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This paper examines the impact of financial market development, financial crises and deposit insurance on bank risk based on macro data of 86 countries during the period 1998-2014. The results show that banking sector development and stock market development have opposing effects on bank risk measured as bank non-performing loan ratio. The introduction of an explicit deposit insurance system plays a significant role in reducing banks’ risk. However, the bank market development after the introduction of this system also increases banks’ risk. The impact of financial market development and deposit insurance system on banks’ risk was more significant before the 2008 financial crisis. It is found that there is a nonlinear relationship between financial market development, deposit insurance, financial crises and banks’ risk. The stock market development has an asymmetric effect on banks’ risk.

Reducing income inequality is one of the goals under the Sustainable Development Goals. This study examines the intricate relationship between financial development, policy uncertainty, inflation, and income inequality. Panel data for African countries covering the period 2000-2022 were used in the analysis. The study used the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index to examine its effects on income distribution. Previous studies indicated the possibility of asymmetric effects of inflation and EPU on income inequality. Hence, a dynamic non-linear Panel ARDL was employed to examine the asymmetric nature of the relationship between these variables. The study found that in the long run a symmetric EPU reduces income inequality for the countries in the study and this is confirmed by the asymmetric negative EPU that had a negative and significant impact on inequality. Income equality was found to deteriorate with an increase in inflation. Moreover, inequality was found to be more sensitive to negative changes in inflation relative to a positive change as inequality's elasticity to positive change was much lower as compared to negative changes. Under certain conditions and economic context, redistributive policies can alleviate inequality during a period of heightened EPU. By examining the theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence, the study highlights that for the countries in this study, policy uncertainty reduces inequality. Also, countries should continue with inflation targeting policies and if possible, aim for a lower rate relative to the previous period.

In existing empirical literature, the effect of remittances has most often been examined in relation to economic growth, poverty reduction, and employment in recipient countries. Unlike previous empirical studies, this paper focuses its analysis on the impact of remittances on unemployment in selected Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European (CESEE) countries from 1998 to 2021, using the New economics of labor migration framework. These countries, which underwent deep economic and political transitions during the 1990s, faced significant challenges associated with high unemployment, particularly among the working-age population who lost their jobs, and among young people who struggled to integrate into the labor markets of these economies. As a result, they became major sources of migration flows toward the more developed and wealthier Western European countries, which in turn led to a substantial increase in the inflow of remittances to the CESEE region. This study highlights two effects of remittances: they can reduce unemployment by alleviating financial constraints and promoting job creation through human capital investments, but they may also create short-term labor market distortions by leading to decreased labor force participation, known as the "dependency effect". Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, the analysis reveals a negative relationship between remittances and unemployment; that is, in the long run, an increase in remittances reduces the unemployment rate by facilitating job creation. Conversely, in the short term, remittances correlate with increased unemployment due to temporary declines in labor force participation. Hence, the novelty and importance of this paper lie in its aim to explore the nexus between remittances and unemployment, and to underscore the need for policies that optimize the benefits of remittances while mitigating their potential adverse effects. However, the study is limited by the unavailability of data for certain countries, potential endogeneity between remittances and unemployment, and the omission of some institutional or structural factors that future research could address.

Global economic policy uncertainty (GEPU) is one of important phenomena in the global economy; it can impact on the overall economic performance and stock market per-formance, regardless of the status of the world economy. Thus, this paper empirically investigates the impact of global economic policy uncertainty on the Malaysian stock market over the period from 10:2003 to 2017:03. Using the GARCH model, the study demonstrates that global policy uncertainty affects the Malaysian stock market negatively. Similarly, the SVAR model also shows results consistent with the GARCH estimation. Nevertheless, the Markov switching estimation uncovers that global policy uncertainty has negative impacts on stock market performance in both low and high volatile market states. The impact is, however, greater during the high volatile state. Hence, the relationship between global economic policy uncertainty and stock market returns tends to be asymmetric. The overall empirical results infer that global economic policy uncertainty has some implications for asset pricing.

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.

Poverty reduction has long been one of the political priorities of the European Union and its member states. Despite the political declarations and measures applied, poverty is still a phenomenon that affects the everyday lives of about 70 million Europeans. Moreover, trends in poverty incidence show how poverty risks are sensitive to overall socio-economic development and how they are more actual for some vulnerable population groups. Following the popular concept of poverty feminization, the analysis presented in the paper aims to identify gender perspective relationship between the poverty incidence and characteristics describing the situation on the labour market or the levels of attained education in EU-27 countries. Attention is paid to poverty incidence among women and men of working age (population aged from 25 to 54 years) and differences are examined in the relationship to the position of both genders on the labour market. Presented findings, based mainly on the results obtained from the panel regression analysis performed for the period 2007-2020, suggest that policymakers should integrate a gender perspective into all policies focused on poverty reduction.

