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The circular Economy. BFU. Burgas, 11 - 12 may 2017
The conference proceedings “ 4th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GOVERNANCE AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT “ICGSM” are a collection of the papers presented by the lecturers and PhD students – participants in the 4-th International Conference on Governance and Strategic Management (ICGSM).
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In the German discussion on the eurozone, there is not only a question of reforms, e.g. the introduction of a joint budget and finalisation of the banking union. Much attention is also paid to the Target 2 payment system, which simultaneously accumulated the high, positive balance of the Bundesbank and the negative balances of the central banks of the southern European countries. This imbalance is considered an economic and political risk for Germany. However, remedies against it are in short supply. Actions that are too rapid or radical could destabilise the eurozone.
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The purpose of this paper is to reveal some insights for increasing the effectiveness of promotions. To achieve this purpose, first, the existence of multiple customer benefits of promotions is proved. It is empirically validated that promotions deliver three utilitarian (monetary savings, higher quality and shopping convenience) and two hedonic (variety and pleasure) benefits to the customers. Second, a structural equation model is estimated to measure the relative contribution of these benefits on the customers’ overall evaluation of promotions. The research suggests that in order to increase their effectiveness, promotions must be framed by focusing not only on their primary benefits but also on all other benefits with a significant contribution to customers’ attitudes towards promotions. Finally, a benefit-based segmentation is conducted. Four market clusters are identified (none-benefit, allbenefit, utilitarian-benefit and hedonic-benefit customer segments). Further, these clusters are profiled using demographic and psychographic variables.
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In terms of macro-economic policy, gross fixed capital formation, which is the major component of domestic investment, is seen as an important process that could accelerate economic growth. This study re-examines the controversial issue of causality between domestic investment, employment and economic growth using South African data. The traditional assumption of causality running from investment to economic growth has remained inconclusive while empirical findings on the investment and employment growth nexus are also largely unsettled. The study makes use of quarterly data from 1995Q1 to 2016Q4 within the framework of the Johansen cointegration and Vector Error Correction Models (VECM). The empirical findings suggest that a long run relationship exists between domestic investment, employment and economic growth, with causality running from economic growth to investment and not vice versa. The results also demonstrate that investment has a positive long-run impact on employment. The empirical evidence further suggests bi-directional causality between employment and economic growth, while evidence of uni-directional causality, from investment to employment, is also found. The major implication of the study is that although there is bi-directional causality between economic growth and employment, economic growth does not translate to increased employment in the long run confirming “jobless growth”. Investment is found to be a positive driver of employment in the South African economy in the long-run. The study concludes that, in order to stimulate employment, investment enhancing policies, such as low interest rates and a favourable economic environment should be put in place to accelerate growth. Measures to promote economic growth, such as improved infrastructural facilities and diversification of the economy, should be further engineered so as to encourage increased investment.
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The money is a widely accepted commodity, by means of which it is possible to determine the economic value of purchased goods and services and make payments.Over the centuries, "money" has evolved many times. Their constantly changing character, generates questions on their future aspect. In the reference to the cryptocurrencies questions are focused on their nature and compliance with the definition of money.
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When first published, the results of the stress tests performed by the European Banking Authority (EBA) gave little evidence of Dexia’s vulnerability. The test was based on the current criteria for Basel II capital (core Tier-1 ratio). Dexia was ranked 12th of the 90 tested banks, with a stressed core Tier-1 ratio of more than twice the benchmark of 5%. In turn, the equity ratio was only about 1.9%, representing one-sixth of the core Tier-1 ratio at year-end 2010. In other words, for every €53 in assets, the bank had only €1 in capital (see Table 1). Such a level of leverage is high, twice in fact the average of large EU banks.3 The leverage and difference with other large banks are largely explained by the calculation of the risk-weighted assets (RWA) and the definition of core Tier-1 capital, both of which painted an overly optimistic picture.
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This paper examines the relationship between interest rate spread and corporate bond market development in thirteen African economies comprising of Botswana, Egypt Mauritius Nigeria, Tunisia, Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Cote d’Ivorie, Ghana Namibia, Tanzania from 2004 and 2014 using fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) in an autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) framework. Subsisting literature suggests that in bank-based economies, interest rate spread could adversely affect the potency of corporate bond market development; and thus limits the financial market competitiveness. The result provides evidence that corporate bond issue, as a proxy for financial development is negatively influenced by interest rate gap in the short and long term. The result affirms the ‘group interest' theorem in these African economies leading to a deterrent in competitive financial development. The ECM coefficient satisfies a priori expectation, affirms the short run dynamic relationship, which implies long run equilibrium from the annual speed of adjustment, which is about 100 percent. The paper suggests policy recommendations for the reduction in interest rate, and thus the spread to encourage the growth of corporate bond issues for a market-led financial development.
