Economic and Business Review (EBR)
Not a member yet
362 research outputs found
Sort by
Global Supply Chains at Work in Central and Eastern European Countries: Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Export Restructuring and Productivity Growth
No full textBased on the global supply chains’ economics the objective of the paper is to ascertain to what extent FDI has been a factor of structural change and productivity growth in Central and Eastern European Countries’ (CEECs) manufacturing. By applying the empirical model that accounts for the impact of FDI on export restructuring (controlling for export demand, imports and intra-industry intensity of trade) and standard growth accounting approach to capture the effect of export restructuring on industry productivity growth we empirically accounts for the importance of the \u27global supply chains\u27 concept for export restructuring and productivity growth in CEECs in the period 1995-2007. Using industry-level data and accounting for technology intensity, we show that FDI has significantly contributed to export restructuring in the CEECs. The effects of FDI are, however, heterogeneous across countries. While more advanced core CEECs succeeded in boosting exports in higher-end technology industries, non-core CEECs stuck with export specialization in lower-end technology industries. This suggests that in what kind of industries FDI flows have been directed is of key importance. The paper adds to the relevant literature by explaining the mechanism through which FDI contributed to economic and technological restructuring in CEECs
Spillover Effects through Worker Mobility: Evidence from Slovenian SMEs
No full textThe paper tests for potential productivity spillovers arising through worker mobility from foreign owned firms to domestic SMEs using Slovenian data, covering the period from 2002 to 2010. Separate analyses were done for the service and manufacturing sector. My paper contributes to a segment of literature,that is relatively scarce, since it requires the use of linked employer-employee databases, which emerged only recently. I find robust evidence in support of the hypothesis, that flows of highly educated workers from foreign owned firms to domestic SMEs boost total factor productivity growth of domestic service SMEs
Impact of Corporate Power on Consumption, Debt and Inequality: Political-Economic Model of CCC
No full textThe literature is abundant with studies about income inequality, consumption, public and household debt but scarce with studies about the corporations and their corporate power. This paper shows that corporate power influences increased consumption in order to secure its investments and provide sufficient demand. Secondly, rising consumerism influences growing household and public debt with multiple transmission mechanisms that work simultaneously and reinforce each other. Thirdly, growing household and public debt increase inequality, disabling the government to invest in education, health care, infrastructure or social transfers, and preventing the people from investing in their education or increasing their savings and, consequently, their wealth and financial independence. Finally, the inequality causes an increase in corporate power. People who are impoverished and thus unequal in comparison with the production owners and capitalists are also weaker in the bargaining process. They cannot improve their position, so the corporate power rises completing the cumulative and circular causation
Solventnost II in holistično obvladovanje tveganj
No full textThe Solvency II Directive poses a major challenge to insurance companies, fundamentally changing the way they currently do business. In the study, we examined the qualitative requirements of the so-called second pillar, namely the role, importance and limits of holistic risk management under the new solvency regime. A case study conducted in the Slovenian market confirmed that Solvency II is an external trigger forcing insurance companies to implement a holistic risk management system. The results of a qualitative analysis of partially structured interviews with leading industry experts and supervisory institutions show that everyday business decisions that also include a risk dimension can lead to a higher level of corporate governance in insurance companies
The Impact of Implicit Electricity Market Coupling on the Slovenian-Austrian Border on the Efficiency of Cross-Border Transmission Capacity Allocation and Social Welfare in Slovenia
No full textOn the Slovenian-Austrian border cross-zonal capacities (CZCs) are currently allocated at explicit auctions, although in the future to comply with the European Target Electricity Model one can expect implicit auctions within market coupling to be implemented. Via a simulation, this paper aims to study the impact of implicit electricity market coupling on the Slovenian-Austrian border on the efficiency of CZC allocation and social welfare in Slovenia. The simulation results show that the use of implicit auctions would increase the efficiency of CZC allocation, reduce the price of electricity and increase the volume of trading in the Slovenian electricity exchange market. Further, implicit market coupling on the Slovenian-Austrian border would increase social welfare in Slovenia
