scholarly journals Endogenous Political, Institutional, Cultural, and Geographic Determinants of Intermunicipal Cooperation—Evidence from Slovakia

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarína Melichová ◽  
Lukáš Varecha

All over Europe, but especially in post-communist countries, the institutional environment has been undergoing major changes. In Slovakia, regaining their autonomy has led local governments on the path of fragmentation, unsustainably high expenditures for the provision of public services, and an increase in transaction costs. Current policies targeting these issues are heavily focused on intermunicipal cooperation (IMC). Based on four case studies of different institutional arrangements, this paper aims to investigate which endogenous political, institutional, cultural, and geographic factors influence cooperation among Slovak municipalities. Through the application of social network analysis and regression analysis, we reached several relevant conclusions. A number of common assumptions were confirmed, namely that population size and heterogeneity play a major role, but also that the impact of political affiliation as a deciding factor of IMC is not as straightforward as previous evidence suggested. Results also underline the importance of cross-sectoral partnerships such as the EU’s LEADER initiative as a viable alternative to more traditional forms of IMC (but with some limitations).

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-319
Author(s):  
Ramiz Rahmanov

This paper examines the impact of medium- and short-term financial constraints on the probability of export participation of SMEs in 28 post-communist countries. The regression analysis conducted over the cross-sectional sample of SMEs taken from the BEEPS III-IV-V shows that the medium- and short-term financial constraints produce a significantly negative effect on the probability of exporting. Although there exist arguments for why the effects of medium- and short-term financial constraints can differ from each other, both the medium- and short-term financial constraints appear to reduce the probability of exporting equally by 25%. The regression results also suggest that more productive, innovative, and larger SMEs, and also SMEs with international quality certificates are more likely to export. When the regressions are separately estimated for the first-time and continuous exporters, it appears that only the probability of exporting of continuous exporters is significantly sensitive to the financial constraints. Furthermore, the regressions separately run for the direct and indirect exporters show that the financial constraints have a larger effect on the probability of exporting of indirect exporters. The heterogeneity analysis shows that there is a significant heterogeneity in the effects of medium- and short-term financial constraints on the likelihood of exporting across regions, industries, periods, and firm types.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sining Cuevas ◽  

Addressing climate change necessitates creating new, or building the capacity of old, institutions. Institutions are vital tools that determine the intensity by which climate change considerations are incorporated into the decision-making process, designs, and plans. This article aims to illustrate that it is necessary to understand the institutional environment where the CCA endeavors will be implemented such that local climate change adaptation (CCA) policies, plans, and programs can be implemented effectively. The paper also intends to demonstrate that, along with the scientific and technological discussions, institutional conversations should be among the initial vital steps in CCA planning, and that the institutional dimension should be the foundation of broader reforms toward an effective CCA implementation. The paper accomplished this by investigating the conditions in the local agriculture and CCA in the Philippines. The paper applied the Institutional Environment Matrix as the main analytical framework. The analysis showed that the existing institutional dynamics in the Philippines have impacted the effectiveness of the introduced CCA policies and efforts. The Local Government Code of the Philippines had counterproductive interplays with other institutional rules; first in agriculture, and afterwards, in CCA. The Code has devolved tasks to the local governments, provided local government units with extensive authority over their jurisdictions, and improved autonomy in local governance. However, it lacks the arrangements that would create (dis)incentives for individual and collective actions (i.e., rewards and penalties, payoffs on actions). Likewise, institutional mechanisms to support the devolution of government services are wanting. Such institutional environment in local governance has curtailed the effectiveness of local agricultural policies and the efficient implementation of new CCA policies. This article advocates that analyzing the institutional environment where the CCA endeavors will be implemented will enable policy makers and CCA planners to understand better and to have deeper perception of the interlinkages between and among institutional arrangements. In the case of the Philippines, if the local agricultural institutional environment was considered in the design and implementation of the CCA policies, institutional support mechanisms that can address the existing issues and concerns in local agriculture may have been incorporated into these policies. Such action may have helped implementers to avoid the same difficulties in operationalizing CCA initiatives. Accordingly, the paper analyzed how CCA is operationalized through an institutional lens, and presented how institutional analysis is important in policy making. It further demonstrated the complexity of institutional linkages and raised the conversation on the institutional dimension of CCA.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (0) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Natalia Piechota

