Economies — Open Access Journal

The innovation of construction procurement by means of electronic reverse auctions is a controversial subject of discussion among both researchers and practitioners. This paper consolidates and critically discusses current knowledge concerning the adoption and use of electronic reverse auctions in the light of specific features of the construction industry. A systematic literature review has been employed to select papers indexed in Scopus and Web of Science databases. The findings of the study indicate that studies are addressing especially five main areas, i.e., suitability of electronic reverse auction (eRA) for construction tenders, related drivers and barriers, ethical considerations, savings potential and bidding behavior, and bid distribution. Accordingly, the authors are suggesting three directions in which future research should focus on mutual interaction of electronic reverse auctions and long-term effects on construction project outcomes. Full article

The paper presents the idea of a new method of sustainable enterprise capital management. The idea is based on a principle that states that the faster an enterprise achieves and maintains a balance between its capitals, the more effective the management is. The concept forms a part of the search for an alternative to net profit, which is a basic but outdated measure in modern times. After the introduction, the author outlines the basic principles and foundations of the new method. After introducing the principles and assumptions of the new idea, the author, in his paper, describes the studies that aimed at a practical checking of the possibilities of measuring the effectiveness of the company's economic condition and the effects of management in accordance with the new principles. They were carried out in one of the food industry companies, whose shares are listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Two new economic indicators were used in the study. The general conclusion of the study is as follows: new principles of sustainable capital management can be applied in practice to measure the effectiveness of the enterprise and the work of the management board, but there are still many conditions and problems listed in the paper that should be the subject of further work. The issue that still needs a lot of research within the whole idea is the problem of valuing the current and optimal level of corporate capital. The conclusions outline the strengths and weaknesses of the new method. Full article

The paper analyzes food consumption patterns of Vietnamese households, using a complete demand system and socio-demographic information. Demand elasticities are estimated applying a modified Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) model on the Vietnamese household survey data in 2006. The results indicate that food consumption patterns in Vietnam are affected by income, price, as well as socio-economic and geographic factors. All food has positive expenditure elasticities and negative own-price elasticities. Rice has mean expenditure elasticity of 0.36 and mean own-price elasticity of −0.80. Using the estimated elasticities, the study finds that when rice prices increase by 20 percent, average household welfare rises by 1.3 percent, yet it is important to note that the benefits and costs are not spread evenly across the population. Overall, middle-income households gain the most, while the poorest households gain the least from higher rice prices. This indicates that support programs should target the poorest quintile, especially the poor in the regions hit hardest by higher prices. More generally, our study points out that targeted food policies should be formulated based on specific food demand patterns in the groups. Full article

The Efficient Market Hypothesis states that it is impossible for an investor to outperform the market because all available information is already built into stock prices. However, some anomalies could persist in stock markets while some other anomalies could appear, disappear and re-appear again without any warning. To explore new theories with applications in this direction, in this editorial, we suggest ideas to authors on what types of papers we will accept for publication in the areas of on Efficiency and Anomalies in Stock Markets. We will discuss some papers published in the special issue of Efficiency and Anomalies in Stock Markets. Full article

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of trade openness and the factors based on the gravity model on the bilateral trade flows between Thailand and Japan. The factors consist of GDP, distance, trade openness, and exchange rate. Bilateral trade is composed of two flows: Thailand’s export flow to Japan, and Thailand’s import flow from Japan. The specified gravity equations are estimated by Copula-based Markov switching seemingly unrelated regression approach. The best-fitting model is chosen based on the lowest Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criterion (BIC). The Normal and Student's t distributions are for Thailand’s export equation and Thailand’s import equation, respectively. The Student's t copula is applied for joint distribution. Analyzing the bilateral trade flow is separated into two situations, namely the high and the low growth markets. Empirical results show that distance provides a positive effect on the export in a high growth regime, but a negative impact on the export in a low growth regime. As for Thailand’s import flow, all variables, but especially trade openness, provide strong evidence supporting significance for both regimes. For the GDPs of both Thailand and Japan, trade openness and the exchange rate increase import flow in a high growth market. Meanwhile, the exchange rate decreases import flow in a low growth market. The Markov Switching Probability Estimation notes that Thailand’s trading with Japan is mostly in the fast-growing market. Full article

This paper analyzes the effect of earned and unearned remittances on agricultural productivity in Nepal. This approach differs from the existing practice of studying the impact of total remittances on socio-economic outcomes. In particular, we disaggregate total remittances into earned and unearned remittances, and isolate their impacts on productivity—an individual household’s per labor-hour production of all agricultural output at the market value. Methodologically, we follow a three-stage least squares (3-SLS) approach to overcome the potential endogeneity concerns. We provide evidence that unearned remittances are more effective than earned remittances in increasing agricultural productivity. These results can be useful in understanding the migration-remittance-productivity nexus in Nepal as well as other similar socioeconomic societies from South Asia. Full article

