The purpose of this paper is to obtain and analyse data on the higher education lecturers at the 16 largest, state-owned faculties of economics in seven central and eastern European countries (Bosnia ...and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia), about their scientific impact and reach. An analysis of their research areas and scientometrics (citations, h-indices) was performed, and aggregate rankings are presented. Data was collected from Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus by using proprietary specialized web crawlers ("bots"). The differences among countries and faculties are significant, and institutions should observe good practices from Slovenia, as its faculties are ranked highest. The insights are important for evaluating scientific progress, mobility, and cooperation, rewarding and promotion requirements, accreditations, project and institution funding, and higher education lecturers' promotion.
Ovaj rad nastoji ispitati koliko iznose imovine dužnika u stečajnim postupcima u Republici Hrvatskoj u suodnosu s imenovanjima voditelja stečajnih postupaka. Ciljevi i svrha rada su pružanje ...dinamičko-analitičkog prikaza sustava imenovanja voditelja stečajnih postupaka u Republici Hrvatskoj te ih analizirati u relaciji s nominalnim iznosima imovine dužnika. Baza podataka o imenovanjima koju objavljuje Ministarstvo pravosuđa povezana je s godišnjim financijskim izvješćima dužnika te je formirana inicijalna matrica s 32.840 imenovanja u kojoj dužnici imaju ukupnu nominalnu aktivu od 70,07 milijardi kuna. Kao takav rad se temelji na kreaciji nove baze podataka koja povezuje imenovanja voditelja postupaka s iznosima imovine dužnika u tim postupcima. Rezultati pokazuju da stečajni sustav Republike Hrvatske godišnje prosječno obrađuje predmete u vrijednosti od oko 10 milijardi kuna što izvrsno opisuje njegovu važnost za ekonomiju u cjelini, ali i za pravni sustav koji ju regulira. Također, rezultati prvi puta u Republici Hrvatskoj omogućuju javni uvid u kvantitativne indikatore u stečajnim postupcima na nacionalnoj razini što otvara prostor ekstenzivnijim istraživanjima.
This paper aims to answer the following research question: what is the common debtors’ assets size within the insolvency proceedings in Croatia, and what is the relation of the size of the assets to ...the appointment system? The goals and purpose are to deliver a dynamic, analytical overview of the of appointment system of insolvency practitioners in the Republic of Croatia, and to study them in relation to the debtors’ asset size. The database of appointments, originally published by the Croatian Ministry of Justice, is here coupled with the annual financial reports data, which created an initial matrix of 32,840 appointments among cases with a total nominal value of 70.07 billion HRK (9.34 billion €). The results show that the Croatian insolvency system annually, on average, processes cases with a total value of approximately 10 billion HRK (1.33 billion €), which indicates the importance of this system for the economy in general, but also for the legal system which regulates it. Furthermore, for the first time in Croatia, the results provide public insight into quantitative indicators on a national level, which opens a new area for broader examination.
Svrha je ovoga rada analizirati produkciju radova u polju ekonomije u Hrvatskoj na uzorku od gotovo 34 000 radova objavljenih od 2000. do srpnja 2023. te identificirati najčešće pojmove i njihovu ...povezanost. Preuzeta je i pročišćena baza podataka radova u polju ekonomije iz Hrvatske znanstvene bibliografije (CROSBI), obrađena je naprednim alatima umjetne inteligencije (GPT) i bibliografskim alatima (OpenRefine, VOSViewer) te je potom izdvojeno stotinu najčešćih pojmova iz naslova i ključnih riječi. Godišnja produkcija znanstvenih i preglednih radova porasla je u dva desetljeća oko četiri puta. Organizacija i menadžment dominantna je ekonomska grana u Hrvatskoj, a najveći porast interesa u promatranom razdoblju imale su grane kvantitativne ekonomije i ekonomike poduzetništva, dok su se najviše smanjili udjeli makroekonomije i međunarodne ekonomije. Turizam i marketing najpopularnije su teme. Značenje i doprinos ovoga rada ogledaju se u novim uvidima u hrvatsku ekonomsku znanost te nose implikacije za nositelje politika, ekonomske fakultete i istraživače.
