The online economy takes a huge role in today’s globalized world. Internet as a general purpose technology changes how companiesoperate, but it also changes the markets. The online economy has a huge effect on people’s everyday life, private and public companiesas well. The goal of this paper is to analyse the global online economy by countries of origin answering the question whichcountries dominate the internet. After deep literature survey on the subject the Alexa Top 500 database is used to analyse it by themost visited websites in the world. The analysis shows the online economy is dominated by the USA and China. Correlation analysisconfirms that GDP correlates with websites originating from that country. This means highly developed countries have better onlineeconomy with more websites, dominating the online economy.
Convergence is one the main targets of enlarged EU. According to the analysis of the main sustainable consumption and productionindicators, except domestic material consumption, convergence has been taking place in new EU member states over the period ofeconomic growth in 2000–2007. However, as indicated by the results due to the global economic crisis in 2009 differences betweenthe countries have increased: the convergence rate – the coefficient of variation – increased. In overall terms, countries in CEE haveimproved in most cases and converged to the average of the group. However, in terms of sustainable development, convergencenot always indicates positive changes. New EU member states while striving to reach higher economic level should maintain lowerlevels of consumption, waste generation and pollution. Much more attention to energy and resource efficiency and decoupling ofeconomic growth and resource consumption is to be paid.
The methodological approaches of determining of living standard in regions are presented in this article. Studies of living standardare complex, and in order to compare regions, multivariate statistical methods are suggested for use. Other approaches may specifyand clarify the regional features of living standard. The regional cost of living surveys in Lithuania studies are not prevalent, but themethodology can be adapted to the Lithuanian case.
Audit activity is a variety of service industries, and cannot be developed independently of the major trends in this area. A strategicdirection in the development of audit is creation of the international market of auditing services with unified rules and standardsregulating audit, and creation of uniform quality criteria. This article examines the concept of quality audit service, analyzes themain problems of legislative and methodological character in the area of external and internal audit control in Latvia, and considersopportunities and ways of improvement based on international experience. The research results can be applied to construction anddevelopment of the systems of external and internal audit control, which will be providing the most reliable information about thestate of business of companies-customers, their performance and prospects for sustainable development. The financial stability ofa company, confirmed by the independent, objective opinion of an auditor, increases the growth of investments, the price of shares,improves the company’s reputation in the financial market and ultimately contributes to the stable development of a region.