourists like it so much. A key challenge for the city, however, is to extend this good feeling to the off-season, when tourists are few, the economy is less animated, and the central area is almost comatose after dark. The city aims to deliver this transformation with its smart city agenda.
Despite the uncertainties of Brexit, London continues to be rated as a leading location in Europe and the world for business, knowledge, and talent. But 30 years ago, when London had no citywide ...government, a transport system in crisis, and no successful track record of continuous large-scale upgrades to the urban fabric, this scenario would have seemed highly unlikely. In this essay we examine how London's unpromising 1980s gave rise to three decades of reinvestment and we explain how the European Investment Bank played an essential catalytic role in successive cycles of London's evolution from an under-governed de-populating national capital into a diverse global centre benefiting from integrated urban systems management.
This essay reviews the political circumstances and strategic orientations of Vienna's comprehensive urban development policy, and how the EIB's investments facilitated key projects and supported ...Vienna's process of urban modernisation. Urban development in Vienna took place in four cycles, which are characterised by distinctive internal and external conditions and opportunities. Each prompted different levels of EIB engagement.
The purpose of the article is an assessment of the current state and identify problematic aspects of innovation and investment activity of agricultural enterprises of Ukraine and defining prospects ...for their further development. It is revealed that the imperfection of innovation infrastructure in the agricultural sector, low commercialization of agricultural science, undeveloped processes of transfer agricultural technology and etc. significantly constrain innovative developments in the agricultural sector of the economy. It is determined that the output of the agricultural sector of Ukraine from the crisis is possible in terms of finding and attracting non-traditional sources of investment innovation, the introduction of a special regime of investment activity in agriculture, introduction of comprehensive state support of agricultural enterprises, creating favorable conditions for agribusiness development.
The document proposes a model for evaluating campaign financing systems according to the level of equity they promote. Using data from primary sources for the 2010-2014 cycle of presidential ...elections in Central America, the study evaluates the key attributes of equitable financing systems and their implications for electoral integrity. It proposes that greater electoral integrity occurs with systems that promote public financing of campaigns, control over the use of state resources, restriction of private financing, and the application of limits on the total cost of campaigns.
With 3 million residents, the Metropolitan Warsaw region is today the ninth most-populated capital city in the EU. It has undergone a series of far-reaching changes to its economic structure over the ...past 50 years to attain this status. This essay reviews how Poland's capital went from environmental and infrastructure degradation to the wealthiest capital city in Eastern Europe.
The aim of this study was to provide a brief overview of the most controversial aspects of the Spanish Act of Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Long-Term Care 39/2006, which, in the last few years, ...has led to heated debates between the state and the autonomous regions. Because of the funding problems due to initial poor planning, the decline of contributions from the Spanish Government in the last few years, including the suppression of the agreed level, and low cash collection from the user through copayment, the autonomous regions have had to provide significant economic resources to maintain this social policy in an environment characterised by a lack of transparency of the system. In addition, the regulatory reforms of mid-2012 to ease the burden on state and autonomous budgets have represented a clear setback to the spirit of the act and a loss of welfare to dependent individuals and their families. All these circumstances have contributed to a widely heterogeneous picture in the territorial implementation of the act, with clear differences in waiting lists, abuse in the granting of cash benefits in some regions, and differences in the number of applications for benefits and services.
In theory, public financing aimed at encouraging business innovation is justified, but in practice controversy exists over the evaluation of impacts derived from the use of these resources. The aim ...of this paper is to analyze the additionality generated by micro- and small enterprises benefiting from public financing for innovation. For this purpose, a questionnaire was applied, and a descriptive analysis of the input additionality, performance and results variables was made. The conclusions show that in half of the sample there is evidence of additionality in funding, whose more visible result is the generation of new products and processes, and the effects on performance are the most significant. Although the sample size and the type of analysis limit the generalization of findings, the evidence presented here of the impact of public financing on innovation in developing economies is relevant because of the scarcity of papers on the subject.
This study aims to understand the perceptions of the tuition fees charging in Canada and China and the perspectives of this practice in Brazil, which is a country where society requires access to ...quality higher education, but which faces large budgetary constraints on its public funding. To understand these questions, a qualitative exploratory multi-case study was carried out with government officials, specialists in higher education, and student leadership from all three countries. In conclusion to this analysis, and considering the benefits provided by the Canadian and Chinese participants, it is suggested for Brazil to perform a reflection on this subject. The study shows that such an initiative can boost public higher education institutions through greater financial availability and democratize access and permanence, as there would be more resources to invest and assist students from underrepresented groups participating in the system. Keywords: Public financing; Higher education; Tuition fees; Expansion; Public policy
Resumen El objetivo del presente trabajo es realizar un breve repaso a los aspectos más controvertidos de la Ley 39/2006, de Promoción de la Autonomía y Atención a las Personas en Situación de ...Dependencia, que han protagonizado en los últimos años fuertes debates entre el Estado y las comunidades autónomas. Los problemas de financiación surgidos tras una mala planificación inicial, el declive en las aportaciones de la Administración General del Estado en los últimos años, incluyendo la supresión del nivel acordado, y una baja recaudación del usuario mediante copago, han colmado de esfuerzo económico a las comunidades autónomas por mantener dicha política social, en un ambiente gobernado por la falta de transparencia del sistema. Por otro lado, las reformas normativas de mediados de 2012, con la finalidad de aliviar los presupuestos estatales y autonómicos, han supuesto un claro retroceso en el espíritu de la ley y una pérdida de bienestar de los dependientes y sus familias. Todas estas premisas han contribuido a un panorama muy heterogéneo de aplicación territorial de la norma, en el que se observan claras diferencias en las listas de espera, abuso de concesión de prestaciones económicas por parte de algunas regiones y disparidades en el número de solicitudes de acceso a las prestaciones y los servicios.
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