Economy, Business and Development: An International Journal

How resilient was international trade to Covid-19? Insights from clusters of European countries

Olivera Kostoska — 2024-03-06

The Covid-19 crisis spread around the world at lightning speed mainly due to the interconnectedness of today's economies as evidenced by major disruptions in international trade. This article aims at assessing the possible shifts that coronavirus disease has triggered in trade activity of European countries in two particularly affected sectors, that is food and machinery and transport equipment. In this process, exploratory data analysis is conducted in order to accurately explain the patterns lying behind the observed variations in trade values. Furthermore, cluster analysis is performed to the sample of European countries by applying hierarchical and K-means clustering algorithms using Python's libraries. By examining clusters of countries with similar trade profiles, this article contributes to discussions on global value chains, and to which extent there is data-based evidence to indicate systemic changes and reconfiguration of global production processes.

Non-financial disclosure and firm performance: Insights from listed consumer goods manufacturing companies in Nigeria

Muyiwa DAGUNDURO — 2024-03-14

In the dynamic landscape of corporate reporting and stakeholder engagement, the significance of non-financial disclosure has gained considerable prominence. As businesses strive for sustainable growth and investors increasingly recognize the value of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors, understanding the nexus between non-financial disclosure and firm performance becomes pivotal. This study endeavors to explore this relationship within the context of listed consumer goods manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study encompassed a population of 21 listed consumer goods manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The sample size was 21 firms, determined through census sampling techniques. The research spanned from 2013 to 2022. FGLS regression model was used to examine the relationship between the variables studied. The results found that environmental disclosure and social disclosure had a positive and significant effect on the firm’s performance. While governance disclosure had a negative and significant effect on the firm’s performance. This implies that firms that engage in robust non-financial disclosure practices tend to experience better overall performance. The study concludes that non-financial disclosure, encompassing environmental, social, and governance aspects, plays a pivotal role in influencing the performance of listed consumer goods manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Firms are encouraged to enhance their ESG reporting frameworks, aligning with stakeholder expectations and global sustainability trends.

The importance of digital skills for the Western Balkans -comparative analysis between the Western Balkans and the European Union

Nikola Levkov — 2024-05-30

In knowledge-intensive economies, skills emerged as crucial resources, determining economic development. Thus, in the post-pandemic, digital world, digital skills gain new ground, attracting the interest of researchers and practitioners. As one of the first studies on the topic in the region, the article aims to investigate the level of digital, computer, and skills in evaluating data, information, and digital content in Western Balkans (WB) and to compare it with the European Union (EU) region. Furthermore, we found that EU countries are way ahead in terms of basic or above basic overall digital skills on average. In the WB context, Serbia and Montenegro are close to converging with the EU average related to computer skills while Montenegro and North Macedonia lead in skills in evaluating data, information, and digital content. The results point out that the level of digital skills highly correlates with labor productivity and GDP per capita in WB.

Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from European Countries

Suzana Makreshanska Mladenovska — 2024-05-30

In this paper we empirically investigate the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth in the European countries, using panel dataset for 31 European countries, over the period 1972-2012. Our empirical results indicate that fiscal decentralization, quantitatively measured as the ratio of local government expenditures and revenues in general government expenditures and revenues has a favorable impact on economic growth in the European countries and also that revenue decentralization is shown to be more effective than expenditure decentralization in terms of stimulating economic growth. Further, our empirical results also suggest that the relationship between decentralization and economic growth is nonlinear, i.e. there is a certain optimal level of fiscal decentralization in terms of economic growth. This means that fiscal decentralization is expected to have a more pronounced positive impact on growth in less decentralized countries, while in more decentralized countries, a further increase in decentralization starts to hinder economic growth.

In addition, the growth-enhancing effect of fiscal decentralization is even strongly confirmed in our subsample of advanced European countries, when long term effect of decentralization was examined. Therefore, compared with our previous findings on the impact of fiscal decentralization on growth in Central and Eastern European countries, we find that fiscal decentralization has a different impact on economic growth in advanced European countries vis-à-vis Central and Eastern European countries, i.e., while it enhances growth in the former, it hindered growth in the latter.