This paper studies the role of the exchange rate regime for trade of new products. It first provides VAR evidence that a rise in external productivity shifts trade away from new products and more so in fixed regimes. Then, it presents a model with firm dynamics in line with this evidence. We argue that exchange rate policy can affect firms’ entry decisions with consequences for the competitiveness of a country’s exports well beyond the short run. In our setup, fixed exchange rates can foster the competitiveness of firms that trade new products, while flexible rates favor firms that produce mature products. Full article

A limited number of studies have investigated the impacts of education on non-cognitive skills, yet they offer mixed results. A few studies suggest no impact, but others report positive impacts of education on non-cognitive skills. In this paper, we apply the elimination of Social Security student benefits that took place in the United States in 1982 to study the impacts of education on non-cognitive skills, as measured by the Rotter Locus of Control Scale and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. We apply eligibility for aid due to the death of father to avoid endogeneity in our analysis. Our results suggest that non-cognitive skills improve during the college education years, but the causality relationship from college education to non-cognitive skills disappears to a high extent when the prior levels of non-cognitive skills are controlled for. Full article

In the last 60 years, the results of development aid have been mixed. Thus far, it has been mostly the aid recipient countries, which have been held responsible for aid’s shortcomings. That focus is misplaced, however, since the donor countries, through development aid, also export some of their own institutions and values to the recipient countries affecting the recipients’ rate of entrepreneurship and income. This study demonstrates how donor countries vary widely in both the type and quality of their institutions and values, leading to diverging economic outcomes. The results indicate that recipient countries should pay serious attention to who their development partner is. In particular, recipients would want to avoid aid from low institutional quality donors with perceived anti-market attitudes. Finally, it is argued that development aid might become more efficient if it moved away from the bilateral, towards the multilateral, mode. Full article

The environmental benefits from the eco-innovation activities of enterprises have the nature of reduced material or water use per unit of output, less pollution and waste, better CO₂ ‘footprint’ in production and subsequent business processes. The socioeconomic impacts are associated with circular economy benefits like reduced energy use, decreased pollution and waste, and well-organized recycling possibilities of the product after use. The goal of this paper is to evaluate this innovative approach in the Czech economy. The hypotheses are aimed at the localization of enterprises, appropriability, and characteristics of enterprises that introduce eco-innovations to markets. The dataset is provided by the Czech Statistical Office and contains observations about the innovation activities of firms. Eco-innovation was surveyed in 2008 and 2014. This paper utilizes the estimation principles of CDM (Crépon, Duguet, and Mairesse) method at the firm level. The results suggest that rural–urban separation has no impact on the financial R&D intensity but urban enterprises have a higher probability to engage in innovation activities. The probability to introduce new-to-the-market innovations and eco-innovations is not dependent on localization. High-tech and knowledge-intensive industries have a lower probability to introduce eco-innovations to the market. The change in localization of enterprises to rural areas contributed to the higher sales form innovated goods and services. Higher appropriability was also observed in product eco-innovators. This paper offers a synthesis of factors that stimulate eco-innovation and shows that eco-innovation is a viable and sustainable innovative approach for rural and urban enterprises and identifies directions for future research. Full article

This analysis highlights the significant role that domestic actors play in determining the outcomes of economic sanctions. It models the behavior of the main opposition party during an economic sanction episode, and introduces two commonly used variables when considering the effectiveness of economic sanctions—regime type and issue type—from a different perspective. Using Bayesian probabilities and a two-stage game-theoretic approach, the analysis finds that states are more likely to impose economic sanctions related to security issues rather than to nonsecurity issues. The tendency to impose sanctions to coerce action on security-related issues is higher when opposition parties in the sanctioning state object to the sanctions. The findings demonstrate that sanctions are more effective when they are supported by the opposition in sender states, as well as target states. Consistent with the literature, this analysis finds that sanctions are more effective when they are targeted against democracies. The game results indicate that sanctions are more successful when they relate to security issues. This paper supplies policymakers with a simple criterion for economic sanctions successs comprised of the support of the opposition within the sender state, that the issue should be of high stakes, and there is support for the economic sanctions from a viable opposition within the target state. Full article

Rainfall is related to economic growth and generally has beneficial impacts on dry and poor areas that are mostly dependent on rainfed agriculture. Thailand is a service-based, upper middle-income country with a tropical climate although rainfall varies regionally. The volume of precipitation in the northern and northeastern regions is rather low while the southern region has the highest rainfall due to its narrow topography running north-south bordering the Andaman Sea to the west and the Gulf of Thailand to the east. The present study explored the effect of rainfall on the growth of the gross provincial product (GPP) by economic sector and subsector using provincial-level panel data from 1995 to 2015. The feasible generalised least squares (FGLS) estimator with fixed effect was used in the regression models. We found that the main impacts of the weather occurred through rainfall and reduced GPP growth at the national level. For the sector level, the results showed that rainfall had a significant negative impact on the agricultural and service sectors while it had a positive but not significant impact on the industrial sector. However, rainfall remains vital in poor regions although it could be detrimental to certain subsectors in those regions. The results confirmed that the positive effects of rainfall mostly affected the economies of poor provinces and suggested that average rainfall could be the key climate effect on economic growth in Thailand. Full article

