Lubos Smutka

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague | CULS · Faculty of Economics and Management

The importance of environmental sustainability is becoming more and more obvious, so the rationale behind long-term usage of solely non-renewable energy sources appeared questionable. This study aims to identify, using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and logistic regressions, the main determinants that affect the duration of Russian non-renewable en...

This paper discusses the dynamics of foreign trade in the post-Soviet space within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) during the period from 2015 to 2021. Additionally, the paper analyzes export indicators in foreign and mutual trade of the EAEU member countries and diversification of the commodity structure as well as its dynamics based on the com...

Emotional creativity (EC) refers to cognitive abilities and personality traits related to the originality of emotional experience and expression. Previous studies have found that the COVID-19 epidemic and the restrictions imposed increased the levels of negative emotions, which obstructed adaptation. This research suggests that EC predicts the moti...

Accession of Poland to the European Single Market generated trade creation and diversion effects, which in turn resulted in a high degree of concentration of the Polish foreign trade in agri-food products with other EU countries. On the one hand, a high share of export to the markets of countries with a stable market economy is a confirmation of th...

The sustainability of international trade is subject to immense pressure. Apart from obstructed logistics, disruption of production chains and changes in demand, the sustainability of international trade is heavily affected by the sanctions caused by the Russia–Ukraine conflict. This paper studies the factors predicting sustainable international tr...

With the EU Green Deal initiatives, European members seek to launch the first climate neutral continent by 2050. This paper assesses the stochastic convergence of per capita energy consumption series for an illustrative sample of 15 EU countries with memberships prior to the 2004 enlargement, using data spanning the 1970–2018 period. Results from t...

Regional cooperation represents a viable alternative to the ongoing process of globalization, in which countries can optimally respond to the changes in the external environment through regional integration, while a larger market size tends to provide better sales opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to identify common determinants of the im...

The purpose of this article is to present the tourist attractiveness of rural areas as a factor of social tourism in Poland and the Czech Republic. The systematic literature review (SLR) research method was used to verify the aim. An extensive review of the literature has been made which has made it possible to present the importance of tourist att...

Import and export have been acknowledged for their beneficial effects on sustainable economic development. In the context of economic globalization, the dynamics of exchange rates are more critical and necessary to export success and sustainable development. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of exchange rates contributes to the achievement of e...

The increasing volume and value of food waste is a huge threat to achieving sustainable development, food market stability, human population growth, and people’s well-being. Considering that consumers are responsible for a large degree of food waste, the current study looks at the problem of household food waste from the perspective of both food pr...

The meat consumption at the current level is highly unsustainable. Because of the problems that meat production causes to the environment, it is considered as one of the main problems. Vegetarian and vegan private label products represent a new challenging trend in addressing the customers within sustainable food consumption at affordable prices. T...

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of monetization as a priority of the new monetary growth of the economies using the example of the Russian economy, identifying new trends in global practices of monetary factor management, as well as the search for ways to stimulate economic growth using the best international experien...

Currently, there is a growing number of studies related to assessing the cost-effectiveness of renewable energy projects around the world. This topic is also very relevant for the Russian energy market that is otherwise dominated by oil and gas. The Russian Ministry of Energy forecasts that local power plants running on the renewable energy sources...

The paper evaluates Czech sugar companies in the process of transformation and abolition of quotas on the European sugar market. The assessment focuses on payment behaviour, financial health and condition. Sugar companies in the Czech Republic had a low probability of bankruptcy before the beginning of 2019 and subsequently in 2020, and good paymen...

The main goal of the paper is to evaluate the impact of the Russian import ban on the development of agricultural exports from EU member states. The study is based on a time-series analysis of empirical statistical indicators. The analysed period is between 2009 and 2019. The source of data for individual analyses is UN Comtrade (2021). The evaluat...

The paper, based on RCA, LFI and GL indices, and logistic regression analysis, allowed us to track the dynamics of the comparative advantage/disadvantage of the Czech Republic in individual commodity aggregates in relation to individual EU partners, and to comprehend the role of the main production factors. The only production factor with a statist...

Today, only around 20% of the water resources available in Georgia are used for fish farming. This means that the freshwater aquaculture VC has the potential to increase production, ensure incomes for the VC actors and contribute to the country food security and protein intake. Effective decentralised water management is needed to preserve the qual...

The rising public debt level in Africa and the sustainability of that debt remains an important research agenda. As such, understanding the factors that impact the rising public debt level in Africa remains an important research agenda. Our paper investigates the key determining drivers that have a direct and indirect impact on the rising level of...

The question of the sources of agricultural competitiveness is widely discussed on the farm and sectoral levels in the European Union. This paper assesses the competitiveness of the plant production using the combination of trade measures and strategic management measures in the selected European countries related to the Czech Republic. Thus, the p...

This study aims to evaluate the water balance of the crop mix of the Czech Republic and the tendencies of its development during the period 1961–2019. For calculating water deficits, methodology from ČSN 750434 (Czech technical standards) was used and on its basis, the deficits of the ten most frequently represented crops of the Czech Republic were...