Although it is notoriously difficult to utilize financial ratios to forecast the crude oil market prices, our study challenges this perception and reveals that the second risk premium principal component analysis (RP-PCA) factor may contain statistically significant information for both in-sample and out-of-sample forecasts of future crude oil prices. Our evidence illustrates that the second RP-PCA factor substantially outperforms many other popular predictors (approximately 30 conventional predictors) in forecasting crude oil prices and generating adequate higher values of economic profits. We conduct a range of informative tests, including bootstrap simulation, success ratio tests, alternative out-of-sample evaluation periods, and structure break tests. Furthermore, we illustrate that the forecasting ability of the second RP-PCA factor may stem from its ability to forecast oil market sentiment. Our study presents a novel and indicatable financial instrument for policymakers to predict crude oil prices robustly. The theoretical motivation of this study links to Cochrane's (2005) framework for general candidate factors in asset pricing.

Using developing countries in Europe for context, this study examines the complex relationship between financial crises and financial integration. We use panel data comprising 37 countries in Europe, including Iceland, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, and Russia from 2000-2019 and the general method of moments. Our findings show that there is a positive relationship between financial integration and development and economic growth. In addition, the results suggest that a higher degree of financial integration is not necessarily increasing financial fragility during a financial crisis. Therefore, the results show that it is a self-defeating policy for developing countries to apply a strategy of financial protectionism over a financial crisis.

This paper deals with the problem of how the risk perception among retail customers is affected by the consumer protection regulation on the financial market. Through a questionnaire survey, we have measured the effect of selected consumer protection measures on banking or investment decisions taken by a young (student) population. These measures included the most common elements of financial regulation, such as bank deposit insurance, corporate bond prospectus, licenced fund management and securities broker indemnity insurance. Our results show that protective state intervention represents strong stimuli for customer decision-making with a widely misleading effect. It overshadows other factors, including individual qualification, risk-reward preference and demographic attributes, all of which were found to be insignificant. Since the surveyed measures reached a similar level of effect yet they offer different substance, this outcome has important policymaking implications.

Africa is endowed with both natural resources and a young growing workforce. In light of this, it is obvious that regulations on labour markets will have significant impacts on economic growth, especially through effects on employment and productivity. This study provides information on labour market regulations (labour market flexibility) and their impacts on economic growth in Africa. In particular, this study examines the impact of labour market flexibility (regulations) on economic growth (real GDP per capita growth) relying on the Driscoll-Kraay fixed-effects estimator and the two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation techniques using data from 2000 to 2019 for 37 African countries. The results show a positive correlation, indicating that liberalizing rigid labour market regulations can lead to economic growth benefits. Specifically, it is observed that economic growth increases by approximately 0.16% resulting from a unit (one standard deviation) increase in labour market flexibility. The study also finds that economic growth (real GDP per capita growth) is high in countries that have flexible hour regulations, flexible mandatory costs of worker dismissal, and the absence of (or not strictly enforced) military conscription. These findings have important implications for African governments and policymakers as they may find it useful to liberalize the prevailing rigid labour market regulations to reap economic growth benefits.

This study accounts for the nexus between financial development and intra-trade relationships using nine Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries with the extraction of data from secondary sources spanning between 1990 and 2021. The following are the con- clusions drawn from the study: exchange rate, interest rate and inflation rate, which are criti- cal macroeconomic variables, represent unfavourable factors that suppress the intra-trade rela- tionships within the RCEP region. In light of the above, this study recommends that any time the policymakers in RCEP countries desire better intra-trade relationships within RCEP countries, they should implement a unified monetary policy that will stimulate interest rate, exchange rate and inflation rate in such a way that the intra-trade relationships will be enhanced among the RCEP countries.

Using a macro-level dataset covering 173 countries from 2000 to 2020, this study is the first attempt to examine how income diversification and market concentration are related to bank stability. Firstly, we document that bank stability is positively related to revenue diversification, suggesting that banks are more stable when they are more engaged in non-traditional activities. Secondly, market concentration is positively associated with bank stability, in line with the concentration-stability hypothesis that banks in a highly concentrated banking system are more likely to be more stable. Thirdly, we show that market concentration modifies the link between revenue diversification and bank stability. Specifically, it is shown that diversified banks are more stable in a more concentrated environment compared to those on a less concentrated market. These results are robust to multiple regression specifications with different proxies for bank stability and income diversification.