Purpose. The aim of this paper is to identify the transaction costs in the meetings industry and to state, howa convention bureau can reduce these costs. Methods. The analysis of the transaction costs in the meetings industry and the impact of the convention bureau on them was based on a review of literature. Findings. A onvention bureau mostly influences the market and public transaction costs as an institution forming an institutional arrangement and creating the institutional environment. The convention bureau has the strongest impact on reducing transaction costs at the first stage – before winning the right fo ar city to host a meeting and making transactions. Research and conclusions limitations. The findings were based on analysis of literature, therefore, the results require empirical verification. Practical implications. Identification of transaction costs will help to understand processes in the meetings industry and enable comparison of different institutional arrangements, considering the convention bureau’s activity. It is particularly important in Poland, where these institutions have been operating for a relatively short period of time, and their forms and actions have not yet been regulated by law. Originality. There are many publications considering transaction costs in tourism and none about this problem in the meetings industry. Therefore, this paper fills the the knowledge gap regarding the presented topic. Type of paper. A theoretical study.


Author(s):  
Deng ◽  
Zhang ◽  
Ahmad ◽  
Draz

:The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of local government competition and environmental regulation intensity on regional innovation performance and its regional heterogeneity. Based on the theoretical mechanism of the aforementioned variables, this study uses the Chinese provincial panel data from 2001 to 2016. We use the super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (SE-DEA) to evaluate regional innovation performance. To systematically examine the impact of local government competition and environmental regulation intensity on regional innovation performance, we build a panel date model using the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) method. The results indicate that: the regional innovation performance can be significantly improved through technological spillover; local governments compete for foreign direct investment (FDI) to participate in regional innovative production. Moreover, improvements in environmental regulation intensity enhance regional innovation performance through the innovation compensation effect. Our results show that the local governments tend to choose lower environmental regulation intensity to compete for more FDI, which has an inhibitory effect on regional innovation performance. Furthermore, due to regional differences in factor endowments, economic reforms and economic development levels in Chinese provinces, there exists a significant regional consistency in the impact of local government competition and environmental regulation intensity on regional innovation performance. Therefore, institutional arrangements and incentive constraints must be adopted to enhance regional innovation performance as well as to guide and foster the mechanism of green innovation competition among local governments. At the same time, considering the regional heterogeneity of local government competition and environmental regulation intensity affecting regional innovation performance, policy makers should avoid the “one-size-fits-all” strategy of institutional arrangements.


2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Toboso

This paper investigates the evolution of sub-central government borrowing in Spain over the period 1996–2011. The arguments and figures provided show that the intense process of political and fiscal decentralisation that took place over the 1990s and 2000s did not lead to higher debt ratios in terms of GDP at these tiers of government until 2007. Although a kind of overspending bias was in effect until the late 2000s, the paper shows that the evolution of GDP and tax revenues provided regional and local governments with enough resources to vigorously pursue their devolved public policy responsibilities and still keep their debt ratios under control. However, since 2008, when the world financial crisis broke out, the situation has changed dramatically. Even though the crisis originated in the financial sector, the paper concludes by stressing the importance of creating incentives and setting controls through institutional arrangements characterising multilevel government for all tiers of government to save in periods of economic growth in order to confront the impact of recession once it comes.


2006 ◽  
pp. 102-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Skorobogatov

The paper is dedicated to the New Institutional and Post Keynesian perspectives on institutions and their relation to economic stability. Embeddedness, institutional environment, and institutional arrangements are considered. Within these institutions conventional expectations, the economic policy and forward contracts are analyzed. Upon these perspectives the author shows a contradictory relation between institutions and the order and develops an institutional theory of business cycles.


