The goal of this paper is to analyze the theoretical, political and organizational bases of the territorial division of the country into municipalities as well as empirical data of Estonian municipalities and offer a research direction for identifying conceptual solutions to the development...

The aim of this article is to describe Estonia's economic development strategy in the Baltic Sea region primarily from the perspective of labour costs as a factor in international competitiveness. Estonia's position in the international division of economic activities will be explored based on...

The goal of this paper is to quantitatively assess the relationships between the service structure and size and age structure of the population, as well as the income levels and employment structure of Estonian municipalities. The article consists of three parts. The first part deals with the...

Innovation policy is essential to guarantee a country's development and the continuous enhancement of its innovation performance. The aim of this paper is to empirically analyse the position of Estonia in different innovation policy areas compared to other European countries. Seventeen different...

Regions are increasingly competing indirectly because of the increasing mobility of populations. According to OECD (2005) figures, interregional commuting rates are high. Intraregional commuting rates are even higher and steadily increasing. Commuting has a significant influence on the income of...

In many countries occur problems from unfunded mandates related to a shift of a function by an upper tier of government to lower rank governments without providing the lower one with financial means to perform these functions. The authors define the unfunded mandates and clarify how they relate...

Estonian municipalities should perform a broad range of functions, while their fiscal resources are often limited and large disparities in fiscal capacity prevail among them. Moreover, the power to regulate fiscal affairs is mostly in the hands of the central government. We discuss how a strict...

Problems associated with the qualitative analysis and quantitative measurement of sustainability, and opportunities for connecting the concept with the methodological basis of development assessment and the essence of the subject that values sustainability are dealed. The goal of article is to...

Deutsch Zusammenfassung: Estland gilt als ein Musterland für den erfolgreichen Umbau einer sozialistischen Wirtschaftsordnung zu einer funktionstüchtigen Marktwirtschaft. Aufgrund des positiven Estlandbildes, das einen starken Kontrast zu den Krisengemälden aus südeuropäischen Euro-Ländern...

Although Estonia developed a functioning market economy, it has hardly succeeded in catching-up economically with the richer countries of the euro area. Correspondingly, the level of social security is still rather limited. To improve the income situation and enhance the social security systems...