Issue 1, 2001

Public utilities such as electricity and telecommunication industries have experienced large-scale changes in recent years. These industries posses elements of natural monopolies, which until lately prompted governments to regulate these sectors. Many utility companies were also state-owned. New theories and new technologies have ignited processes of privatization and deregulation that reshaped these network industries from monopolies into accessible markets. Entry after deregulation took several forms. Firms either built their own networks or obtained access to incumbent network capacities. Auctions were used to regulate the number of entrants in all those cases where technological considerations curtail the number of competitors such as in mobile telephony.
The paper discusses some theories of privatization and (de)regulation. Oligopoly models are used to calculate the effects of deregulation on prices and market structures.
The paper argues that (re)regulation is warranted as long as natural monopoly elements feature these industries. This applies to the fixed network in telecommunications and the low and high voltage networks in electricity. Governments can regulate access to network industries by setting interconnection tariffs and granting roaming rights. (Re) regulation is, therefore, warranted in many cases.

The main purpose of this paper is "long wave" thesis proposed by Kondratieff in 1926. Analysis begins with close examination of methods used by Kondratieff for trend removal and extraction of cyclical components. The presence of unit root and improper trend elimination procedures are considered as well as usage of "nine years moving average" filter which both can lead to spurious cycles with long periods. Theoretical conclusions for improper trend removal are backed by detail examination of tendency in 14 economic time series analyzed by Kondratieff. It is shown that they all are integrated of first order and differencing is needed to achieve stationarity instead of regression on time. The spectral analysis of transformed series shows that the cyclical components presented are only "Kitchin" and "Juglar" types. Waves longer then 30 years does not exist in the data so the main Kondratieff thesis should be considered unproved.

The paper generalizes benefits and costs of potential official euroisation of Bulgarian economy in the process of accession to European Union and European Monetary Union. Since Bulgarian has a currency board the paper emphasizes on the comparison of current monetary regime and official euroisation. We present arguments in favor of the statement that European common currency have to be introduced on the Balkans and in Bulgaria, which will help Euro to take strategic advantage in the future new geography of money.

It is examined the changes of the regional politics of the European Community, the substance and the purpose of its fundamental instruments consistently the possibility for the membeship of all (in it number Bulgaria). The accent is put on spatial concentration and purpose of the structural fonds of the European community to improving of the basic infrastructure and encouraging the transport collaboration in region - east and central Europe. It is traced the effect of the European help on the determinants of the economic growth. It is shown the indirect influence on the macroeconoc convergence from the primary effect of the stuctural helping to the priority regions - ifrastructural actions, collaboration and so on, which is the essence of the regional European politics. It is given the contemporary interpretation of the traditional instruments accordingly with idea for the joining of the the ex-socialist countries and Bulgaria to the European Community.

It is examined analitical statistic and dynamic models for choice of decisions for realizing of the firm's investment activity in short and long lasting plan. It is analyzed the necessaryly economic data and parameters at the composing the investment behavior.
It is studyed and refined different dinamic optimizing models by means of them are defined the relation between inovation and investment and interaction between investment and marketing firm's politics. It is given models with distributed lags for describing the nvestment.
It is developed dynamic optimizing models for determining of the investment firm's politics in our country. By means of its are fined the investment technical structure, bringing to perfection using the production factors at reporting of the accidental factors.

This study analyses the innovative activity of the companies in the industrial economic sector after the model of Pleven, Lovech, Veliko Tarnovo and Gabrovo districts. An assessment has been accomplished of the innovative activity of the companies grouped by size ( number of employees ), type of ownership and mechanism of its obtaining and rates of export intensity. On the basis of the formed summarized assessment of the innovative activity of the companies some basic dependencies have been deduced about their innovative activity in the period of the market economy transition.