During the last decade, the question of measuring efficiency became inevitable factor of successful management of banks. Therefore, the basic goal of this paper is to apply DEA - Data Envelopment ...Analysis in comparing unit efficiency of Serbian banking sector for three years period of time (2017, 2018 and 2019). DEA is a technique of mathematical programming which uses analysis and comparation of efficiency of different entities and it is suitable to solve problems of different number and nature of inputs and outputs. The presented paper employs an output-oriented data envelopment analysis with a constant return to scale assumption. The selected input variables are total assets and total capital, while net operating income and net profit were used as output variables. Results showed that the average efficiency of Serbian banking sector is about 50% in the observed years. Opportunity Bank achieved the maximal efficiency score in the entire time period while Mirabank had the lowest efficiency score.
This study aims to determine whether the same bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants affect banks’ profitability and liquidity. To achieve the set goal, panel data regression analysis was ...applied with fixed effects or random effects depending on the results of the Hausman test, as explained in the Results. The research is based on the use of aggregate data on bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants of banks’ profitability and liquidity in West Balkan countries during the period from 2007 to 2022. The dependent variables in the study are ROA, ROE used as proxies for banks’ profitability, and banks’ liquid reserves to banks’ total assets as a proxy for banks’ liquidity. The findings confirm that the bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants affect both banks’ profitability and liquidity in the same direction, except for a few variables. The main contribution of this research is a comprehensive and parallel view of banks’ profitability and liquidity determinants that enables a guide for bank management to better understand the significance of bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants’ effects on their business. The obtained results can improve the balance between the two important principles of banking business.
The main goal of this paper is to compare the relative technical efficiency of agriculture in Western Balkan countries to those of the European Union and to propose ways to improve the position of ...Western Balkan countries. The group of Western Balkan countries includes Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Albania, which are candidate countries for European Union membership, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is currently a potential candidate. An input-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis model with the variable return to scale was applied to an 11-year period from 2006 to 2016. Input variables used in the model included labour, land, and capital, and the output was presented as the value of agricultural production. The highest average technical efficiency was achieved by the EU15 countries for the entire eleven-year period, while the Western Balkan countries had the lowest score. The source of this inefficiency was identified in lower levels of agricultural performance, e.g. a lower-level use of the primary production factors – labour and land.
The aim of this paper is to analyse three approaches in order to give a comprehensive analysis of the efficiency of the banking sector in Serbia. The paper analyses the intermediate, operating and ...profitability approach for measuring bank efficiency in order to give an answer to the question which is the most efficient and where can be improvements made. The paper applies a non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) on a sample of 23 banks operating in Serbia in the period during and after the covid-19 pandemic, i.e. for 2019, 2020 and 2021. The results of the analysis showed that efficiency is the highest according to the intermediate approach, while the efficiency of banks is the lowest in the approach of measuring profit efficiency. The fact that the lowest levels of efficiencies in each approach were achieved by small banks with a small market share should be added to the results of the analysis. The results of the research are certainly influenced by low interest rates and the activities of mergers and acquisitions, which are intensive on the Serbian banking market.
The financial systems of the West Balkan countries are mainly based on banks. For an efficient financial system, it is of immense importance that the banks operating in it do so with high levels of ...efficiency. Furthermore, efficiency is needed when it comes to involving banking institutions in the financial flows in order to maintain sustainability of the financial construction. The aim of this paper is to determine whether there is a difference in efficiency between the considered countries and thus to show which changes the decisionmakers have to make in order to improve the efficiency of their banking systems. We analyze data from the revised financial statements of all banks operating in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia for the period from 2015 to 2019, using loans and investment as input variables and interest income, non-interest income and net income as output variables. The results obtained from the output-oriented DEA model with a variable return to scale have shown higher efficiency levels in North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, while Serbia and Albania show lower efficiency. The individual analyses have shown that in order to improve efficiency levels, improvement is needed more in the correction of the investment amounts then in loan placements.
