An analysis is made of the social innovations that have already been implemented after 2007, summarising their positive sides and their weaknesses. On this basis, and considering the employment prospects after 2020, the requirements for a more active use of the innovative process in the employment policies in Bulgaria are outlined.

The study analyses the tax structure of Bulgaria and its relation to economic growth for the period 2003 – 2015. The results reveal that Bulgarian budget revenue mainly depends on the taxes charged on consumption. It was found that in times of economic growth tax and non-tax revenues form the necessary fiscal resources in the budget while during a crisis the revenues are insufficient, which in turn leads to the formation of a budget deficit and a subsequent increase in government debt. There are statistical arguments in support of the notion that budget revenues are inversely related to economic growth and create conditions for its reduction. Government spending has a direct proportional relation to growth and results in its increase. The econometric estimates and the interpretation of the results are calculated with the use of a multiple linear regression with an included dummy variable (OLS with a dummy variable), the Two-Stage Least Squares method (TSLS) and the Vector Autoregressive model (VAR models).

Empirical evidence of tax buoyancy is presented as an assessment of the effectiveness of the tax system. The buoyancy analysis aims to track whether tax revenues follow economic growth and at what rate. The survey includes the EU-28 countries, with data divided into three panels: consumer, hybrid and income tax systems. The time period from 1999 to 2015 is covered. An autoregressive distributed lag model is used in order to establish that in the hybrid tax system the short-term and long-term tax buoyancy is the highest, meaning that this type of tax system is the most effective and marks the highest increase in economic growth.

The research supervision of PhD students (particularly in the fields of economics and business management) in Bulgaria is a process which is not taken care of sufficiently. There are serious loopholes in it that need to be overcome methodically in tertiary education. The purpose of the present article is to summarize the place and the role of the research supervisor in the doctoral level studies of economics and business management, and to outline the opportunities for the improvement of this process. The object of the article is the doctoral study, and its subject are the basic axioms, characteristics and expert assessment of the personality of the academic advisor, the criteria for his or her assignment, the objective focuses of the activity and the contemporary orientation of the academic supervision. These points are organized into two parts: (1) the inventory of the portrait of the research supervisor and (2) the necessary and feasible changes to the academic supervision in the conditions of a knowledge-based economy.

A short summary is made of William Baumols’ contributions to economic theory. Baumol (1922-2017) had a vivid interest in many different areas within the field of economics and substantially improved (in co-authorship) the quality of the research on the theory of environmental economics, industrial organization and entrepreneurship. The focus of the present paper is placed on his work on entrepreneurship. The institutional framework of a society makes its entrepreneurs either productive or unproductive and in some cases even destructive. This logic implies that economic policy can be used in order to make entrepreneurs become productive for a society and thus to induce growth, wealth and development.

In 2011 Prof. Dr. Zoya Mladenova published a major monograph on the state and development of neoclassical theory in the world in the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Her second monograph, on the "paradigm shift" (transition) in economic theory in Bulgaria in the years after 1989, has recently been published. The two editions are thematically linked: the first is about the dominant theory in the world, the second - about the transition to it in Bulgaria. In this sense, both in terms of content and in terms of the author's conception (see p. 13 of the first monograph and pp. 3-4 of the second), the two monographs can be seen as a comprehensive study published in two volumes on issues in the history and state of economic theory in Bulgaria and in the world. There is no similar two-volume edition in the Bulgarian literature.