Economic Development 

Abstract: A virtual team is formed when at least one of the members of the team works in a different location, time zone or culture. Virtual teams have been used for many years and a significant amount of knowledge has been built up about good practices in managing virtual teams and in particular managing virtual meetings. Over the last few years there has been a great deal of emphasis on improving collaborative working practices, and this is often the justification for investment in new technologies. Usually there is no metric of collaboration effectiveness so there is no means of knowing if the technology made a difference. Many of the reports, papers, conferences and books on collaboration and social media seem to assume that team working only takes place between people working in the same company, the same country and speaking the same language. Research published in the Digital Workplace Trends report suggests that over 75% of companies with more than 50,000 employees run into problems with language and culture in team working. This Research Paper sets out the benefits and challenges of virtual teams, and focuses in particular on the management of virtual team meetings. More information and guidance is to be found in three recent books on the management of virtual teams which are listed in the Resources section along with some surveys and research papers on virtual team management. The report sets out ten recommendations on how to make effective use of virtual teams and virtual team meetings.

Abstract: The topic of fiscal federalism from the standpoint of the tax revenue and the expenditure distribution is extremely significant for the regional growth, both quantitatively (income and employment) and quantitatively (types of public disbursement and growth impact). In the present paper we will analyse the distribution between both aspects of public disbursement in the OECD European countries in the last years, in this connection we will examine it with econometric models with the aim of estimate the impacts mentioned below. Una version actualizada de este documento esta disponible gratuitamente en la serie de documentos "Economic Development" de la Asociacion Euroamericana de Estudios de Desarrollo Economico, con el numero 8. http://www.usc.es/economet/aea.htm An updated version of this paper is downloadable free in the series "Economic Development" edited by the Euro-American Association of Economic Development Studies, with the number 8. http://www.usc.es/economet/eaa.htm

Abstract: We analyse economic growth in China having into account the evolution of productive sectors, with special reference to the impact of industry and agriculture on the growth of services, through an inter-sectoral relationship which has also into account the important role of foreign trade. The main conclusions point to the important positive impact imports have on economic growth due to the existence of complementary relationships with internal production. We also analyse the bilateral relationships between industrial development and foreign trade, presenting some international comparisons of the evolution of the Chinese economy with OECD countries, Asian countries and other areas.

Abstract: The concept of economic planning of tourism development could not be applied if forecasting of tourism demand is neglected. The importance of application of quantitative forecasting methods is enormous when dealing with projection of future tourism trends. In that respect, the method of exponential smoothing is applied through the following variants: Double Exponential Smoothing (DES) and the Holt -Winters Smoothing (HWS). The forecast evaluation emphasizes that the DES model is more accurate and thus recommends for forecasting the number of foreign tourists in Macedonia in the period 2009 - 2014. Furthermore, the paper identifies the lack of global concept for tourism development in Macedonia and recommends application of tourism planning as a key factor for enhancement of tourism sector.