At the end of last year, the cabinet proposed that the minimum wage in Bulgaria be increased to 510 leva in 2018. The administrative increase in the minimum wage is a frequently used tool by the state to "fight poverty". In practice, however, this increase has a negative impact on employment and the investment climate. …
More »Why you should read Nassim Taleb's new book
"Skin in the Game," the new book by famed financier-turned-philosopher Nassim Taleb, is the most important book published in recent years (probably since his last book, "Antifragility," which was published in 2012). Taleb is one of the few thinkers throughout human history whose writings...
More »The Ottoman State's policy of non-interference in agriculture in the 19th century
Author: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hristiyan Atanasov How the state's departure from its priority can have a positive impact Let's start with the fact that agriculture was the main priority of the Ottoman state throughout its existence. It can be said that the reasons for this are mainly fiscal, but also social. So …
More »Die Welt quotes the EKIP on the dangers of Bulgaria's entry into the Eurozone
Earlier this week, we from the EKIP were officially quoted by one of the largest newspapers in Germany – Die Welt. As part of Die Welt’s coverage of Bulgaria’s application for eurozone membership, our team was recently interviewed about our expert opinion on the topic. In their article Die …
More »The First Bulgarian Five-Year Plan
Five-year plan is the abbreviated name of the five-year plans, through which economic development is centrally controlled and planned under socialist conditions. That is why the socialist countries of Eastern Europe are often called countries with central planning, although five-year plans also exist outside the Eastern Bloc. The implementation of the economic goals set by the political leadership …
More »What makes nations rich?
/Part 1 – The Free Market/ Throughout human history, politicians, philosophers and economists from all over the world have been searching for a formula for government that would make people richer. Historically, countless different approaches have been tried. Empirically, however, it has been proven that only those political ideologies and economic theories that promote the philosophy …
More »The Catastrophe of the First Bulgarian Capitalism and Its Roots
The first Bulgarian capitalism roughly covers the period from the Liberation in 1878 to the September 9th coup in 1944. The economic, social and cultural achievements of these decades are the subject of numerous assessments. Even the most optimistic among them do not show particularly impressive results. Results of the first Bulgarian capitalism From 1878 to 1944 …
More »What is economic value? - response to Evgeny Dainov
Evgeni Dainov, one of the most famous public intellectuals in Bulgaria, published an article a few days ago about the "economists". A text in which he criticizes at length what he describes as the "economic" way of thinking. As someone who considers himself an economist, I was of course intrigued, but unfortunately I was left extremely disappointed...
More »Why services like Airbnb don't need government regulation
Over the past week, the proposal of the Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova to introduce stricter regulation of sites like Airbnb.com has become a serious subject of debate in the media space. Angelkova's thesis is that these sites practically operate as intermediaries of hotel services. For the uninitiated, in simple terms Airbnb.com is …
More »Stoyan Panchev: CITUB data on incomes show a positive trend
Food prices in Bulgaria are approaching the average European level, Violeta Ivanova from the Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions (CITUB) commented in the studio of “Hello, Bulgaria”. “Our food products reach 71% of the average European price levels, and some of them, such as vegetable oils, exceed the average European levels by about 9%. The prices of milk and dairy products …
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EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion