Ekonomika

The paper presents an analysis of the methodological side of assessing the turnover of Lithuanian retail trade enterprises, i.e. the indicators to be employed in assessing changes in the volume and composition of the turnover over a longer term, their relationship with other national economic indicators, as well as their theoretical and practical significance. The analysis of changes in the volume and composition of the turnover of Lithuanian retail enterprises in 2000–2008 has revealed its positive and negative trends and the factors influencing these changes. The period under consideration is remarkable in that the years 2000–2001 marked the recovery of the Lithuanian economy after the financial crisis in Russia, its growth until the third quarter of 2008 and the beginning of its decline. The paper summarizes trends in and problems of changes in the volume and composition of the turnover of the country’s retail trade enterprises in the period under consideration and shows the possibilities for its development.

Assessment of changes in the turnover of Lithuanian retail trade enterprises in 2001–2008  1.82 MB

Jau parsisiuntė: 25

The problem of solvency, which has been dealt with in many authors’ works, is exceptionally topical nowadays when settlements among companies are performed not in a timely manner, disturbing business possibilities to remain active in the times of economic recession. Solvency represents a company’s ability to cover current and non-current liabilities; also, it influences a company’s financial state, results of activities and further development. Therefore, analysis of solvency provides the basis for evaluating a company’s financial state.
The means of assessing the total liabilities to total assets ratio by applying a system of pyramidal analysis, which reveals the actions that have a negative impact on this ratio, were investigated for the first time. The total liabilities to total assets ratio was selected as one of the long-term solvency ratios representing a company’s total level of liabilities and its further capacity of borrowing.
The purpose of the article is to present a system of analysis of the total liabilities to total assets ratio. The methods used for this purpose were analysis of academic materials, filing of information, comparison and summarizing.

A system of analysis of the total liabilities to total assets ratio  694.89 KB

Jau parsisiuntė: 24

The paper provides a new approach to modeling bank efficiency. Unlike previous bank efficiency studies, the present paper employs the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method on quarterly data to construct the efficiency frontiers. The Malaysian banking sector is used for a case study. The results show that the Malaysian banking sector has exhibited the mean technical efficiency of 97.3%, suggesting the minimal input waste of 2.7%. The empirical findings suggest that the pure technical efficiency outweighs the scale efficiency in determining the Malaysian banking sector’s technical efficiency. The results imply that, although the Malaysian banking sector has been efficient in managerial terms, it has been operating at a non-optimal scale of operations.

Banking sector efficiency: a DEA and time series approach  727.92 KB

Jau parsisiuntė: 33

This paper presents a framework that builds upon agent-based modelling for investigating the behaviour of consumers in the insurance industry. Consumers are modelled as agents and clustered in groups reflecting their income levels. Agents that model consumers are characterised by their socio-demographic features and interact with other insurance consumer-agents by means of local and global social networks. Furthermore, the environment in which they evolve models the impact of external factors such as mortality, disease and other accident rates as well as insurance culture. This makes that consumer-agents accumulate experience, improve their understanding and knowledge of financial products, and thus develop their perception of need for security and consider the usefulness of insurance services. In turn, the framework enables to model the construction of the customers’ insurance product purchase decision.

Towards an ABM-based framework for investigating consumer behaviour in the insurance industry  1.11 MB

Jau parsisiuntė: 32

The article aims to show that the main and most important prerequisite for successful business development in the integrated global market becomes improvement of the competitiveness of countries and business firms finding new ways for economic growth and prosperity. Theoretical and empirical researches highlight the importance of competitiveness in a national framework for business growth and development in the current era of globalization. The article examines how the challenges of competitiveness and innovation interrelate and how their synthesis links with economic growth. Therefore, gaining competitiveness through innovativeness, the capability to be innovative is one of the most important prerequisites for creating successful businesses, sophisticated products and production processes and raising the standards of living.

Competitiveness and innovation synthesis in the integrated global economy  1.2 MB

Jau parsisiuntė: 25

Theoretical problems and priorities of the scientific research on creating knowledge-based society and knowledge economy are described and analyzed in the article.
A new concept of knowledge-based society and knowledge economy creation and development processes is described. The main idea is that knowledge-based society and knowledge economy creation and development processes may be attributed to the category of global transformation processes, therefore, all general phenomena and characteristics of global transformations are absolutely typical of the creation and development of knowledge-based society and knowledge economy.
The processes of creating knowledge-based society and knowledge economy are analyzed in the general context of global transformations processes.
The main principles of creating knowledge-based society and knowledge economy, as well as the main phenomena of knowledge-based society and knowledge economy creation processes are described.
Creating and modernizing knowledge-based society and knowledge economy are very complicated processes oriented to the formation of a new quality of society and a qualitatively new lifestyle. These processes may be described as especially complicated, because they pursuie a new quality in two aspects:
• knowledge-based society and knowledge economy, compared to “traditional” society and economy, are in all cases described as qualitatively new;
• creation and development of knowledge-based society and knowledge economy take place under conditions of global changes, which means that qualitative changes take place in all global space, the essence of those changes being creation and spread of knowledge-based society and knowledge economy.
The universal principle of the “new quality creation” is characterized. This principle shows that new quality always forms itself or is formed on the ground of conjugation when elements of different origin, which have never before belonged to the same system, merge into a common interaction system, and that the conjugation processes may be of two types–those of integration and synthesis. The general and some specific phenomena of creating knowledge-based society and knowledge economy are characterized.

Creating knowledge-based society and knowledge economy: the main principles and phenomena  826.51 KB

Jau parsisiuntė: 26

Conventional wisdom suggests that openness of an economy promotes economic growth. There is still argument among economists concerning how a country’s macroeconomic variables and its economic growth interact in numerous econometric studies by using panel data. This paper examines the impact of openness on economic growth for the EU-15 area in 1996–2003. In our empirical work, we have used the panel data technique which is also called longitudinal data or cross-sectional time series data. Panel data is generally concerned with choosing among three alternative regressions that are named fixed effects, random effects and pooled model estimation. The variables used are growth, openness, price level, investment and government share of RGDP. We find that openness has had a weak but negative impact on economic growth in this region over this period. Also, we have found that an increase in investment and a decrease in government expenditure have supported economic growth in the EU-15 countries.

Growth and openness relationship in the EU15: panel data analysis  939.54 KB

Jau parsisiuntė: 36

During the process of enlargement, the European Union established a mechanism to develop institutions and to support transition process in the EU, through financial help, for potential candidates and candidate countries. This foreign aid is operating throughout different EU funds. The instrument for the pre-accession assistance (IPA) has replaced all other financial funds for the budget period 2007–2013. The aim of this article is to give suggestions for a more efficient use of IPA funds. The article presents a case of Serbia by showing the empirical results from a questionnaire survey of 108 organizations evaluating a range of issues. A model of IPA funds’ use has been created. Risk points have been determined and divided into three groups: informing of potential beneficiaries, their education, and assistance in the realization of all project phases. Improvement could be achieved through the implementation of a new idea for setting up “project centres” which would support the process. Thus, civil society would be involved into the monitoring system.

A model of using IPA funds for project realization in pre-accession countries: the case of Serbia  1.08 MB

Jau parsisiuntė: 24

In this paper, we review how Latvia developed during the boom period and discuss the key structural features of the Latvian economy. We show that a combination of monetary and fiscal expansion contributed to a greater vulnerability to external shocks. We also show that the GDP growth was largely driven by capital deepening, while productivity gains played a significantly smaller role. As a result, one of the most important explanations for the exceptionally deep recession in Latvia should be distortions in the non-traded sectors of the economy. Finally, we give a brief analysis on policy measures that have been taken to correct the distortions and possible pros and cons of an external devaluation.

Causes of financial crisis: the case of Latvia  2.73 MB

Jau parsisiuntė: 24