INEKO - Institute for Economic and Social Reforms

About us

Dátum: 01.01.2000

INEKO Institute is a non-governmental non-profit organization established in support of economic and social reforms which aim to remove barriers to the long-term positive development of the Slovak economy and society.

Mission

The Institute’s mission is to support a rational and efficient economic and social reform process in the Slovak Republic (SR), through research, information development and dissemination, advice to senior government, political and self-governing officials, and promotion of the public discourse. It also focuses on those areas of social policy on the regional as well as the European level critical to the economic transformation of the SR. It draws on the best experience available from other transition countries and members of the European Union (EU) and the OECD.

Wide-reaching changes brought about by industrial revolution, democratization, globalization and informatization have hit our region in the last few decades. Our society is unable to cope in this world with the rules and values valid for thousands of years any more – yet it should not ignore them either. For instance, there was no need to take care of the elderly through the first or second pillars of the pension system a thousand years ago. The seniors’ relatives provided the care reliably instead. No doubt that the relatives’ role is important today as well, yet it needs to be combined with the new schemes that would take in account changing conditions such as rising migration, and that would be able to take a good care of an increasing number of people who are not tied to small communities anymore. Hence the main mission of INEKO: to search for an optimal speed and scale of an “upgrade” of society’s operating system, its ethics code.

Here are the activities we carry out and the principles that we rely on in supporting our mission: (illustrated with the help of Vladimir Rencin’s cartoons, and by using photos we took ourselves):

• We are looking for an optimal way and degree of providing intergenerational solidarity in the era of globalization, that is in times of growing human mobility leading to changing relationships among people
• We consider the pessimistic thinking of a sizable part of the population as one of the deformations in the decision-making process, which is thus built on erroneous information
• We are trying to make sure that public funds are spent effectively and at the same time in line with taxpayers’ preferences
• We are looking for the degree of solidarity and the manner of its provision so that the society could both benefit from the globalization and stay cohesive the at the same time.
• We focus on systemic reforms. These are the reforms that help society run well even in cases when led by less than ideal politicians.
• We are looking for an optimal degree and manner of disseminating information about economic and social reforms to public. We are convinced that the key changes to social rules need to be communicated to the public carefully. Still, we admit that in some situations providing information may be harmful
• We believe that for social rules to be useful, they not only have to be logically correct, but also clear and comprehensible.
• We try to fight misleading information in the economy.
• We understand how little popular and trustworthy economists are in public eyes.. Hence we try to adjust our appearance in public accordingly

Also, let us offer you a few quotations that influenced our thinking about the world:

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
Charles Darwin

Economics is the art of making the most of life.
G.B.Shaw

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
Thomas Sowell

Progress is precisely that which the rules and regulations did not foresee.
Ludwig von Mises

One of the soundest rules to remember when making forecasts in the field of economics is that whatever is to happen is happening already.
Sylvia Porter

The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.
Fredrich August von Hayek

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
Herbert Clark Hoover

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.
Frederic Bastiat