Ustrezen odnos med vodilnim managementom in informatiki kot pogoj za uspešno digitalno preobrazbo podjetij
No full textDigitization and the associated digital transformation is becoming one of the greatest challenges in companies. Numerous studies examine factors that enable digital transformation and the impact of digital transformation on business operations. In any case, one of the prerequisites for successful digital transformation is also an understanding between senior management and IT, which takes care of the implementation of digitization projects. Despite efforts to create an appropriate relationship between IT and senior management, there is still a gap between the two in many companies. The aim of this article is therefore to contribute to the understanding of this gap by highlighting the factors that lead to a partnership. In particular, the results of a study of 221 information technology executives underscore the importance of business and management knowledge in bringing about a partnership. It is precisely because of the consequences of inadequate informatization that the problem addressed in this paper is very topical, and the desire to bridge the gap or increase collaboration between business management and information technology
Innovation Focused Strategy and Earnings Management
No full textThis study utilizes three approaches to investigate the extent to which firms with an innovation focused strategy engage in earnings management through the use of income smoothing, real activities, and the use of discretionary accruals. Several results are reported. First, firms with an innovative strategy report a greater percentage of earnings in the fourth quarter indicating greater earnings management. Second, innovative firms use real activities to a greater extent than non-innovative firms to manage earnings when income approaches certain earnings benchmarks. Lastly, innovative strategy firms engage in the use of discretionary accruals to a greater degree than other firms
The Effects of Outsourcing and Outward FDI on Skill Structure in Slovenia: Evidence on Matched Firm-Employee Data
No full textThis paper studies the effect of outsourcing and outward FDI on firms’ skill structure. Its main contributions consist of studying changes in the skill structure that can be associated with outsourcing and outward FDI to high- and low-income countries, and including a new dimension when defining skills, which also controls for occupational classification of workers. The analysis employs a matched employer-employee dataset for Slovenian manufacturing and service firms between 1997 and 2010. The results indicate that outward FDI to high- and low-income countries has a positive impact on the skill share in manufacturing firms. The results also show that in the case of some occupational groups firms prefer to employ more educated individuals
Missing Value Imputation Using Contemporary Computer Capabilities: An Application to Financial Statements Data in Large Panels
No full textThis paper addresses an evaluation of the methods for automatic item imputation to large datasets with missing data in the particular setting of financial data often used in economic and business settings. The paper aims to bridge the gap between purely methodological papers concerned with individual imputation techniques with their implementation algorithms and common practices of missing value treatment in social sciences and other research. Historical methods for handling the missing values are rendered obsolete with the rise of cheap computing power. Regardless of the condition of input data, various computer programs and software packages almost always return some results. In spite of this fact, item imputation in scientific research should be executed only to reproduce reality, not to create a new one. In the review papers comparing different methods we usually find data on performance of algorithms on artificial datasets. However, on a simulated dataset that replicates a real-life financial database, we show, that algorithms different from the ones that perform best on purely artificial datasets, may perform better
New Insights into the Price Dynamics of Prescription Pharmaceuticals in Slovenia over the Period 2001–2014
No full textThe article investigates changes in the prices of Slovenian prescription pharmaceuticals in the period 2001-2014. A special emphasis is put on the pricing of innovative pharmaceuticals. The price structure of pharmaceuticals, annual price changes and alterations in the structure of consumption according to price are graphically and statistically analyzed, using Laspeyres, Paasche and Fisher price indices. Article shows that during the period 2008-2014, prices of pharmaceuticals started to decline notably, with an average annual decrease of 6.9%. Annual price changes and the altered structure of consumption explain why Slovenia was able to maintain a positive trend of consumption of pharmaceuticals, while cutting total expenditures for prescription pharmaceuticals since 2010