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 examines the role of financial development in promoting innovation-related activity using panel data for seven East Asian countries for the period from 1998-2009. On overall financial development, we find that, financial sector size and the overall activity of banks and stock market exert positive influences on patent applications. In particular, our results show that all measures of banking development are positively and significantly related to the number of patent applications after controlling for variables known to affect innovative activities. Interestingly, we find no evidence that variation in patent applications is affected by a country's stock market development. The findings suggest that banking sector plays important roles in supporting innovation activity in East Asian countries.

Against the background of green development, green technology innovation is an important driving force for high-quality economic development. Countries are facing energy shortages, environmental deterioration and other issues that limit high-quality economic development by extending green technology innovation. The study aims to investigate the impact of green technology innovation and its spillover effect on high-quality economic development. For this purpose, the study applies panel data on 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019 to construct a spatial Durbin model. The study finds that green technology innovation in the region plays a positive role in promoting high-quality economic development. The findings show that green technology innovation in the Eastern Region could promote high-quality economic development. Nevertheless, the role of the Central and Western Regions is not significant and negative. Green technology innovation in the Central and Eastern Regions shows a significant positive role in promoting the high-quality economic development level of the surrounding areas. However, spillover effects in the Western Region are not obvious.

The article shows properties of risk-based portfolios in the German stock market. Those systematic strategies use different approaches to weight stocks in portfolios. We present theoretical and empirical characteristics of five risk-based equity investments: the equal-weighted, minimum variance, maximum diversification and risk parity (equal risk budgeting and equal risk contribution) portfolios. Risk-based portfolios outperformed the market-cap weighted CDAX index with a lower level of risk in the period 2002–2015. Their excess returns relative to the CDAX index can be explained with Scherer’s five-factor model; with Fama-French and low-risk anomaly factors. R2s of different strategies range from 77% to 92%.

Price changes on all international financial and commodity markets have shown a sig- nificant correlation. The correlation dependence increased due to macroeconomic changes that led to cyclical economic trends caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the new economic circumstances, there has been a change in investment strategy of individual and institutional investors. The investment portfolios have increased in demand related to the purchase of gold, seen as a safe-haven asset, which has led to significant growth in aggregate demand on the international precious metals market. This paper deals with a dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) between the investment in gold as an asset and the movement of major world market indices. We used cryptocurrency (bitcoin) volatility as an independent variable in the model. We tested its correlation to the other major market indices and gold as a safe-haven asset. Related to a proposed model based on GARCH DCC and the Generalised Reduced Gradient (GDR) algorithm, we set up the Hedging Effectiveness (HE) index and an optimally weighted investment portfolio.

Green development prioritizes ecology and sustainability and strengthens scientific and technological innovation to drive high-quality economic development. This paper con- structs a coupled coordination model of a system evaluation index to explore the spatial and temporal pattern of green technology innovation and high-quality economic development. it also employs a Tobit regression model to analyse the influencing factors of coordinated development further. For this purpose, panel data on 30 Chinese provincial administrative regions were selected, ranging from 2010 to 2019. The results indicate that the level of coupling and coordination of green technology innovation with high-quality economic quality shows a steady upward trend and the evolution trend of "basic, moderate, and high coordination". At the same time, differences in coordinated development between regions are obvious, showing a development trend of "high in the east and low in the west". It is affected positively by the industrial structure, urbanization level, economic development level, R&D investment, foreign investment and education investment. In contrast, energy consumption has inhibited the coordinated development of green technology innovation and a high-quality economy coupling.

When there is bad news hoarding from managers, returns of stocks are no longer efficient. We hypothesize that a proxy for efficient returns predicts stock price bubbles, crashes and crash risk. We find evidence in support of our hypotheses. Lagged price efficiency significantly predicts bubbles, crashes and crash risk in multivariate linear regressions and logit regressions, as predicted by our hypotheses. We also find that the lagged probability of bubbles is only correlated with future returns. In contrast, the lagged probability of crashes is correlated with both future returns and fundamental values of stocks. This result validates our explanation for the formation of bubbles and crashes. Finally, the out-of-sample accuracy ratio of our bubble and the crash prediction model is higher than in previous studies. Our results provide alternative explanations of the mechanics of stock price bubbles and crashes and are helpful for academicians, investors and policymakers.

The text demonstrates out-of-sample performances of minimum variance portfolios in the German stock market in the period 2002-2015. Because of two huge drawdowns on equity markets in the period 2000-2010, scholars and professionals have tried to find an alternative to the market-cap weighted investing; potentially the minimum variance investing approach. The paper presents the construction of minimum variance portfolios, the description of their compositions and empirical risk-return characteristics under various holding periods. As anticipated, minimum variance portfolios have lower risk vis-à-vis the CDAX index, but they have also higher returns. Finally, minimum variance portfolios have better risk-adjusted performance figures in comparison with equal-weighted alternatives.

