The aim is to evaluate the involvement of the three spheres of innovation in innovative projects funded by the EU, taking place in South Bohemia. From a methodological point of view of scientific inquiry is used in our study, the logical method, including analysis and synthesis, which in this case means a set of design measures to improve cooperation within the South Bohemia, pro-innovation projects. Own work prior to the study of literature addressed the issue, developing literature search related to the issue. Subsequently, within each sector analyzed three selected projects. These were chosen to implement them in the most studied reflected cooperation spheres. Selection of suitable projects had to precede the analysis of grant programs that currently support such cooperation and support included. The analysis of the subsidized projects followed separate survey, which is again from a different perspective to reveal how much the projects are implemented between the spheres together or separately. The present study demonstrated that the involvement of three basic spheres in innovation projects is not ideal. Not only are projects implemented by at least two spheres, often shows that the innovative project is designed rather isolated and only executor, that the applicant for the grant. The result of this work is a set of measures based on research that will improve the coherence of three spheres in the implementation of pro-innovation projects.

The main goal was to turn attention to differences in accounting for gifts and subsidies by regulation 500/2000 Sb., 504/2002 Sb. and 410/2009 Sb. Secondary goal was to turn attention to differences in taxation with income taxes by these body corporates. The issues were summarized by using bibliographic references, laws and regulations. The results were processed by given methodological procedure. Materials gained from addressed accounting units were processed in tables and schemes. These made the comparison and finding significant differences in accounting and taxation possible.

This paper utilizes a case study approach to explain the impact of having a franchise from the National Basketball Association (NBA) move to a city where a team from the four major American sports league had not existed on employment levels. This paper utilizes the synthetic control method to examine employment in Memphis, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Sacramento, and Salt Lake City. Applying the synthetic control method, this paper finds that employment is not impacted positively as the stadium proposals suggest they will when putting forth subsidy bids. Due to the large costs imposed on taxpayers as a result of the subsidies franchises receive, further research should be conducted to look at the impact of spending on public expenditures instead of stadiums and its impact on employment levels.

Islands have typically been considered isolated entities, patches of habitat surrounded by an entirely inhospitable marine or aquatic environment. However, there is increasing evidence that islands can be linked to the surrounding environment through the influx of subsidies, which may alter the relationship between species richness and island area. Little empirical work has been done to test these hypotheses in productive ecosystems, however. To better understand the effects of the influx of marine subsidies on island ecosystems, I assessed plant community responses to wrack biomass in an observational study on 74 small islands on the Central Coast of British Columbia. In Chapter 2, I focused on 1) how seaweed wrack subsidies affect the diversity of understory plant communities, 2) whether wrack subsidies affect the species-area relationship, and 3) whether the effect of wrack subsidies is mediated by landscape-scale habitat characteristics such as island area and shoreline slope. To assess the support for these hypotheses, I used selected from models that combined plant community data, remotely-sensed habitat characteristics, and shoreline wrack biomass. I used hierarchical models to provide further insight into the cross-scale influence of these factors on plot-scale responses. I found that wrack subsidies were associated with increased island-scale plant species richness. Although wrack subsidies did not alter the relationship between species richness and area on these islands, I found that smaller islands had higher levels of marine-derived nitrogen, indicating a greater influence of marine subsidies on the nitrogen pool of smaller islands. My results add to the weight of evidence that marine subsidies are drivers of large-scale patterns of species richness, and that the linkage between islands and the surrounding environment has implications for island communities. / Graduate

Numerous studies have been undertaken on the political economy of agricultural policies in developing countries. These studies have explained agricultural policies in terms of urban bias, economic reforms, and domestic politics. Recently, the emphasis has been on explanations that reference the existence of a rational-legal and patronage element within the African state. Such explanations tend to underplay the extent to which agricultural policies are devised in a context of power asymmetries between the state and international donors or financial institutions. In the Malawian context specifically, limited attention has been paid to the possibility that policies are a negotiated outcome of interactions informed by competing objectives at the state-donor interface. Accordingly, the proposed study will attempt to fill this existing gap in the literature. Malawi is currently at the center of policy debates regarding the state’s capacity to launch a uniquely African Green Revolution within a marketized and capitalist configuration. Such debates mark the continued underinvestment in agriculture on the African continent. The Malawi case, therefore, provides a unique opportunity to explore the extent to which state level efforts are either confounded or enabled by donors and international financial institutions. The specific successes and failures of the Malawi case speak to the question of how other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa might successfully address food production and food security issues. This dissertation will explore the overarching question of the role of the state and international donors in shaping agricultural and food security policies using Malawi’s farm input subsidy program as a case study. The main research methods to explore this question are qualitative, including interviews with various development stakeholders (government ministries, international development agencies, researchers from policy research and academic institutions, and civil society organizations) associated with agriculture and food policy-making, and textual analysis of publications associated with them. The research specifically targets key experts in the area of agriculture and food security. The findings indicate that policies have been greatly influenced by the competing ideologies of the state and donors, with each recognizing the problem but differing on the approach and modalities for solving food insecurity in Malawi. To this extent, there has been considerable inconsistency in policies with obvious negative outcomes. More recently, there has been an aligning of policy positions towards the use of social welfare programs and commercialization in addressing food insecurity. This alignment relates to policy positions on both the FISP and the configuration of the wider agricultural sector as manifest in the National Agricultural Policy, for example. The role of domestic politics vs. donors in policy processes has been in flux due to changes in the political and economic environment and configuration at specific junctures. The study also finds that evidence has been important in informing policy-making, more importantly, finance has had significant impact in attenuating the influence of domestic politics, so that the recently proposed and implemented reforms to FISP, although connected to considerable sociopolitical pressure from various quarters, have been largely precipitated by a serious fiscal crisis on the part of the government. To this extent, the state has assumed a pragmatic approach to policy-making i.e., one that is cognizant of the limitations imposed by finance and Malawi’s very harsh, challenging, and complex context.