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The paper analyses the feasibility of a common currency for the East African Community (EAC), which comprises Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. The paper discusses theoretical insights on the benefits and costs of a common currency. It then uses the introduction of the common European currency, the euro, as a potential yardstick to assess the feasibility of a common currency in East Africa. The paper analyses the readiness of the EAC’s economies for a common currency as measured by relevant indicators. It concludes that some caveats are in order with regard to the feasibility of a common East African currency at the present point in time.
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The economic literature grants a great attention to bank performance analysis, expressed in terms of competition, concentration, efficiency, productivity and profitability. The main reason for this special attention is the central role of banks in financial intermediation. The efficiency and competition degree at the level of banks and other financial institution are difficult, if not even impossible to directly observe, because the information regarding the production prices (or of credit rates) are not available. In this paper we analyze the performance and soundness indicators of the main Romanian banks, compared with main banks in the Czech Republic and Hungary.
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Introduction. It is of topical importance today to study the ratio between the returns and risk of the Ukrainian stock market depending on the duration of the investment period. The relevant analysis should be conducted with regard to the markets of European post-socialist countries that have common features of development. Purpose. The purpose of the research is to define the influence of time factors on the returns and risk of financial assets through the numbers of stock indices (Ukrainian PFTS index, Polish stock index WIG, Czech stock index PX), the analysis of volatility of Ukrainian and European stock markets and the identification of patterns of their development. Methods. To conduct the research, the authors use the analysis of dynamic series, statistical, structural analysis, comparative analysis and correlation-and-regression analysis. Results. In the article, a comparative analysis of the volatility of the Ukrainian and European stock markets was conducted based on statistical research of temporal changes of stock indices. Their common development trends and differences, which can be explained by the peculiarity and specificity of the Ukrainian stock market, are revealed. The results of the analysis show that, with the increasing investment time horizon, the spread between maximum and minimum income returns is reduced, and the minimal income return itself becomes extremely positive. As the research shows, the peculiarity of the Ukrainian stock market is its significantly higher income return, which, however, is accompanied by a much higher risk, especially during the seven to nine year investment period. Conclusion. The Ukrainian stock market involves high risks, which does not make it attractive for conservative investors. However, it is considered to be a very attractive investment destination for risky investors, especially for a medium-term period of 7-12 years, since they may expect returns several times higher than at Polish and Czech markets under investigation.
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Logit and discriminant analyses have been used for corporate bankruptcy prediction in several studies since the last century. In recent years there have been dozens of studies comparing the several models available, including the ones mentioned above and also probit, artificial neural networks, support vector machines, among others. For the first time for Colombia, this paper presents a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of several models predicting corporate bankruptcy. Such models have previously been mostly used in relation to European and North American markets, whereas here they are applied to the financial ratios of three firms located in Colombia. The main objective is to corroborate the validity of these models in terms of their ability to predict firm failure in the Latin American context, specifically for two bankrupt Colombian firms and one healthy one. The analysis is conducted using bankruptcy forecasting models widely proposed in the literature and used systematically in developed countries: the multiple discriminant analysis Z-Altman model, Korol’s two-function model and Prusak’s P2 model. In addition, the logit and decision tree models developed by T. Korol are tested.
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This paper carries out a comparative analysis of the degree of financial development between transition economies and developed ones based on variables that indicate the direct and indirect degree of financial development. To determine the way the financial systems works and the level of its development, the authors have taken into account four general characteristics of financial institutions and financial markets which were measured for the financial institutions (mainly banks, which are the most important financial institutions in most economies in transition, insurance companies and other financial institutions) as well as for the financial markets, thus leading to a 4x2 matrix of the main characteristics of the financial system. The analysis was developed based on the data found on the Global Financial Development database of the World Bank. Empirical data and authors’ analysis were used to characterize and compare financial systems between countries with economies in transition and developed countries for the years 2008 – 2011. The year 2011 was the last year of available qualitative data for many countries in the Balkan Region such as Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.
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Even though profits can be positively related to savings, when this is measured in monetary terms, there is no relation whatsoever with savings rates. In this research paper savings schemes in Mexico are compared and analyzed using data from Mexican savings and first-tier banks. One of the main reasons Mexico has a low savings rate is because of the country’s slow growth, whereas inflation is incrementing at an accelerated pace. People who save, which are considered as investors in banks, assume all the risks when they take their savings to any number of different renowned banks in the country. In contrast to banking institutions, who always end up having a benefit even when their investors suffer a monetary loss related to value of money.
