European Journal of Economic Studies

3-18

Authors: Dina Al-Waely

This study aimed to identify the impact of the careful application of growth management policies and sustainable development on the changing marketing environment. The study has used the descriptive analytical approach, where a questionnaire was employed as the study instrument. The questionnaire consisted of (3) demographic variables and (26) items that were put together to measure the impact of the careful application of growth management policies and sustainable development on the changing marketing environment. The study population consisted of all Senior Managers who work at five-star hotels at the Dead Sea in Amman, Jordan, who amounted to (19) Senior Managers in (6) hotels, and the study sample included all (19) managers. The results showed that there is there is a statistically significant impact of the careful application of growth management policies on the changing marketing environment; it also showed that there is a statistically significant impact of the careful application of sustainable development on the changing marketing environment. The results of the means and standard deviations of the careful application of growth management policies fields from the point of view of the analysis showed that they were high, where the Attraction field came first, and the Expansion came last. There were other results have shown that the total mean and standard deviation of the Coordination field were high, where it had a mean of (3.91) and a standard deviation of (0.51). The results of the means and standard deviations of the sustainable development fields from the point of view of the analysis showed that they were high, where the Economic Dimension field came first, while the Environmental Dimension came last.

43-50

Authors: Sanel Halilbegovic, Zerina Kadic, Nedim Celebic, Adisa Arapovic, Dzenan Kulovic

Due to its possibly disruptive effect on business model (BMs), blockchain innovation has started an lively discussion among recearchers. Delphi study sets out to explore the impact of blockchain in payments, which represents a major cornerstone of banking and the cradle of this technology.The outcomes, grouped around four areas thoughts, demonstrate that blockchain allows the offering of new services and renders some of the current ones obsolete.This consequently impacts the financial structure of firms in the payments industry and further generates great potential for new BMs while making some existing ones obsolete. Eventually, new players, which are better ready to use the po-tential of blockchain, will give a strong motivation to this improvement. This discoveries contribute to the literature by giving new bits of knowledge about the effect of innovative advances on BMs and have further practical implications by presenting a better understanding of future BMs in payments.

69-76

Authors: Marsel M. Nizamutdinov, Vladimir V. Oreshnikov

The article considers the simulation model’s concept based on integration of the regional economic elements’ interconnections within the united computational scheme. It has been substantiated that the development of a long-term strategy for the socio-economic development of a region requires using formalized advanced planning methods, economic and mathematical models as management tools. The model is proposed as a tool for determining the conditions and parameters of the regional strategic development in a changing macro environment. The main attention is paid to description of the formal model and the behavior algorithm for the economic agent of the “regional government” which considered as the main functional subsystem of the imitation model. The simulation model’s structure allows implementing system modeling and forecasting the parameters of the socio-economic system development at the regional level and could be used as the practical tool for substantiating integrated regional development strategies for the medium term.

85-94

Authors: Evgeniya V. Vidishcheva, Marina Gunare

Branding of countries, regions and cities is gradually becoming a mandatory part of the strategic development of territorial entities. This practice is popular in many countries all over the world. The development and implementation of brand strategies has allowed many territorial subjects to overcome the negative perception associated with the past, and reposition its brand. Cultural brand includes cultural and historical identity, painted in a national color, and is a common value – heritage. The aim of this study is to analyze and compare foreign and russian models of cultural branding.

58-68

Authors: Murat Cetin, Eyyup Ecevit

This study investigates the dynamic causal links between energy consumption, trade openness and economic growth for upper middle income countries over the period 1971-2014. The ARDL bounds test is used to examine the presence of cointegration between the variables. The VECM Granger causality method is also used to explore causality between the variables. Empirical results indicate that i) the variables are stationary at first differences, ii) there exists cointegration between the variables in Turkey, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Jamaica and Peru, iii) there exists important causal linkages among the variables in the long run, iv) the energy-led-growth and trade-led-growth hypotheses are demonstrated for Turkey, China, Colombia, Jamaica and Peru.