The study estimates the size of the gender pay gap (GPG) for the Czech Republic in the years 2006-2017 using data from the EU-SILC survey. The size of the GPG (and the related variables) remains relatively time-invariant with a statistically weak relation to the business cycle. Using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we found out that the unexplained part of the GPG amounts to 50% of the whole GPG (on average) and only one third of the GPG is caused by an endowment effect or an interaction between the endowment effect and the coefficient effect. Selection bias plays a statistically insignificant role in terms of the GPG formation and explanation. Parenthood is the most important driver of the GPG. For parents, the GPG is about 30 percentage points higher than the one for non-parents. Women are able to narrow the GPG created by the effect of motherhood and reach original unexplained levels of approximately 15% after reaching the age of 50 and higher. Besides parenthood, there is no other demographic characteristic that has any substantial impact on the formation and persistence of the GPG. The GPG is most pronounced for the lowest- and the highest-earning quantiles, indicating the existence of a glass ceiling and a sticky floor on the Czech labour market.

Using a unique firm-level data for Polish Special Economic Zones (SEZ) to estimate a set of panel data models we find that both employment and investment growth in SEZ are driven mainly by labour market characteristics of zone-hosting regions, while other factors (including market access, zone business climate and firms' concentration) play a less important role. Firms choose their locations based on labour availability rather than on labour costs. Moreover, they pay particular attention to availability of low-skilled rather than high-skilled labour. As far as tax incentives are concerned, their predictability matters more for SEZ development than their generosity.

Mancur Olson wrote his influential study Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk: Why Some Countries are Rich, and Others Poor in 1996. In his paper, Olson claimed that the differ-ences in economic development between countries are caused by only two factors: institutions and policies on the one hand and culture on the other. We attempt to test his conjecture using econometric modelling, combining and comparing it with a broadly defined orthodox production function in an indirect neoclassical notation (Solow-Minhas-Arrow-Chenery's SMAC framework). The "pseudo-production function" obtained is econometrically sound and of explanatory power similar to models including economic variables, although we find strong evidence of interdependence between capital-labour share and institutions and policies and culture. We consider the test, performed on panel data from 154 countries over five-year averages from 1980-2014, to be robust and consistent with Olson's ideas.

The article presents an empirical analysis of the relation between recruitment in the all-volunteer Czech Armed Forces and selected economic indicators, including actual economic performance, situation on the domestic labour market and development of defence expenditures based on data for the period 2005-2019. The relation between military recruitment and economic performance was examined using values of GDP and GDP dynamics (GDP index). General unemployment rate, the economic activity index¹ and the military-to-general average wage ratio were used to analyse the relation of military recruitment and situation on the domestic labour market. The relation between military recruitment and defence expenditures was examined based on general defence burden (share of defence expenditures in GDP), state sector defence burden (share of defence expenditures in state budget expenditures) and year‑on‑year changes in defence expenditures.

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 aim of the article is to present a model of sentiment analysis tool application for planning directions of city development. The study presents a model of using sentiment analysis to build city development strategies as well as realization of projects related to it. The presented model is a part of a larger work on developing the concept of the Regional Spatial Business Community (RSBC). The RSBC is created on the basis of electronic communities built by stakeholders involved in the development of a given city. On the basis of surveys, a six-stage city development procedure is proposed. Using the aforementioned procedure, we describe potential data sources, the goals of sentiment analysis application and expected effects. Analyses of the applicability of sentiment analysis are made on the basis of observation of available tools. The obtained model is applicable; however, its implementation requires certain conditions to be met.

Gender differences present a topic of great interest in contemporary societies. Aim of this paper is to make a comparison between the unemployment in Serbia and the European countries, and to identify those countries which record the most similar performances considering gender and age. The research is conducted through analysis of activity rates, employment rates, unemployment rates, inactivity rates and long-term unemployment rates. The factor analysis enabled us to identify main factors that influence structures of the labour markets in Europe. Final result of this research is the recommendation of policy measures, including the promotion of women entrepreneurship, in order to reduce gender inequalities in contemporary society's economic activity.

Subsidy to less favoured area (LFA) farms is central to rural development policy in the European Union. Here, three categories of LFA support are assessed: farm competitiveness measures, LFA measures, and agri-environment measures. These categories of measures are complementary to safeguarding land management and delivering ecosystem benefits. Based on historical data for the Czech Republic, this paper endeavours to illustrate potential methods for assessing the LFA subsidies. In sum, rigorous methods to evaluate LFA evidence are still at their very starting point, even as they are necessary in order to ascertain the Community's capability, alongside the local, regional, or national institutional capability. A positive trend has been identified with regard to  stabilizing the available rural development budget for the policy priority "Restoring, preserving and enhancing agroecosystems".