Author(s):  
Svetlana L. Sazanova

Entrepreneurship plays an important role in the modern global economy; the share of products of small and medium enterprises in the gross product and exports not only of the developed but also of developing countries is growing. Innovation processes cover all sectors of the economy, and more and more people are involved in entrepreneurial activity, which contributes to the penetration of entrepreneurial thinking and business values in all areas of the socioeconomic life of society. The Institute of Entrepreneurship plays an increasingly prominent role in the institutional environment of socio-economic systems. This actualizes the problem of studying the relationship of the institution of entrepreneurship with the institutions of law, culture, management. This requires a methodology that allows you to explore the impact on the institute of entrepreneurship not only economic, but also non-economic factors. The methodology of the “old” institutionalism possesses such a tool, it is structural modeling (pattern modeling), which allows to explore the diversity of interrelationships of the institution of entrepreneurship with other components of the institutional and economic environment. The article explored the features of the development of the institution of entrepreneurship in Russia, established the relationship between the institution of entrepreneurship, values, motives and incentives for entrepreneurial activity, built a structural model of the institution of entrepreneurship based on the methodology of the old institutionalism (pattern modeling). The structural model of the institution of entrepreneurship reveals the relationship between the institution of entrepreneurship, the values of entrepreneurial activity, its motives and incentives; as well as the relationship between the institution of entrepreneurship with the institutions of governance, cultural and religious institutions, legal institutions and society.


Author(s):  
Oleksandr Synenko ◽  
Kateryna Yarema ◽  
Yuliia Bezsmertna

The subject of the research is the approach to the possibility of using the Solow model to perform the regression analysis on the example of the Ukrainian economy model. The purpose of writing this article is to investigate the notion of regres- sion analysis, Solow’s economy model, algorithm for performing regression analy- sis on the example of Ukraine’s economy model. This model can be adapted for the economy of enterprises. Methodology. The research methodology is system-struc- tural and comparative analyzes (to study the structure of GDP); monograph (when studying methods of regression analysis on the example of the Ukrainian economy); economic analysis (when assessing the impact of factors on Ukraine’s GDP). The scientific novelty consists the features of the use of the Solow model on the ex- ample of Ukrainian economy are determined. An algorithm for calculating the basic parameters of a model using the Excel application package is disclosed. The main recommendations on the development of the national economy and economic growth through the use of macroeconomic instruments are given. Conclusions. The use of the Solow model enables forecasting and analysis. The results obtained re- vealed the problem of low resource return of capital as a resource, along with the means of macroeconomic regulation of the investment process, using which can improve the situation. A special place in these funds belongs to the accelerated depreciation and interest rate policies.


Asian Survey ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 978-1003
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Chen Chen ◽  
Jun Xiang

Existing studies of the impact of economic development on political trust in China have two major gaps: they fail to explain how economic development contributes to the hierarchical trust pattern, and they do not pay enough attention to the underlying mechanisms. In light of cultural theory and political control theory, we propose adapting performance theory into a theory of “asymmetrical attribution of performance” to better illuminate the case of China. This adapted theory leads to dual pathway theses: expectation fulfillment and local blaming. Using a multilevel mediation model, we show that expectation fulfillment mainly upholds trust in the central government, whereas local blaming undermines trust in local governments. We also uncover a rural–urban distinction in the dual pathway, revealing that both theses are more salient among rural Chinese.


Author(s):  
Lyudmyla Mishchenko ◽  
◽  
Dmytro Mishchenko ◽  

The actualization of the results of financial decentralization in Ukraine as part of the reform of decentralization of power and the development of proposals for its improvement is explained by the fact that a clear division of functions, powers and financial resources between national and regional levels is the basis for the well-being of our citizens. opportunities for its sustainable socio- economic development on a democratic basis. It is noted that financial decentralization is a process of giving authority to mobilize revenues and expenditures of local governments in order to increase the effectiveness of the implementation of these powers and better management of community budgets. It is established that unlike traditional entrepreneurship, which focuses on profit generation, the purpose of social entrepreneurship is to create and accumulate social capital. Abroad, social enterprises operate successfully in the fields of education, the environment, human rights, poverty reduction and health care, and their development and dissemination is one way to improve the living conditions of citizens. A similar mission is entrusted to local governments, which allows us to consider the revival of social entrepreneurship as an important element in improving self-government policy. It is determined that in modern conditions social entrepreneurship is one of the tools to ensure the ability of the local community to provide its members with an appropriate level of education, culture, health, housing and communal services, social protection, etc., as well as plan and implement programs efficient use of available natural and human resources, investment and infrastructural support of territorial communities. Due to financial decentralization, local governments have received additional resources that can be used to create economic incentives to promote social entrepreneurship in small and medium-sized businesses at the community level.


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