The subject of the paper is the analysis of price convergence in the European Union in general and in the Central and Eastern European member states in particular. The first part of the paper is an overview of the relevant literature on price convergence serving as the theoretical foundation of the subsequent empirical analyses on comparative price levels. The second part discusses sigma convergence in the EU-27 including the old (EU-15) and the new (EU-12) member states, as well as within the Economic and Monetary Union. Conditional (weak) beta convergence in the EU-12 is also analyzed. The first conclusion of the paper is that a rather strong relationship exists between sigma convergence and the process of economic integration, more precisely between sigma convergence and the establishment of the individual stages of regional economic associations. The second conclusion is that price convergence is not a secular process; it may be impeded or accelerated by a great number of micro and macroeconomic factors.

The paper compares the specific identical and different features of the relationship and interaction between corporate and regional cultures in Potsdam (Germany), on the one hand, and in Gyo{double acute}r (Hungary), on the other hand, based on the empirical research results obtained in the Corporate Culture and Regional Embeddedness project. The major conclusion is that regional and, to some extent, broadly defined corporate cultures survived the socialist episode of history in both regions to a more pronounced extent than in the rest of the respective countries, thereby representing a high degree of continuity. Although the driving forces were different, embedded in a set of specific factors, the mobilization of this social capital produced a vicious circle after the transition to market economy in both regions, making the adjustment to the new situation more successful than in the other regions. © 2011 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

The present study forms an operational variation of the task undertaken in the outlook paragraph of the authors' earlier article to study with the help of the Sense of Coherence (SOC) as a group property, the health and general well-being of the Hungarian national community (in an international comparison). With Hungary being the only Eastern Central European ('Trans-Elbanian') country joining the EU-project with the title Corporate Culture and Regional Embeddednes (CURE), we Hungarians tried to help achieve this goal by making the following proposal to the researchers of the five Western-European ('Cis-Elbanian') countries partaking in the project: the drastically different Health Capital level of the Grand Regions situated on the two sides of the Elbe-Leitha boundary ('centrum versus semi-periphery') should be inserted as a control variable into the original research model of the project, which has propounded the hypothesis that the interaction between the organisational culture of the corporations operating in the sample region of the individual countries and the national culture of the respective regions has had an impact on the development of the region. We have presumed that this enormous difference between the Health Capital levels can bring to light the true underlying historical-social-economical impact factors which appear to be 'cultural' when approached for the first time. The leadership of the project allowed the Hungarian team to check, beyond the qualitative research design of the project, with the quantitative method of the research, the model variation enriched with a Health Capital variable. The conclusive results thus gained anticipate an affirmation of the results achieved in the original qualitative variation of the project design and may serve as an example for the whole research team to also implement an internationally exact investigation of the effect of the Health Capital as a control variable of the cultural impact in a possible follow up. The present study displays the first, pilot study results of this research undertaking, to be implemented in our country within the frame of the CURE project, and to be transferred into the international comparison if it proves successful. These preliminary results illustrate the interdependency of the cultural dimensions and the Health Capital apprehended in a salutogenic cross section. © 2009 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest.