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The paper presents the results of the first application of cyclical analysis to economic activity in Serbia. The analysis refers to the period 2001-07, which marked the start of democratic and economic reforms, since short term fluctuations in economic activity prior to 2001 were the result of various exogenous shocks like hyperinflation, wars and international economic sanctions. In the post-reform period, the Serbian economy exhibits characteristics of a small, open, marketoriented economy. Economic activity shows an upward trend, and with special regard to growth dynamics and their cyclical properties, cyclical analysis is relevant. In analysing cyclical fluctuations in economic activity, a deviation-from-trend approach is applied. For dating turning points in economic activity, the monthly gross domestic product (GDP) is used since the coincident properties of the index of industrial production could not be statistically verified for Serbia as there were a small number of quarterly observations available for GDP.
JEL Classification: E32; C22
Keywords: Hodrick-Prescott band-pass filter; Composite leading indicators.© beawolf - Fotolia.com
This paper explores how admissions tests are used in different higher education systems around the world. This is a relatively new area of research, despite the fact that admissions processes are a key component of university practices and given the everincreasing globalisation of higher education. This paper shows that aptitude and achievement tests, for example, are used in many developed countries. In some of them, a specific test is nationally instituted and generalised; consequently, the function of the test is well embedded in the education landscape of the country. Elsewhere, tests exist but are administered in an ad hoc fashion with little consistency across the sector. This paper provides an important reference tool for national systems and individual institutions interested in examining their position within the realm of international practice in the utilisation of admissions testing for university selection.
Managing the ageing of fuel cycle facilities (FCFs) means, as for other nuclear installations, ensuring the availability of required safety functions throughout their service life while taking into account the changes that occur with time and use. This technical opinion paper identifies a set of good practices by benchmarking strategies and good practices on coping with physical ageing and obsolescence from the facility design stage until decommissioning. It should be of particular interest to nuclear safety regulators, fuel cycle facilities operators and fuel cycle researchers.
Many indicators of business and growth cycles have been constructed by both private and public agencies and are now in use as monitoring devices of economic conditions and for forecasting purposes. As these indicators are largely composite constructs using other economic data, their frequency composition is likely different to that of the variables that they are used as for indicators.