An important feature of every financial system throughout history is its capability to facilitate transfer of money in a secure and cost efficient manner. Cryptocurrencies as sources of innovative ...solutions – especially Bitcoin as their most prominent representative – have offered a completely new transmission system for a piece of information that can contain and carry value. There are many approaches to evaluate (un)successfulness of Bitcoin as money, and arguably one of the most important is to assess the fulfilment of its inventor’s original proposition: can it be used to send money directly and securely abroad, to international destinations, without fear of double-spending? Moreover, by removing institutions and their fees from the system hierarchy, can it be done for a lower price? The objective of creating Bitcoin network (among others) was to promote democratization of finance by enabling monetary transactions over the internet without unnecessary intermediaries inserting and charging multiple layers of fees. In decentralized, distributed blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum subjects are incentivized to collectively maintain the public ledger (blockchain) by collecting block rewards (“coinbase”) and transaction fees. Block-chain maintenance is known as mining, and miners are compensated for their effort in the form of fees (and coinbase rewards) for verifying transactions. The objective of this paper is to examine and compare fees for transferring money internationally by means of Bit-coin network, in contrast to using traditional pathways, mostly banks, and in this manner to scrutinize the proof of concept and one of the cryptocurrency solutions to the issue of money transfer. By doing so we are attempting to provide answers to the questions of functionality and cost-effectiveness of an alternative financial system based on the blockchain technology. Transaction fees for international payments made by Bitcoin are compared by analysing a novel dataset obtained from World Bank and Croatian National Bank (CNB). CNB’s data is not publicly available, and was attained for this paper specifically. It contains 1.400 types of fees charged by the 23 banks operating in Croatia for the period of October 2018 to February 2022. Bank fees for international transactions were matched with Bitcoin fees in the same period, with the data taken from Blockchain.com online service. On average, to send 1,000 USD abroad by using Bitcoin network required approx. three times less in fees than by using banks in Croatia. The calculation structure of bank fees, also presented in the paper, required higher costs for sending lower amounts (in terms of percentage); when transferring 200 USD banks worldwide charged on average approx. 30 times more in fees than Bitcoin miners. Additionally, transaction fees for international remittances were analysed with quarterly data from World Bank. Comparative analysis of these and Bitcoin fees was made, and it is clear that (on average) sending money abroad via Bitcoin network bears significantly lower costs for the end user, especially when transferring lower amounts. Due to the non-normality of the distributions of the underlying variables, non-parametric tests were applied and the null hypothesis that transaction costs have identical medians was rejected. In conclusion, when needing to transfer money internationally users can obtain significantly lower costs by using decentralized technologies such as Bitcoin’s blockchain. This finding validates one of the key propositions of the distributed ledgers. Rather than focusing on wild daily Bitcoin price swings and its volatility, Bitcoin network functions as a cost-effective international payment system and proves itself as an alternative to traditional money transfer schemes.
This paper aims to gain and improve understanding of the three most common cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple) by applying standard econometric tools upon their time-series data. ...Cryptocurrencies' returns are compared to six major stock indices: two American (S&P500 and Russell 2000), one European (Stoxx 600), one Japanese (Nikkei 225), one Chinese (Hong Kong Hang Seng) and a global index (S&P Global 1200). The findings indicate that observed cryptocurrencies could be regarded as a new asset class, a fully digital, sui-generis financial instruments, as they are not coherently connected to the stock market. However, allocating capital into cryptocurrencies remains in the domain of pure speculation due to their strong volatility.
