Issue 2, 2019

This article is dedicated to the topic of social potential as a source of development and sustainable functioning of the socio-economic system. It is pointed out that economic progress can also turn out to be a form of regress unless human investments are made. This baseline is used to put forward and discuss two major problems. The first problem refers to the relationship between human behavior and social potential. The focus here is placed on the system of values as a basic difference in human behavior. It also focuses on some psychological aspects of the thinking patterns behind one’s personality and behavior. The second problem is related to specific behavioral patterns that hinder the realization of social potential. Knowing them and being willing to eliminate them in the management practice may lead to an increase in the effective functioning of the socio-economic system.
JEL: D03; D21

The ecosystem approach has been widely incorporated in the management and evaluation of agrarian sustainability. Despite enormous progress in this new evolving area, still there is no consensus on how to assess the sustainability of agro-ecosystems due to the diversity in understandings, approaches, methods, employed data, etc. In Bulgaria there are no comprehensive studies on the integral, socio-economic and ecological sustainability of the different types of agroecosystems. This paper makes a first attempt at assessing the sustainability of agro-ecosystems in Bulgaria. Initially, a holistic framework for assessing the integral, economic, social and ecological sustainability of agro-ecosystems, which includes 17 principles, 35 criteria, and 46 indicators and reference values, is suggested. After that, the integral and the multi-aspect sustainability of 7 generic and 10 specific agro-ecosystems in Bulgaria are assessed. The estimates are based on first-hand information collected by the managers of “typical” farms operating in different agro-ecosystems in 4 geographical regions of the country. The study has found out that there is a substantial variation in the level of integral and multi-aspect sustainability of the different types of agro-ecosystems, as well as in the level of contribution to the sustainability of various sub-sectors of agriculture and farms of different juridical type and size, where the individual indicators with the highest and lowest values show the (critical) factors which enhance or deter sustainability.
JEL: Q12; Q18; Q56; Q57

The report examines three sets of issues related to: trends in the production of food products; the opportunities offered by the EU CAP and the extent to which it is used and the consistency between supply (from production) and the demand for food products in Bulgaria.
JEL: Q1

The dynamics of the gross loans and advances of banks in Bulgaria has been examined in the 2007-2017 period. A comparative study has been made of the dynamics of the gross loans and advances of the banks in Bulgaria and the other EU member states. The major trends of bank lending in our country and the European Union have been enumerated.
JEL: G210

An examination is made of the emerging changes in the politico-economic systems of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as a result of the introduction of 3D printers, which are also known as additive technologies, because they create three-dimensional objects layer after layer. The emergence, nature and historical development of 3D printers are addressed. The areas of their application, which are increasingly expanding, are analyzed. The changes in the economic subsystem, which are supposed to require changes in the overall relationship between economy and policy, and thus transformations in the politico-economic systems as a whole, are outlined. These changes are addressed in terms of the new challenges that the countries will have to react to, as well as in terms of the unfolding transformations in the global divisions of labor and value chains that will have a radical impact on the geo-economic and geo-political balances in the world.
JEL: L86; O25; O31; P16