O47 - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output ConvergenceReturn

There are studies investigating a country's digital competitiveness; however, there is a lack of research examining digital competitiveness at the enterprise level. Hence, the current study aims at composing an enterprise digital competitiveness index (EDCI), which provides a possibility to assess the level of enterprise digital competitiveness and could be used by policymakers in the development of a strategy for transitioning to the digital economy. The CRITIC and COPRAS approaches are employed for the index construction. The criteria and subcriteria provided by Eurostat (2022) are used as antecedents of the EDCI. The results indicate that Nordic countries have reached the highest level of enterprise digital competitiveness. The mentioned countries' GDP per capita is in the top 5 among the EU countries, while the countries with the lowest GDP per capita show the lowest EDCI.

The changing population dynamics have substantial impact on economy. This paper investigates the effects of demographic change on economic growth. The share of working age population, child dependency ratio, old-age dependency ratio and age dependency ratio are used as demographic variables. The effects of these variables on the gross domestic product per capita growth rate are examined for the OECD countries covering the period 1970-2021. Four different models are estimated by using panel ARDL estimation method. The findings derived from the estimated models point out that the old-age dependency ratio and age dependency ratio have negative effects on economic growth. On the other hand, the share of working age population has a positive effect on economic growth. These results suggest that demographic change causing an increase in the dependency ratio and a decrease in the share of working age population will have adverse impacts on economic performance in the long run.

The paper aims at measuring the efficiency of the digital economy in EU countries. For that purpose, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used. Sub-dimensions of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) are used as inputs and the Sustainable Development Goals Index (SDGI) as an output. The results revealed that Bulgaria, Italy and Romania are the most efficient digital economies in terms of human capital; Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal in terms of connectivity; Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania in terms of integration of digital technology; and Romania in terms of digital public services. The result of tobit regression analysis showed that not all the indicators of the DESI dimensions positively influence the efficiency of the digital economy.

This paper uses the projection pursuit method (PP method) to construct a comprehensive output indicator and uses the heterogeneous stochastic frontier model (HSFM model) to calculate China's green economy efficiency and analyse effects of environmental factors on the inefficiency fluctuation of green economy. Conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) The average value of China's green economy efficiency is generally low, and a regional heterogeneity of green economy efficiency is obvious. (2) For the overall inefficiency fluctuation of China's green economy, openness has a significant inhibitory effect; the industrialization level and technological level have a certain inhibitory effect, but their importance is weaker than that of openness; fiscal decentralization has an insignificant effect. Since 2001, changes in unit openness and the unit industrialization level have had a strengthened restraining effect on the inefficiency fluctuations of China's green economy, and the change in the unit technology level has had a small and stable inhibitory effect on China's green economy's inefficiency fluctuation. (3) Openness and the industrialization level have had a significant inhibitory effect on the inefficiency fluctuation of China's regional green economy in the Eastern region more than in the Central and Western regions; the technological level has had a certain inhibitory effect in the Central and Western regions, but its influence is lower than that of openness. The inhibitory effect of unit change in openness and the industrialization level on the inefficiency fluctuation of green economy in the Central region is greater than that in the Eastern region. The inhibitory effect of unit change in the technological level on the inefficiency fluctuation of green economy in the Western region is obviously greater than that in the Central and Eastern regions. These conclusions can provide a mathematical basis for a reform of China's green economy efficiency.

We examine the growth effects of public and private investment by using data for a large sample of countries. For the full sample, our dynamic panel estimations indicate that both public and private investment have strong positive effects on growth. Our estimations for income levels also show that the impacts of both public and private investment are positive and statistically significant for developing countries. Interestingly, public and private investment promote growth in developing countries with effective and ineffective governments. It seems that countries can significantly benefit from investment regardless of their institutional quality levels. Furthermore, the effect of public investment generally appears to be larger than that of private investment. Given the robust relationship between investment and growth in both ineffective and effective developing countries, an important policy implication of our study is that both types of investment should be encouraged to foster economic growth.