Pandemija COVID-19 značajno je utjecala na cijeli svijet, što je dovelo do konfuzije i turbulencija u zdravstvenim sustavima, kao i do izrazite neizvjesnosti u financijskom području. Tržišta dionica ...bila su duboko uzdrmana zbog enormno povišenih razina rizika potaknutih pandemijom, što je dodatno povećalo gubitke investitora. Pandemiju je pratio val lažnih priča koje se doimaju kao vijesti ("fake news") koje su kružile svim medijskim kanalima, dodatno pojačavajući neizvjesnost. Ovaj rad proširuje prethodnu literaturu istražujući utjecaj medija na istaknute indekse tržišta dionica i kriptovaluta. Indeksi RavenPack Panic i Fake News korišteni su za ispitivanje njihovog utjecaja na dnevna kretanja S&P 500 i kripto-indeksa (Royalton CRIX) primjenom OLS-a i kvantilne regresije. Rezultati pokazuju da postoje značajne ovisnosti kroz uvjetnu distribuciju, ali pokazuju mali utjecaj na promatrane indekse. Lažne vijesti utječu na dnevni prinos kriptovaluta na medvjeðem tržištu, no učinak je vrlo slab. Nadalje, panika u medijima je značajna i na izrazito medvjeðim kao i bikovskim tržištima s obzirom na dnevne prinose S&P 500, ali takoðer pokazuje slab utjecaj.
Financial analysis of investments aimed at energy efficiency improvement differs from the standard investment analysis. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of methodological ...approaches to evaluation of energy efficiency projects’ financial effects. Its contribution lies in providing conceptual framework for the analysis of energy efficiency methodology, as well as in comprehensive literature review. The findings show that the methods used for evaluation of financial effects of energy efficiency projects are determined by the three main categories: scope, timing, and approach.
The entire world was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,leading to confusion and turbulence in healthcare systems, as well as toextreme uncertainty in the financial realm. There was a ...profound distressin stock markets due to the enormously elevated levels of risk instigated bythe pandemic, which additionally inflated investors’ losses. The contagionwas supplemented by a surge of false stories that appear to be news (“fakenews”) that circulated throughout all media channels, thus additionally amplifyinguncertainty. This paper expands the previous literature by investigatingmedia impact on prominent indices of the stock and cryptocurrencymarkets. RavenPack Panic and Fake News indices were utilized to examinetheir influence on S&P 500 and crypto (Royalton CRIX) indices’ dailymovements by employing OLS and quantile regression. The results exhibitthat there are noteworthy dependencies over the conditional distribution,but they present only a small influence on observed indices. Fake news influencesthe cryptocurrencies’ daily movements in a bearish market, howeverthe effect is very weak. Furthermore, media-induced panic is significant inboth exceptionally bearish and bullish conditions considering S&P 500 dailyreturns, but is also exhibiting low impact.
Pandemija COVID-19 značajno je utjecala na cijeli svijet, što je dovelo dokonfuzije i turbulencija u zdravstvenim sustavima, kao i do izrazite neizvjesnostiu financijskom području. Tržišta dionica bila su duboko uzdrmana zbog enormnopovišenih razina rizika potaknutih pandemijom, što je dodatno povećalo gubitkeinvestitora. Pandemiju je pratio val lažnih priča koje se doimaju kao vijesti(“fake news”) koje su kružile svim medijskim kanalima, dodatno pojačavajući neizvjesnost.Ovaj rad proširuje prethodnu literaturu istražujući utjecaj medija naistaknute indekse tržišta dionica i kriptovaluta. Indeksi RavenPack Panic i FakeNews korišteni su za ispitivanje njihovog utjecaja na dnevna kretanja S&P 500 ikripto-indeksa (Royalton CRIX) primjenom OLS-a i kvantilne regresije. Rezultatipokazuju da postoje značajne ovisnosti kroz uvjetnu distribuciju, ali pokazuju maliutjecaj na promatrane indekse. Lažne vijesti utječu na dnevni prinos kriptovalutana medvjeđem tržištu, no učinak je vrlo slab. Nadalje, panika u medijima jeznačajna i na izrazito medvjeđim kao i bikovskim tržištima s obzirom na dnevneprinose S&P 500, ali također pokazuje slab utjecaj.
Are investments in energy efficiency profitable? The answer largely depends on the applied methodology within investment analysis, but because of their wide impact energy efficiency investments ...should not be evaluated only by "normal" investment criteria. After a comprehensive literature review, we establish a new conceptual framework for the analysis of energy efficiency methodology and exhibit three main factors of evaluation: scope, timing, and approach. Stakeholders of energy efficiency projects can employ this framework when choosing the appropriate methodology for their investment analysis.
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