Over the past two decades, various policies have been implemented on an international and national level to support regional competitiveness, in which Universities are often called on to play a crucial role. Taking into account their contribution to the combined performance of education, the advanced research and the networking of knowledge, Universities are recognized as knowledge-intensive institutions and environments that foster human capital development, innovation and entrepreneurship. According to the current practice, Universities include in their mission not only a generalized transfer of know-how, but also the promotion of business thinking and entrepreneurial culture, the establishment of institutions, actions as well as the creation of venture capital, thus contributing further to the promotion of regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. By examining the entrepreneurship development in teaching and learning through the various actions of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Units of the Greek Universities between 2011 and 2015, the present article aims at assessing the contribution of the Greek Universities to the fostering of regional entrepreneurial ecosystems, making a comparative evaluation of them and strengthening the role of the Greek Universities in regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. Firstly, the theoretical approaches of regional entrepreneurial ecosystems as well as the role of Universities in Regional Development are examined and analyzed. Secondly, it is attempted to record the role of the Greek Universities through the collection and processing of innovation information and actions, utilizing, as a case study, the structures of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Units. Thirdly, taking into account the results of the research, proposals for the national and regional policy are made. Full article

The study addresses the problems arising in association with the conjugation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Belt and Road initiative. The hypothesis is that the conjugation is economically effective, and this is proven by the statistical analysis of trade and investment dynamics and buttressed by empirical observations. Based on this, the recommendations for the EAEU are given. The paper dismantles the problems arising in the sphere of security and peacekeeping and proposes a number of steps for ensuring peace and stable development in the region, implementing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) mechanism. The article highlights the main plans of the China–EAEU partnership and puts forward alternative cooperation strategies for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The authors develop the most attractive plan for the EAEU and propose the best strategy for its implementation. Full article

The aim of the paper is to investigate how child allowances affect population growth and pension benefits of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems in small open and closed economies. We apply an overlapping-generations (OLG) model in its canonical form, where we consider endogenous fertility and growth generated by human capital accumulation. From the analysis, we conclude that in a small open economy, child allowances increase the number of children, yet decrease pension benefits over the long run. If we consider a closed economy, the effect of child allowances on fertility is ambiguous and remains negative on pension benefits over the long run. Full article

The aim of the research is to examine and evaluate the accounting information disclosure quality of the non-current tangible assets in the financial statements of the municipalities of Lithuania and identify municipality characteristics having an impact on the accounting information disclosure quality. Although the question of Lithuania public sector accounting information disclosure quality has been relevant since the Public Sector Accounting and Financial Reporting Reform in 2010, this research is the first of its kind in Lithuania. Based on the legal and regulatory requirements and related scientific literature, the research model of the accounting information disclosure quality in the financial statements has been created. Using the content analysis of consolidated annual financial statements of Lithuanian municipalities (years 2013–2016), the disclosure quality index has been calculated, as well as the accounting information disclosure quality of the tangible assets has been evaluated and compared. The results show that the quality of accounting information disclosure of Lithuanian municipalities in 2013 was low (revealed 37.87% of the mandatory information), while in subsequent years, the disclosure of mandatory information increased (to 45.50% in 2016) and the quality of information disclosure became average. Multiple panel regression analysis revealed that specific factors such as size of the municipality, municipality debt-paying capacity, municipality tangible assets, and municipality revenue, have a statistically significant impact on the accounting information disclosure quality. Full article

This paper offers an empirical examination of the relationship between government spending’s, income inequality, and economic growth by using the case of 19 Asian countries from 2002 to 2017. For this purpose, the paper uses robust difference-GMM estimation and panel granger causality test. We found that gross domestic investment and regulatory quality are the main variables that contribute to these countries’ economic growth. While current government consumption reduces economic growth. Also, government expenditure on education and regulatory quality granger cause economic growth in these countries. However, the effect of government expenditure on education on economic growth is not significant. So, to increase their economic growth, this study recommends these countries’ governments to encourage gross domestic investment, maintain regulatory quality and reduce their current consumption. This study also concludes that income inequality has no impact on these countries’ economic growth for this period. Full article

The present study addresses the issue of mobile banking customer retention by developing and empirically testing a theoretical model that describes the way mobile banking success is achieved. The data collection process was conducted via a web-based questionnaire survey through which 402 usable responses from users of application-based mobile banking services were collected. The data collected were further analyzed via covariance-based structural equation modeling. Results indicate that application-based mobile banking success can be defined in terms of the favorable attitude toward and repeated use of mobile banking applications. Experienced advantage, user satisfaction, and post-use trust toward mobile banking applications are among the critical enablers of application-based mobile banking success. The findings of this research can enable academicians and practitioners, banks, and financial institutions, in particular, to devise the mechanism through which the success of application-based mobile banking services can be facilitated. Full article