Based on panel data from 2000 to 2017 on 30 provinces in China, we analyse the threshold effect of environmental regulation on the quality improvement of economic growth in Eastern, Central, and Western China using a threshold regression model with entrepre-neurship as the threshold variable. The conclusions are as follows: (1) With a low entre-preneurship index, environmental regulation inhibits the quality of regional economic growth. When the entrepreneurship index is at a middle level, the effect changes from an original adverse impact to a favourable impact, which is very significant in Eastern and Western China, but not significant in Central China. When entrepreneurship is highly active, environmental regulation is beneficial to economic growth quality in all regions, and environmental regulation can bring into play the function of "reversed mechanism" to promote economic growth quality. (2) The differences in entrepreneurship level in the three regions lead to regional heterogeneity of the threshold effect between environmental regulation and economic growth quality. Eastern China realizes a double dividend of environmental improvement and economic growth. The entrepreneurial activity in the Central and Western regions is a little far away from their threshold values, at which environmental regulation can produce a significant incentive effect. In conclusion, we put forward three suggestions to improve the entrepreneurial activity and fully realize the double dividend of environmental improvement and economic growth.

Business R&D spending has been shown to exert both direct and indirect positive effects on value added. Nevertheless, the heterogeneity of the returns to R&D has seldom been examined. Using detailed sectoral data from Czechia over the period 1995-2015, this study finds that privately funded business R&D has both direct and spillover effects, but that the publicly funded part of business R&D only leads to spillovers. The results further suggest that both upstream and downstream spillovers matter, regardless of the source of funding, and that during the period studied, R&D returns were heavily affected by the economic crisis. Lastly, private R&D offers significant returns only after reaching a critical mass, while the effects of public R&D spending do not display such non-linearity. This heterogeneity in the returns to business R&D should be reflected in innovation policy design.

Analysing papers that reveal by decomposing territorial inequalities in the EU that the share of disparities attributed to the NUTS 3 level has increased over the last 20 years, this paper aims to examine to what extent the financial support in 2000-2006 from ERDF and CF, which are the main regional policy tools but mainly are directed to address the issues arising at the NUTS 2 level, contributed to supporting convergence at the NUTS 3 level. Our re-search strategy relies on combining a conditional β-convergence model and a difference-in-differences (DiD) estimator. Estimations are generated for four alternative post-policy periods, two ways to measure policy intervention and for different funds as well as different expenditure categories. Our research results bring to light the question of potential negative outcomes of the EU's existing regional policy since the policy that is focused on the NUTS 2 level is enlarging imbalances within these regions, i.e., among NUTS 3 regions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether financial markets contribute to the eco-nomy when needed. The quantile regression model and causality in variance tests are applied to monthly data from December 1989 to July 2016 for 19 OECD economies. The results confirm that the response of capital markets to economic growth depends more on the state of the economy than the state of the country's development. Generally, interaction between financial markets and the economy is weak in OECD countries except Japan and Estonia.

Based on OECD country experiences over the period from 1990 to 2015, this research rigorously investigates: (1) how fiscal autonomy effects economic growth; (2) whether there is an optimal level of decentralization; and (3) whether and how other factors influence economic performance in a decentralized economy. We find that revenue decentralization does not affect economic performance. The expenditure decentralization dividend in terms of an enhanced economic growth rate can be achieved only when the initial share of local government expenditure is smaller than the growth-maximizing degree through along with tax collection and trade openness.