77-88

Authors: Rinor Kurteshi

This research looks at the main drivers of public sector innovation and localized cultivation of an innovation culture in the public sector of Kosovo. This study is exploratory and a mixed methodology is used, while the findings are compared with the most recent literature in the field of public sector innovation. Findings clearly indicate that the introduction of new laws and regulations have been found to be the most prevalent driver of innovation in the public sector of Kosovo. In addition to that, mandated increase/decrease in the organization’s budget has had an important role in the overall innovation processes. The public sector of Kosovo has made some progress in cultivating an innovation culture. Public sector managers support experimentation of new ideas and take an active role in the development and implementation of innovations. However, interestingly enough the introduction of e-government or online services has not been of paramount importance in driving innovation in the public sector of Kosovo. Moreover, the public sector of Kosovo has failed to engage service users in the designing, planning and evaluating new or improved services, which is an element that the literature supports. In addition to the findings, this research enriches and extends the current knowledge of innovation in the public sector domain. Finally, it is a unique contribution to Kosovo's academics and practitioners.

98-108

Authors: Nasikh

This study aims at identifying the characteristic of the local resources regarding to the sustainable food self-sufficiency in East Java as well as arranging policy strategy of regional government of East Java to achieve the sustainable food self-sufficiency. The study is carried out in Madiun and Nganjuk regencies in East Java. The two regencies are chosen as they are the food buffering area for other regencies in East Java. The study is conducted in eight months, from March to October 2015. The research finding shows that the regional characteristic in the local resources-based sustainable food self-sufficiency in East Java has been surplus in terms of rice which is 4.403.553 tons; corn which is 6.095.325 tons; meat which is 146.448 tons; and egg which is 29.147 tons. The availability of energy total consumed by East Java citizens in 2014 is 3.589 kcal/cap/day or 149.54 % out of the Recommended Dietary Allowance which is 2.400 kcal/cap/day. The availability of energy in 2014 is dominated by vegetable (96.91 %) and animals (3.09 %). If compared to the Recommended Dietary Allowance in 2012, the decrease is 967 kcal/cap/day or 21.22 %. The strategy of the regional government to maintain the local food security to be the imported-rice free is encouraging the food reserve development, enhancing the food distribution system, fostering the consumption diversification, monitoring fresh food, conducting citizen empowerment action program to solve the food security issue, and synchronizing the action program funding among the state budget, regional government budget, and citizen fund in East Java.

126-131

Authors: Evgeniya V. Vidishcheva, Marina Gunare

Major local and international events require significant financial and labour investments. Modernization of infrastructure and marketing activities are largest part of organizational and holding expenditures. However, the share of the wages fund is also significant, that's why the practice of engaging the unpaid volunteers is becoming more and more popularity. Despite the relatively short history of development the event-volunteer’s movement in Russia specialized centers for the volunteer's training has already been formed and actively operating now. Tens of thousands of volunteers pass a qualification every time before the events, and the economic and social contribution of volunteer activities to the event industry and country's economy is constantly growing. Volunteering is a source of self-development and improvement of professional skills for both young and older generations. And in many developed countries it is also an impressive share of gross domestic product. The aim of the study is to assess the impact of volunteering in the economy of mega-events.

3-15

Authors: Jelisavka Bulatović, Goran Rajović

Environmental awareness is to understand the fragility of our environment and the importance of its protection. Promoting environmental awareness is an easy way to become an environmental steward and participate in creating a brighter future for our children. Before you can begin promoting environmental awareness in your own community you must first make sure that you have a thorough understanding of environmental issues. People’s actions do not reflect such high levels of environmental consciousness (Ai Hiramatsu et al., 2015). Such contradiction between attitude and action has been mentioned in studies (see Stern, 2000; Kollmuss, Agyeman, 2002; Giuseppe, 2006; Ando et al., 2007; Harju-Autti et al., 2014). The aim of this paper is to review environmental awareness, for example Belgrade municiplaty Voždovac.