Innovation and sustainable development have become buzzwords in the 21st century with the idea of creative destruction launched by Joseph Alois Schumpeter being the base for evolutionary economics. However, new institutional economics helps to understand the necessity of support provided to entrepreneurs and innovators by science and administration...

The paper assesses Slovak sugar factories in the process of transformation of the European sugar market from the point of view of financial health and financial condition. Before the start of the 2020/2021 campaign, sugar factories in Slovakia had a low probability of bankruptcy and excellent payment morale towards their customers, which they maint...

The distribution of the impact of the Russian import ban on the EU28 countries is not uniform. The market shares and clustering of the EU28 countries changed before and after the introduction of the ban. Although the Russian import ban was introduced as a countermeasure to Western sectoral and individual sanctions, the ban’s impact on EU28 economie...

The study examines frequent price discounts in retail chains in the Czech Republic for a selected range of products (milk, eggs and poultry). Combined with sub-purchase or sub-cost prices, such frequent promotional activities might lead to a decrease in the tax base for VAT payments to the state budget and to a potential loss of VAT. The study intr...

Machine learning algorithms have been applied in the agriculture field to forecast crop productivity. Previous studies mainly focused on the whole crop growth period while different time windows on yield prediction were still unknown. The entire growth period was separated into each month to assess their corresponding predictive ability by taking m...

The objective of the article is to identify the groups of regions characterised by a similar level of human capital determinants and investigate the relationship between cluster-based human capital determinants and economic development. We analyse key demographic, health, educational, labour, technological, and cultural determinants of human capita...

COVID-19 is likely to be the 2020s’ deadliest pandemic according to the World Health Organization (WHO). There have been more than 3.7 million confirmed deaths after 15 months spread. Besides the loss of human lives, COVID-19 has other unfavorable impacts on society, education, and the economy. Due to successive lockdowns and the continuous quarant...

The countryside aging is widely considered European problem. The same could be observed at the level of farms, where in several European countries farming population is getting statistically older. Thus, this paper aims to define the main aspects of the young farmer support policies and programmes applied in the Czech Republic. Also, in addition, w...

The current increase in government spending, caused by COVID epidemics and the increasing visibility of leftist political groups in public media, emphasizes the short-term need for sustainable income taxation. In the long run, rising inequality worldwide makes taxation of high-incomes indispensable for sustainable economic development. This paper e...

While the scientific community presents a relatively uniform conclusion on the ongoing global warming and the policies that are essential for sustainable development and the mitigation of the negative effects of climate change, the public opinion on the topic is far from uniform. This article studies the factors related to public awareness of clima...

The purpose of the paper was to analyse changes in food consumption patterns in the European Union (EU) countries and link these patterns with food production and imports. The two research questions posed by the authors were as follows i): are the structures of the consumption, production and importation of food becoming more similar or more divers...

Milk consumption is a very important part of consumers’ daily diet due to its positive health effect. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the market of milk and dairy products. The paper analyzes the development of milk consumption in V4 countries, which was described by using regression functions. The data were obtained from the statistical of...

Abstract: African countries have faced competition and several challenges to attract foreign direct investment given the role that FDIs play in the development process. Several efforts made have been futile because of numerous factors that play against the business environment for foreign investments. Our paper analyses the influence of tax incenti...

Russia’s agricultural import ban is one of the most recent examples of protectionism in agricultural trade. Introduced in 2014 and renewed every year since then, it has disrupted food supply chains and agricultural trade in Europe and influenced the prices and structure of food production in Russia. Current literature on Russia’s import ban mention...

Frequent price discounts have become one of the features of retail chains in the Czech Republic. Discounts are most often provided for products popular with customers. One of the products that is subject to frequent discounts is milk. Several expert opinions estimate that up to 50% of milk is sold with frequent price discounts. Price pressure on fa...

Poland is one of the largest agricultural producers within European Union (EU). Since joining EU in 2004, Poland has significantly increased its agri-food trade turnover and strengthened its net exporter standing in this regard. With the understanding that countries exporting similar goods to a specific market can be considered competitors, the exa...

Poland is one of the largest agricultural producers within European Union (EU). Since joining EU in 2004, Poland has significantly increased its agri-food trade turnover and strengthened its net exporter standing in this regard. With the understanding that countries exporting similar goods to a specific market can be considered competitors, the exa...

Although the EU and the USA are the largest players in the global agricultural market, there are only a few up-to-date comparative studies concerning their agricultural potential and performance. No comprehensive study covering all individual EU member states in relation to the USA has been provided so far. Considering that in the light of the last...

Agricultural commodities strengthened their position on the financial and commodity market during the 21st century. At the same time, however, the agricultural-oriented commodity market has been suffering due to a high degree of price fluctuation. Significant price fluctuations are typical in this respect, especially in times of uncertainty and per...

Securitization of the agricultural commodity market has accelerated since the beginning of the 21st century, particularly in the times of financial market uncertainty and crisis. Sugar belongs to the group of important agricultural commodities. The global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a substantial increase in the stock mark...

