C12 - Hypothesis Testing: GeneralReturn

This article analyses the relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance at the level of a panel of 62 Romanian companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The first challenge was measuring of the social performance. A new social performance measurement system was developed based on which the CSP Index was obtained. The GRI criteria for reporting, the channel of communication chosen by the companies, as well as the level of detail of the published information were taken into account. The estimation of the regression model was made using the CSP Index as the dependent variable and the financial indicators (return on assets, return on equity, sales growth, average number of employees, total sales, market value added, PER index) as the independent variables. The panel regression analysis done to highlight the fixed or random effects at the company level indicated a relatively weak causal relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance. The social performance may also depend on other variables that are not included in the model, although, the general conclusion was that the social performance of Romanian companies is relatively low, but in an ascending evolution.

This paper analyses temporary work and job satisfaction among salaried workers during the Spanish economic crisis of 2008. Using data from the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) 2013 Economically Active Population Survey (EAPS), we find that temporary workers lost their job more than others during this period. However, salaried workers have higher average levels of satisfaction in 2007-2010, possibly due to the lower requirements of workers. We find a positive relationship between the unlikeliness of keeping a job and low job satisfaction levels in data from the Survey of Quality of Life at Work (2010) through a correspondence analysis. A linear model with a level of job satisfaction as a dependent variable shows negative coefficients for a level of job satisfaction if the probability of keeping the job is somewhat unlikely or very unlikely. Finally, an ordinal probit regression finds that the estimated likelihood to reach high job satisfaction is lower in temporary workers.

The paper highlights the results of the survey of potential retail customers. The survey emphasizes the relationship between their responses to the chosen marketing pricing strategies and the perception of the introduction of the euro and the crisis. The multi-dimensional techniques were used to implement input data concerning perceptions of the euro introduction and the crisis in order to create a segmentation of respondents dividing them into: optimists, pessimists, crisispessimists, euro-pessimists, profiteers. It was subsequently proven that the responses of the members of these segments to the chosen pricing strategies EDLP (Every Day Low Pricing), Hi-Lo (High Low Pricing) and PMG (Price Matching Guarantees) differ significantly. Furthermore, the relation between the found segmentation and the subjective perception and assignment to the social group from the point of financial security is shown. Moreover, further segmentation of respondents according to their subjective anxiety about their future was carried out. Finally, the emphasis is put on the relation between the perception of the euro introduction in the country during the current influence of the world economic crisis on potential retail customers in the East Slovak Region and their subjective anxiety about their future.

This paper empirically examines the possible causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Serbia. In this regard, the focus is on the development of financial intermediation by banks, considering the fact that the banking sector plays an important role in Serbian financial system. The empirical research is based on quarterly data for the period Q1 2004-Q4 2011 by using Toda-Yamamoto causality test. Our empirical findings suggest that process of economic growth contributes to process of financial deepening. On the other hand, the results indicate that there is a significant unidirectional causality that runs from both private enterprise credit to GDP and household credit to GDP to economic growth. Bidirectional causal relation is confirmed only between the share of bank credit to nonfinancial private sector in total domestic credit and economic growth rate.

Foreign direct investment has become an important factor of development of economies in the last decades. However, its economic nature as well as its relationship with corruption has not yet been clarified in economic literature. Following previous theoretical research, mainly Dunning's eclectic model, this paper evaluates the econometric relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment by testing three theoretically-based hypotheses: that corruption perception indicator is a stationary variable, that the relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment stock is statistically weak and that changes in foreign direct investment stock do not Granger cause changes in corruption. The verification is based on unit root tests, panel co-integration and Granger causality models performed on data from the Transparency International, the World Bank and the Heritage Foundation and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for 94 countries for the years 1998-2007. The results show that there is no significant relationship between the two variables.

The aim of our paper is to formulate and empirically verify the simple backward looking econometric model of the monetary policy rule, which would be able to describe the development of monetary policy rate, namely only on the basis of statistically measured and at the given time available information. We focus on the Czech National Bank, the National Bank of Poland and the Magyar Nemzeti Bank in the period of January 1999 to April 2012. In the present paper we discuss some methodological problems associated with the ex-post empirical verification of the central bank's monetary policy rule. We construct an empirical model of the monetary policy rule, justify the choice and the inclusion of explanatory variables, analyse the statistical properties of time series, and verify the alternative forms of econometric models. Our analysis showed that the development of monetary policy rate in the reporting period can be explained by the past and present development of four explanatory variables: yearly inflation rate, exchange rate, ECB main refinancing rate and growth rate of M2. The annualized inflation rate proved to be statistically insignificant in the model. We find interesting that the statistical quality of the estimated model was further increased after a six-month lag of the annual inflation rate added to the model.

In case that a central bank is withdrawing excess liquidity, there arises a question whether the monetary policy based on repo operations (withdrawal repo) is identically efficient as the monetary policy relying on repo rate connected with reverse repo (issuance repo) when central banks provide liquidity. The analysis of this problem is a main subject of the article. Authors develop microeconomic model of commercial bank behaviour, which is used for the definition of conditions when the interest rate policy of central bank based alternatively on repo rates for repo and reverse repo operations is efficient. Statistical data (time series of 1998 - 2011, monthly data frequency) are analysed and econometric verification of alternative forms of econometric models is performed. The authors arrived at a conclusion that the Czech National Bank's monetary policy operating in conditions of excess liquidity withdrawal through repo operations is efficient. In case of the Czech Republic an increase in repo rate on withdrawal repo should lead to an increase in interest rates of commercial banks and to a reduction in the credit activity of commercial banks and hence to the successful implementation of Czech National Bank's restrictive monetary policy.

This paper analyses the pay-per-bid auctions which have appeared recently on the Internet and scored an immediate business success. In these auctions bidders pay a small, but irrevocable fee each time they want to increase the price. In this paper we test the model suggested by Platt, Price and Tappen (2010), which forecasts the distribution of closing prices depending on the item's value, bid fee and price increment. The data from the Czech leading auction site Bonus.cz were chosen for the test. Observed closing prices distribution of about 69 % of commonly auctioned items fits the model. However, we find some theoretical and practical flaws in the model. Contrary to the model predictions, we observed that auctions with smaller price increments generated significantly higher revenue than auctions with higher price increments. We suggest that bidders who favour skewness in payoff distribution cause auctions with lower price increment run longer and therefore explain this discrepancy.

The article is concerned with voting power indicators in the European Union and one paradox arising from them. The first chapter defines voting power indicators exactly. The second chapter defines the paradox of new members and introduces some examples. The third chapter specifies data - voting power indicators in the EU. The fourth chapter computes differences between old and new voting power indicators. The fifth chapter summarizes the frequency of the paradox of new members in total. The sixth chapter brings a conclusion.