Social protection measures are poverty reduction interventions implemented to assist in reducing poverty shocks of communities. This study considered the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) that has been implemented in Malawi with the aim of reducing poverty amongst subsistence farmers by providing them with subsidized farm inputs. The study was conducted in the rural area of Lilongwe District, under Traditional Authority Kabudula. The study mainly focussed on the outcomes of implementing the FISP and it entails whether or not the poverty reduction intervention is really achieving its goals. Thus, the study greatly evaluates the effectiveness of subsidizing farm inputs in reducing poverty amongst households in rural communities characterised by subsistence farming. This study was mainly qualitative in nature and data was collected through interviews and Focus Group Discussions. Some quantitative data for specific trends of national indicators was collected through document. Mainly, content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data and descriptive statistical analysis with the aid of Microsoft Excel was engaged to analyse the quantitative data. The study found that that FISP assist in household food security only in the short term. Among the reasons cited, the package size received by households has become smaller with sharing tendencies that have been devised to help households that do not receive the inputs or qualify to receive them. This practice is compromising the agricultural productivity in terms of quantities as it lasts only in the short-term before the next harvest. When households’ food reserves are depleted, households become food insecure and poverty sets in again. The study thus reveals that FISP implementation is not operating as a sustainable programme as its intended goal is not being achieved in the long-term. The study also found that coupled with the fact that there is no clear policy guidelines on graduation and that there is continued benefitting of the same beneficiaries, FISP is nowhere close to its phasing-out stage in social protection perspective.

The purpose of the thesis is to analyse subsidies system of municipalities in Czech Republic. The thesis examines needs and development of municipalities in the context with their financing. The theoretical part defines the basic terms relating to municipal revenues with orientation on subsidies. Furthemore, it analyzes and evaluates possibilities of acquiring of subsidies and their subsequent usage. In the process of obtaining these financial resources procedural requirements and some principles must be complied. Due usage of subsudies is controlled afterwards. Folowing part of my thesis on the base of analysis and comparison of a few concrete municipalities with different size provides information on methods that municipalities use to obtain subsidies, how effective they are in using them, whether the subsidies are sufficient and how they affect needs and development of municipalities. In the conclusion my thesis evaluates whether bigger municipalities, in comparison with smaller ones, are more succesful in aquiring of subsidies and what is the effect of this successfulness on the standard of provided services by municipalities that are different in size and whether this standard of publicly provided services is identical.

Agriculture has not been a mean of securing a food for nations for a long time. Today, thanks to the European union policy, the business activities of agricultural enterprises head towards to the energetics industry and to other industries like heating, forestry or services that enable the companies to diversify their activities beyond the borders of the primary sector. The reasons for a decision of extending the strategic focus of business are many: smaller dependency on weather, better market position in the relevant micro environs, more effective use of agricultural land, local energetic self-sufficiency. This thesis analyses especially the transition of the Czech agriculture from the concept of securing the food self-sufficiency of the state towards to the concept of securing energetic self-sufficiency of the state, facilitated by the renewable energy sources produces by farmers, and other development trends in the Czech agriculture in the European transnational, Czech national and local business context.

This diploma thesis deals with characteristic and development of mikroregion Blaník that is situated on area of ten municipalities in district of Vlašim. Thesis focuses on definition of mikroregion and its legislative enshrinement. Then it summarizes the status of local culture and cultural heritage, and also describes options how to obtain subsidies. This part is followed by practical part which is based on specific information obtained from the annual reports and the management of mikroregion. Thesis is supplemented by interviews with mayors.

Local air pollution significantly affects human health. Among its major polluters are households which are, however, difficult to regulate. This essay describes the tools of regulation of small pollution resources already implemented in existing legislation and also the instruments under consideration by the Ministry of the Environment, focusing on subsidies. The questionnaire survey monitored the feedback of households towards subsidies for heating change and consequently three hypotheses were specified. The first one assumes that the subsidies will be utilized just by households with lower incomes. The second one assumes that the subsidy will be chozen by elderly people. According to the last hypothesis this choice will be preffered by households with higher heating costs. Any of the hypotheses was not rejected. Subsidies will stimulate households to use more environmentally friendly methods of heating.