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  THE USE OF DIGITAL SERVICES BY BULGARIA�S POPULATION: MAJOR PREREQUISITES, TRENDS AND REGIONAL DIMENSIONS

  The digitalization of administrative processes and providing electronic services in Bulgaria has undoubtedly led to an increase of the administrative capacity not only of central but also of local organs of authority. At the same time, the differences in the levels of digital knowledge, skills and competences among Bulgaria�s regions have caused a ... The digitalization of administrative processes and providing electronic services in Bulgaria has undoubtedly led to an increase of the administrative capacity not only of central but also of local organs of authority. At the same time, the differences in the levels of digital knowledge, skills and competences among Bulgaria�s regions have caused a certain disturbance in the offered digital services. The article aims at presenting some major trends in the dynamics of selected indicators which reflect the development of digitalization in the public sector. A specific focus is placed on the regional dimensions of these processes, assuming that local authorities face much more serious challenges in this respect compared to central state organs.

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  AN APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING AND ASSESSING THE GOVERNANCE EFFICIENCY OF AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES

  This article incorporates the New Institutional Economy and proposes an approach for understanding and assessing the governance efficiency of farms. It corroborates that a farm is efficient if it manages all its transactions and activities in the most economical (equal or more efficient) way compared to any other organization. Moreover, farms must ... This article incorporates the New Institutional Economy and proposes an approach for understanding and assessing the governance efficiency of farms. It corroborates that a farm is efficient if it manages all its transactions and activities in the most economical (equal or more efficient) way compared to any other organization. Moreover, farms must have a good potential to adapt to permanently changing market, institutional, technological and natural environments in order to have high (overall) governance efficiency. Nature of the problems in effective organization for the main farm transactions for securing needed factors of production and output realization is used as an indicator for farm�s comparative efficiency. The analysis of survey data found that the overall level of governance efficiency of Bulgarian farms is acceptable the efficiency of 60% of them is low. There are huge differences in the level of efficiency of farms of different legal form, size, specialization and location as well as in the share of farms with different levels of efficiency in each group. Keywords: governance, efficiency, farm, transaction costs.

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  PERSPECTIVE SPATIAL MODEL FOR SUSTAINABLE REDIVISION INTO REGIONS AND PROVIDING FOR BULGARIA�S REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Bearing in mind the process of depopulation of Bulgaria�s North-west region, the planning and further worsening of the socio-economic indicators of the region necessitate taking actions for the redivision of the NUTS 2 regions. The need of differentiating new division into regions is determined by the high degree of the region�s lagging in key ... Bearing in mind the process of depopulation of Bulgaria�s North-west region, the planning and further worsening of the socio-economic indicators of the region necessitate taking actions for the redivision of the NUTS 2 regions. The need of differentiating new division into regions is determined by the high degree of the region�s lagging in key socio-economic factors such as: transport infrastructure, demographic characteristics, GDP per capita, average gross salary, etc. The proposed model for division of Bulgaria�s regions preserves in the long run the number of citizens in the level 2 regions set in the normative base and allows the differentiation of five regional centers. This means that in a case of lack of force majeure circumstances in the socio-economic aspect in the country, we can achieve economic integration among the regions and development of regional policy for the purposes of the implementation of financial securing of the development of the lagging regions, which as of this moment, encompass the planned North-west region.