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The Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 plunged countries into a Great Recession and focused the world’s attention on the global stock markets. The global contagion has a major impact on global stock markets, with the U.S. DJIA falling to 6,547.05 on March 9, 2009 from a high of 14,164.53 on October 9, 2007, with a loss of more than 54%. Other stock markets also had a precipitous drop during the financial crisis. However, some equity markets have recovered while others have not. This paper looks at how global markets compared in their recovery. This paper also investigates the advanced countries’ recovery relative to the emerging and developing countries in the aftermath of the financial crisis and their ability to climb back to the pre-financial crisis levels. Analysis is provided for 31 stock indexes from January 2005 to March 2013. In 2013 the majority of analysed stock markets recovered from the crises regardless of if they belong to the group of developed or emerging markets.
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The main goal of this article is to compare data-mining clustering methods (k-means and fuzzy c-means) based on a sample of banking and energy companies on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stock markets. We examined these companies for a pattern that reflected the effect of news on the bank sector’s stocks throughout October, November, and December 2012. Correlation coefficients and t-statistics for the good news indicator (GNI) and the bad news indicator (BNI) and financial factors, such as PER, PBV, DY and rate of return, were used as diagnostic variables for the clustering methods.
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Most investors believe that left tails of the stock returns distribution are heavier than the right ones. It is a natural consequence of crashes perception as much more turbulent than the booms. Crashes develop in shorter time intervals than booms and changes of prices are significantly bigger. This paper focuses on the extreme behavior of stock market returns. The differences in the tails thickness of distribution are negligible. Its main result is that the differences between tails have been found in the clustering of extremes, especially during the crash of 2007–2009.
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One of the most important factors in national economic development is the vigorous operation of financial markets. The vigorous function of financial markets depends on the operations of financial institutions such as stock exchange, banks, leasing and factoring companies in these markets. In recent years, the status and significance of factoring companies as non-bank financial institutions have been increased, especially in providing financing for the SMEs. In the present study, the financial performance of factoring companies in Istanbul Stock Exchange was assessed and multi-criteria decision making techniques ELECTRE and TOPSIS, were implemented. More objective and accurate assessments could be achieved with multi-criteria decision making techniques, ELECTRE and TOPSIS, which are used when multiple evaluation factors are present. For this purpose, six factoring companies were selected and the financial statement ratios for each company were used as evaluation criteria. The calculated financial ratios and financial ratio weights were included in analyses conducted with both methods and Yapı Kredi Factoring was determined as the factoring company with the best performance as a result of conducted ELECTRE and TOPSIS analyses.
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We use daily stock returns from the NASDAQ composite index and its eight composite indexes to investigate the reaction of investors to the arrival of unexpected information in framework of Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), the Overreaction Hypothesis (OH), and the Uncertain Information Hypothesis (UIH). Consistent with the prediction of the UIH regarding investor behavior, we find strong statistical evidence of a corrective process of significantly positive cumulative abnormal returns following the arrival of both unexpected favorable and unfavorable information for the NASDAQ Composite and four of the sub-indexes. For the Computer and Insurance sub-indices, we observe downward trends in the CARs following the arrival of favorable market surprises and upward trends in response to the arrival of unfavorable surprises, a result consistent with the predictions of the OH. For the Industrials and Transportation sectors, the pattern of investors reaction is not strongly consistent with any of the theories of investor reaction presented here, although the trendless pattern of returns following market surprises for the Transportation index could be explained by the EMH. One main implication of these mixed empirical results is that investor ‘s reaction varies significantly by sector, highlighting the value of analyzing investor reaction in different segments of the security markets in addition to investigating composite indexes.
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The paper is concerned with multi-criteria decision-making under uncertainty with scenario planning. This topic has been explored by many researchers since almost all real-world decision problems contain multiple conflicting criteria and a deterministic evaluation of criteria is often impossible. We propose a procedure for uncertain multi-objective optimization which can be applied when seeking a pure strategy. A pure strategy, as opposed to a mixed strategy, allows the decision-maker to select and perform only one accessible alternative. The new approach takes into account the decision-maker’s preference structure (importance of particular goals) and nature (pessimistic, moderate or optimistic attitude towards a given problem). It is designed for one-shot decisions made under uncertainty with unknown probabilities (frequencies), see decision-making under complete uncertainty or decision-making under strategic uncertainty. The novel approach can be used in the case of totally independent payoff matrices for particular targets.
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This article brings distinct strands of the political economy of communication and economic geography together in order to theorise the role digital technologies play in Marxian crisis theory. Capitalist advances into digital spaces do not make the law of value obsolete, but these spaces do offer new methods for displacing overaccumulated capital, increasing consumption, or accumulating new, cheaper labour. We build on David Harvey’s theory of the spatial fix to describe three digital spatial fixes, fixed capital projects that use the specific properties of digital spaces to increase the rate of prof- it, before themselves becoming obstacles to the addictive cycle of accumulation: the primitive accumulation of time in the social Web, the annihilation of time by space in highfrequency trading, and affect rent in virtual worlds. We conclude by reflecting on how these digital spatial fixes also fix the tempo of accumulation and adjust the time-scale of Marxian crisis theory.
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