Since the last decade, significant changes have occurred in the trade flows of agri-food products of the Southeastern European countries (SEE) due to adjustment to international market. Namely, as ...all countries of the SEE strive to be full members of the EU; market opportunities have been changing, primarily because of the reduced barriers on trade with the EU, as well as with the regional countries. In order to investigate the effects of the liberalization process of the agri-food sector of the SEE countries on their export, as well as the total foreign trade, a gravity model based on panel data in the period 2005–2015 has been estimated. According to the results, liberalization of the market in the SEE countries, as a consequence of the EU enlargement process, as well as regional integrations, had positive effects on the total foreign trade of agri-food products. Despite the positive liberalization effects on the agri-food trade, all SEE countries have a lower level of competitiveness than the EU countries, so an organized access to products which possess comparative advantages will be an important condition for the achievement of their particular positions at the international market.
The use of multi-criteria decision-making methods can contribute to finding the most rational solution more easily and efficiently. The purpose of the research is to investigate the applicability of ...the PROMETHEE and TOPSIS methods at the level of family farms and their comparative analysis in the case of the purchase of agricultural mechanization. Both methods start from a set of criteria established based on the subjective expectations of 48 farmers (decision makers) who were asked to choose the decision criteria. Then, mathematical models are used to determine the most suitable choice for the farm. Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that applying both methods in parallel leads to similar outcomes. Although decision support systems can be instrumental in making the right decisions, their usage is still not widely adopted in family farms due to the challenges of introducing new solutions in a production setting.
The nature of health care services is very complex and specific, thus delays and organizational imperfections can cause serious and irreversible consequences, especially when dealing with emergency ...medical services. Therefore, constant improvements in various aspects of managing and organizing provision of emergency medical services are vital and unavoidable. The main goal of this paper is the development and application of a binary programming model to support decision making process, especially addressing scheduling workforce in organizations with stochastic demand. The necessary staffing levels and human resources allocation in health care organizations are often defined ad hoc, without empirical analysis and synchronization with the demand for emergency medical services. Thus, irrational allocation of resources can result in various negative impacts on the financial result, quality of medical services and satisfaction of both patients and employees. We start from the desired staffing levels determined in advance and try to find the optimal scheduling plan that satisfies all significant professional and regulatory constraints. In this paper a binary programming model has been developed and implemented in order to minimize costs, presented as the sum of required number of ambulance crews. The results were implemented for staff rostering process in the Ambulance Service Station in Subotica, Serbia. Compared to earlier scheduling done ad hoc at the station, the solution of the formulated model provides a better and equable engagement of crews. The developed model can be easily modified and applied to other organizations with the same, stochastic, nature of the demand.
Since the efficient agricultural sector is one of the most important drivers of country's economic development, the main objective of this paper was to examine relative technical efficiency of ...agricultural production in 25 Serbian districts using two-stage data envelopment analysis. Results of this research indicate that the efficiency score values lie between 70% and 100%, therefore it can be concluded that the agricultural sector of Serbia performs at a high level of efficiency, with the average efficiency score of 90%. The lowland region of Vojvodina is characterized with the highest efficiency scores, while districts in the southeastern part of Serbia have the lowest efficiency score values. Furthermore, the Tobit regression model was applied that one may examine the drivers of technical efficiency scores. The results show the significance of agricultural training among farm managers, land irrigation and age of farm holders in altering agricultural efficiency among Serbian districts.
The paper contains a description of four different block bootstrap methods, i.e., non-overlapping block bootstrap, overlapping block bootstrap (moving block bootstrap), stationary block bootstrap and ...subsampling. Furthermore, the basic goal of this paper is to quantify relative efficiency of each mentioned block bootstrap procedure and then to compare those methods. To achieve the goal, we measure mean square errors of estimation variance returns. The returns are calculated from 1250 daily observations of Serbian stock market index values BELEX15 from April 2009 to April 2014. Thereby, considering the effects of potential changes in decisions according to variations in the sample length and purposes of the use, this paper introduces stability analysis which contains robustness testing of the different sample size and the different block length. Testing results indicate some changes in bootstrap method efficiencies when altering the sample size or the block length.
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