Efficiency, productivity and competitiveness are important indicators of any production process. Speaking of agriculture and, in particular, animal husbandry in the light of sustainable development context, the values of these indicators become of special importance. Since adequate and efficient usage of disposable labour, land and capital can play...

Tourism is currently an important branch of the global economy. However, the democratization of travel and tourism, together with the intensifying globalization processes and mass movements of the world’s population, brings with it some accompanying adverse effects that influence the shape of the contemporary world. The paper aims to evaluate the i...

Economic sanctions between the European Union and Russia have significantly changed trade relations between them, while there are controversial assessments of sanctions' impact on both economies. Russian import ban has changed domestic producer prices in Russia, offering domestic producers a unique opportunity. There is an opinion that increasing s...

This study presents a comparison of the performance and the ranking of pork producers in 16 countries over the period 2012–2017. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to make the ranking and identify the best practices among the involved countries (“peers”). For the DEA analysis, the output is aggregated into the category Carcass meat production...

This paper addresses the issue of interconnection among major sugar markets and commodity/exchange stocks in different parts of the world using the Johansen cointegration approach and vector error correction model. Due to a high degree of sugar market fragmentation and corresponding diversity in price levels and its volatility in different regions,...

The project for the transformation of Polish sugar industry was established shortly before the accession to the EU, i.e. during the preparation of Poland’s entry to the single market. Krajowa Spółka Cukrowa (KSC) was officially established in 2003 and initially included 27 sugar factories; the gradual restructuring led to the closure of 20 of these...

Russian import ban of 2014 had provoked specific changes in international trade between Russia and its main trading partners. The paper focuses on changes in trade specialization of Belarus after Russian import ban for products in scope of the ban. Main results suggest increase of Belarus trade specialization after year 2013 in sectors where the co...

The Polish Sugar producer Krajowa Spółka Cukrowa (KSC) was established as a political project with the aim to concentrate and transform a large number of state sugar refineries and counterbalance foreign capital operating in the Polish sugar production. Along with the establishment of the KSC, a future ownership model of the company was declared, w...

In the Czech Republic, and possibly in many other eastern European countries, organic production still has potential for further growth. Over the past three decades, organic farming has become an essential alternative to farming practices. An increase was observed among acreage, the number of farms, and also consumer spending on organic production....

Food industry in European union is an important sector concerning share of turnover, number of employees, gross value added on the whole manufacturing sector. Importance of this food provider in each EU country is different. This article aims to point out the main trends, key aspect, problems and challenges of the EU food industry also from the per...

The research attempts to document the effects of rural aging in India by examining the association between aging and agriculture using rural households as a target group. Key agricultural activities performed by farmers, self-reported and observed physical intensity of those activities, and their distribution across age, among other aspects, are ex...

Paper attempts to analyze the impact of Russian import ban on separate regions of Russia, i.e. federal districts, from perspective of producers’ milk prices cointegration between different federal districts of the country. Federal districts of Russian Federation differ in terms of production volume means; however null hypothesis of equal mean canno...

Článek se věnuje cukrovarnickému průmyslu v Súdánu v letech 1993–2017. Je rozdělen na dvě hlavní části, první část pojednává oprodukci cukru, část druhá se zaměřuje na spotřebu. V obou částech je provedena trendová analýza k porovnání růstu a identifikaci trendu. Poznatky plynoucí z této analýzy lze shrnout následně: Produkce cukru v Súdánu má vpos...

The sugar industry is currently facing a number of changes. Structural changes affecting its character can be observed in a number of Western, Central and Eastern European coun­tries. Significant changes can be seen in the case of EU members, in particular those that have undergone a number of sugar policy reforms over the past two decades, which h...

The European Union (EU) is characterized by a high level of openness to trade, consequently increasing its member countries’ vulnerability to external shocks coming from the rapidly changing global environment. The paper’s objective was to compare and evaluate the factors of the EU agribusiness, its vulnerability and its measurement tools, and cons...

The agrarian structure in Poland is dominated by small farms; the large share of these is a result of historical consequences. The economy has pushed small farms toward economic efficiency, which in farming often translates into increasing the scale of production. The primary objective of this research was to present the directions of the changes i...

This paper aims to examine the rice industry in Vietnam during the period 1997–2017, focusing its production and export. The total area of Vietnam is 33.121 million hectares, out of which 39.25% consists of agricultural land. The agricultural sector adds up to 24% of the gross domestic product (GDP), 20% of the total exports and over 70% of the tot...

Environmental policy is a set of objectives put in place for the protection of natural resources including water, air, soil, food, and other renewable resources. In addition, it has a considerable impact on the labor market and the income of employees in the environmental and forestry sectors. Environmental policy both directly and indirectly creat...

The European Union is Russia’s largest agricultural trading partner, and this cooperation has a long history. The imposition of sanctions on certain product groups in 2014 significantly affected trading relations. A gravity model helps us to understand and evaluate the characteristics of agricultural trade between countries. The aim of the research...

The Czech Republic (Czechia) and Poland belong among major beet sugar producers in the Central European region. From a European point of view, it is necessary to mention the long-term trend of improvement in beet production in the Czech Republic and Poland. The main objective of the presented paper is to identify the main differences in sugar beet...