This paper evaluates the accuracy of real GDP growth forecasts published in the period 1995-2013 by two Czech institutions: the Ministry of Finance (MF) and the Czech National Bank (CNB). A two-stepped approach is adopted: first a battery of forecasting errors (MAE, RMSE, MASE) is calculated, complementary to evaluation papers already available. Then statistical analysis is carried out by comparing both MF and CNB forecasts with OECD, European Commission and consensus benchmarks (Kruskal-Wallis test), assessing the presence of systemic bias (Wilcoxon test) and determining their incremental improvement (Page trend test). The results show that although some error patterns might suggest performance deficiencies (i.e. during the recession periods), the accuracy of forecasts prepared by both the MF and CNB does not differ significantly from the benchmark forecasts; MF and CNB predictions do not contain systemic bias and their accuracy improves as the horizon shortens. The paper also highlights several methodological shortcomings in the internal evaluations conducted by both institutions, indicating a potential for further improvement.

The effects of the financial crisis, that started in 2008 and first emerged on the American housing market, have been experienced by many European economies. The purpose of this article is to attempt to measure and assess the sensitivity of convergence processes to crisis in European Union's regional economies taking into consideration their sectoral structure. Particular resistance to crisis is associated with the presence of "modern" sectors of the economy. The study covers the panel of the European Union NUTS-2 level regions in the period 2005-2011. In the analysis, the application of panel data allows for inclusion of the specific non-measurable aspects characteristic for particular regions and time.

This paper addresses the question of convergence in real wages across Romanian counties, while putting a spotlight on the recent economic crisis, which has hit hard the entire economy. Following the main methodological trends in the literature, convergence methods were applied using the traditional cross-section approach. The empirical analysis covering a 21-year period provided clear evidence in favour of ß-convergence, but indicated ?-divergence (Galton's fallacy). Wages' dispersion seems to rise during the economic crises and persists in the first stage of recovery as well. This finding provides support to Barro and Sala-i-Martin's theory on the temporary divergence effect induced by economic shocks.

This paper suggests that real GDP is not an appropriate indicator for long-term comparisons of the performance of transformation and post-transformation economies either with developed economies, or one with another, or across different phases of development of a single economy. We analyse the possible reasons why real GDP diverges from the theoretical concept of the objective level of value added adjusted for inflation. These reasons concern real exchange rate appreciation and overestimation of inflation due to quality changes in output after the collapse of central planning. To overcome the shortcomings of real GDP in explaining the true "transformation story" we develop the concept of "comparable" real GDP. This concept is calculated from nominal GDP, the exchange rate against the euro, and inflation in the euro area. While the differences between "standard" real GDP and "comparable" real GDP are modest and temporary in advanced economies, they are quantitatively and qualitatively significant and persistent in transformation and post-transformation economies. On the basis of the relevant literature we introduce two modifications of "comparable" real GDP. They account for likely differences in productivity patterns between tradables and non-tradables and between the performance of the export and non-export segments of the economy respectively. We conclude that true convergence is proceeding at a significantly higher pace than real GDP implies and that the Czech economy is converging to the euro area somewhat faster than the Polish economy and much faster than the Hungarian economy.

In this paper, we apply the aggregate production function to approximate the path of potential output and decompose it into its determinants. Based on the decomposition we evaluate the supply side performance from a macroeconomic perspective. We use a time-varying NAIRU to derive the amount of potential labour and a newly developed measure of capital services to account for the productive impact of capital. In addition, trend total factor productivity is estimated. During 1995-2000, the growth in potential output was constrained by a gradual increase in the NAIRU, a temporary drop in investment activity and, most importantly, by only a modest rise in total factor productivity. For the period 2001-2005, we observe substantial improvements in the supply-side performance, except for the functioning of the labour market.

This paper deals with the Czech economy supply side performance from the macroeconomic point of view. In order to evaluate the supply side behaviour we calculate the potential output dynamic path and contribution of its particular determinants using the production function method. The results show that the potential output growth was rather slow around 2 per cent. This implies that e. g. even 3 per cent growth can cause macroeconomic imbalances. Increase of the non-accelerating-inflation-rate of unemployment (NAIRU), weak growth of the capital stock and weak growth of total factor productivity appear to be the reasons for the constrained ability of the Czech economy to grow steadily and converge to EU level.