22-41

Authors: I. Rigas, G. Theodossiou, G. Rigas, A. Goulas

The objective of this work is to investigate the effect of two quantitative (price (taxes included) of cigarettes per pack and personal income) and of three socioeconomic variables (education level, percentage of the population aged 15-24 and unemployment rate) on the quantity of cigarette consumption per capita per year for each of the eight countries: China, India, Japan, Russia, Brazil, USA, Germany and UK. Three different econometric methods were used, namely pooled cross-section time series, fixed and random effects to estimate cigarette consumption at the country level. The three models showed that cigarettes are a normal good (a necessity) and that an increase in income will cause an increase in cigarettes sales per individual age 15 and over. Moreover, the pooled OLS with cross-section specific coefficients model indicated that China, Japan, Russia, USA and Germany present negative cigarette price elasticity, Brazil presents positive price elasticity, while India and UK present price elasticity not significantly different from zero. The results of pooled OLS model for the three socioeconomic variables showed that their coefficient estimates are slightly negative and significantly different from zero. Once country-level unobserved heterogeneity was taken into account the models indicated, that countries with more university graduates have slightly lower cigarette sales per adult, while the other two socioeconomic variables were found to be statistically not significant.

48-55

Authors: David Umoru, Rita Efe Etsemitan

This study seeks to evaluate the exact effect that financial reforms have on national savings in Nigeria from 1985 to 2015 using ARDL estimation technique based on Bewley transformation. The study found that both variables of financial reforms namely, interest rate spread and exchange rate spread had inverse and significant coefficient estimates. Hence, we accept the alternative hypothesis that financial reforms plummet aggregate savings in Nigeria. The study thus recommends the need for the CBN to create adequate financial instruments that are flexible enough to meet risk preferences of financial operators.

78-84

Authors: Kıvanç Halil Arıç, Merve Tuncay, Siok Kun Sek

"Current account" has been considered as an important variable in forecasting an economic crisis. Therefore; specifying the determinants of current account is a substantial topic for policy makers. The aim of this study is to examine the current account dynamics in the scope of Central European countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia Republic and Croatia) during the 1997 – 2015. Panel data analysis was used in the methodology. According to the analysis results, growth of gross domestic product has no significant effect on current account. Real exchange rate, foreign direct investment and importation affect the current account negatively. However, exportation and government expenditure have positive effects on current account in Central European countries.

96-103

Authors: Vakhtang Charaia, Vladimer Papava

The inflation index regrettably fails to fully reflect the expectation of the population in developing and, especially, poorer countries. Some of the commodity groups (e.g. electronics, new and used cars, furniture, hotel and restaurant services, etc.) fail to reflect the problem of the low-income population. Under these conditions, a logical question arises concerning the kinds of problems which might occur when the main goal for a central bank’s monetary policy is only to retain price stability, which is known as inflation targeting. For countries where import exceeds export by several times, it should be clear that calculations must be made not only by the traditional inflation index but also according to their consumer basket made up exclusively of imported goods and services (imflation). Agrarian inflation, that is agflation, becomes more and more popular in economics. The agflation index use area is restricted because it fails to reflect the change in prices on such substantial spheres as medication and utilities. In the paper we propose a new statistical indicator, munflation, which reflect price fluctuations on the medication, utilities and nutrition.

115-123

Authors: Alparslan Özlen

Knowledge sharing is suggested as a key element for Knowledge Management in sustaining organizational competitiveness. This work investigates the relationships proposed by a knowledge sharing model implying that knowledge sharing practices contribute to organizational and individual performance as a result of (a) qualified Knowledge Management Systems, (b) suitable knowledge sharing environment and (c) organizational knowledge sharing motivation. The proposed model is tested by using the data obtained from surveying various private and public Bosnian enterprises. At the end of data collection period, 207 usable surveys are achieved. According to the results, Knowledge Management in Bosnia is still developing yet. Model test suggests advanced Knowledge Management Systems, suitable knowledge sharing environment and high organizational knowledge sharing motivation influence knowledge sharing and successful knowledge sharing increases the performance of both individuals and the organization. The results suggest that successful knowledge sharing can be achieved through considering technical (KMS), social (environment) and the individual (motivation).

4-17

Authors: Hamed Alavi

With emergence of new economies in globalized world issue of international trade is gaining more ground in economic, political and development debates. Economic liberalization as well as removing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, has significantly contributed to globalization of production and flow of business. At the same time increasing trade with emerging economies and moving production to low cost countries resulted in increasing trade risk more than before. Among others, payment risk can impose serious amounts of loss on involved parties in international trade while traders try to mitigate it by using different methods of payment like documentary credits. LCs are used to reduce the payment risk of buyer with irrevocable guarantee of issuing bank to pay contractual price to seller against presentation of complying documents by him. However, application of Strict Compliance Principle and reliance of banks on mere documentary nature of presentation rather than trade realities between partners can create different problems. A prominent example of such problem is rejection of payment by bank due to bad processing and noncompliance of presented documents by beneficiary. In fact, non-compliance is a huge risk for beneficiary which can result in his significant financial loss. By focus on potential financial loss due to mismanagement of risk, current paper tries to study most prominent risk management techniques and their applicability to mitigate the risk of documentary discrepancy in LC transaction from the perspective of exporter beneficiary and find answer to the question of which Risk management model can be suitable to reduce such risk in LC operation. Research consists of three parts. First, it will review history and different business risk management philosophies. Second part will discuss to nature of LC transaction and risk of documentary discrepancy while final part will analyses different business risk management techniques and their usefulness in mitigating the risk of documentary discrepancy in international LC transaction.

25-41

Authors: Amassoma Ditimi, Adeniran Oluwagbenga

This study explores external debt and economic growth nexus in Nigeria. Although external borrowing is targeted to put an economy on the pedal of growth cycle, provided such resources obtained are utilized efficiently in a well-directed manner. This has not been the case with Nigeria due to lack of optimally utilizing this contracted loans for its original goal hence making repayment a burden which has culminated a lot of contention among scholars, policy makers, and government agencies to mention a few. This study was carried out to investigate the nexus between external debt and domestic investment via economic growth in Nigeria between the periods 1980 to 2014. The study employed OLS regression method to ascertain the said relationship. The results shows that external debt exerts a negative and significant effect on private in Nigeria, while domestic debt had a positive and significant influence on private investment in Nigeria during the study periods, indicating that external debt impedes private investment in Nigeria. So the study concludes that external debt is inversely related to private investment, meaning that an increase in external debt goes a long way in reducing private investment which slows down economic growth in the country. Owing from the above, the study recommends there is the need for the government to focus more on domestic investment and lessen the concentration on private investment. In addition, the government should enforce appropriate macroeconomic policy that will foster private investment couple with an enabling environment that will attract foreign investors to invest in the country by addressing the security challenges, providing investment friendly environment, by improving regulatory framework, introduction of some legal framework which should be met to apprehend any contractor, agencies, public office holders found to have embezzle funds stipulated for any developmental project; and encourage domestic investment. Future study should be conducted on effective management of resources for achieving the desired economic growth in Nigeria.

56-65

Authors: Gayane Tovmasyan

Tourism as a global phenomenon develops rapidly worldwide. In the Republic of Armenia tourism is announced as the main sector of economy. In the recent years the number of tourists has increased. The main tourism statistics, tourism competitiveness index, tourism assets of Armenia are presented and analyzed in the article. Some suggestions are made for tourism advancement in Armenia which will contribute to the regional economic growth. Obviously, our calculations and analyses indicate tourism sphere significance for our economic development. Tourism development is also very important for regional economic advancement as tourism destinations are also in the regions, and tourism directly or indirectly influences on the development of the other spheres of the economy as well. It is also obvious through the calculation of tourism multiplier effect. So tourism development plans by regions must be processed and implemented.