In this cross-sectional study, an investigation was conducted by collecting primary data from 379 household heads to examine the impact of social safety nets on household-level food security in the ...Torghar district of Northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The comprehensive analysis encompassed the univariate, bivariate, and multivariate levels. The bivariate analysis revealed issues and shortcomings related to access to social safety nets, particularly within the Zakat system. These issues included corruption and nepotism, which hindered poverty alleviation strategies and the well-being of vulnerable households. Additionally, complex bureaucratic procedures and regulations impeded social interventions, and political factors posed a substantial obstacle. At the multivariate level, the study identified the specific factors contributing to food insecurity. Respondents from extended family systems, individuals aged between 46 and 55 years, and those with religious education were found to be more vulnerable to food insecurity. While social safety nets held promise for addressing food sustenance challenges among local low-income citizens, the negative impacts of political involvement, favoritism, and nepotism were evident and required urgent attention. These findings emphasize the need for coordinated efforts among the government, social safety net officials, and community to identify and rectify these existing issues. Fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility regarding the role and implementation of social safety nets towards achieving food security is crucial to enhancing their viability and effectiveness, ensuring continuous support for those in need.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between economic performance in terms of labour productivity of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their corporate ...sustainability in association with the driving forces of internationalization process and enterprise networks.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops an innovative theoretical–conceptual approach and applied unique empirical survey to investigate the simultaneous causalities between labour productivity and corporate sustainability, in the context of the set of relationships controlled with two other set of variables for mediating role of the internationalization process and enterprise networks focusing on business collaborations between SMEs. Four hypotheses are tested by the developed structural equation model for the unique in-depth survey data of Slovenian SMEs.
Findings
The results highlight significant positive correlations between the studied variables and their constructs, which indicate scientific justification to variables as factors. The results confirmed that internationalization process and enterprise networks are positively associated in improving corporate sustainability, which drives labour productivity.
Practical implications
The implications of this research are for managers regarding strategies and approaches aiming at sustainable development of SMEs, and for policy-makers regarding appropriate policies for practices encouraging internalization processes and enterprise networks as important drivers of corporate sustainability and labour productivity of SMEs.
Originality/value
The main scientific value added of this research is that combines and empirically examines driving forces of corporate sustainability in SMEs based on related studies, to develop more comprehensive structural equation model for better understanding of the corporate sustainability behaviour in SMEs.
This article investigates the competitiveness of agri‐food exports of the European Union (EU‐27) countries on global markets, using the revealed comparative advantage (B) index over the years ...2000–11. Panel unit root tests, mobility index and the Kaplan‐Meier survival rates of the B index are used. The majority of agri‐food products in the EU‐27 countries show a comparative disadvantage on global markets. The B indices of the EU‐27 countries tend to convergence. Most of the old EU‐15 Member States experienced a greater number of agri‐food products having a longer duration of revealed comparative advantages than have most of the new EU‐12 Member States. Among the most successful Member States in agri‐food export competitiveness on global markets are the Netherlands, France and Spain.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the pattern, duration and country-level determinants of global agri-food export competitiveness of 23 major global agri-food trading countries.
...Design/methodology/approach
A large panel data set is compiled to facilitate assessment of the pattern, duration and country-level determinants of global agri-food export competitiveness using a revealed comparative advantage index.
Findings
The results suggest that the duration of revealed comparative advantage is heterogeneous at the agri-food product level. Long-term survival rates as revealed by the comparative advantage indices are among the highest for the Netherlands, France, Belgium, the USA, Argentina and New Zealand. The level of economic development, the share of agricultural employment, subsidies to agriculture and differentiated consumer agri-food products increase the likelihood of failure in the duration of comparative advantage, while the abundance of agricultural land and export diversification reduce that likelihood.
Originality/value
The framework is conceptually innovative in how it models the likelihood of failure in the duration of comparative advantage and assesses implications. Export competitiveness is a crucial factor in long-term global farm business survival as it fosters opportunities for business prosperity on global markets.
The article highlights the Slovenian strategies, institutions, policies, programmes, projects, and measures in tackling the NEETs, particularly the rural ones. The Youth Guarantee, and particularly ...active employment policy measures at a national level implemented via regional offices for employment work together to play a crucial role in bridging the gaps for the structurally and long-term unemployed in general, and especially for rural NEETs who are in transition from education and training to employment. National strategies and policies are supported by international programmes and projects. Amongst the success stories can be tentatively included the integration of the Roma population of at least one-cross-border area with geographical proximity to the neighbouring Styria region of Austria. Whilst the percentage of rural NEETs in Slovenia is modest, this does not mean an absence of the problems typical to this group i.e., less favourable personal, household, and/or other characteristics for the vulnerable, and economically and socially excluded rural NEETs. The hidden, unregistered NEETs (not participating in any programmes and policies) are at least as important as the registered ones. Both registered and unregistered NEETs are challenging issues in terms of their economic and social integration. To that end, it is necessary to provide general and specific opportunities for continued lifelong learning within the context of their personal, family, and social commitments: this will help to ensure their successful labour market and social integration, survival in the competitive labour market, quality of life by avoiding poverty risks, and sustainable rural development more broadly. Keywords: youth; NEET; education; Active Employment Policy; rural NEET; NEET strategy; NEET policy measures; Slovenia. ····· Articolul scoate în evidență strategiile slovene, instituțiile, politicile, programele, proiectele și măsurile privind tinerii NEET, în special pe cei din mediul rural. Programul Youth Guarantee și în special măsurile active de ocupare la nivel național implementate prin birourile naționale, joacă un rol crucial în acoperirea celor care sunt în șomaj structural și pe termen lung, în general, și pentru tinerii NEET care sunt în tranziție între educație, ucenicie și muncă. Strategiile naționale și politicile sunt susținute de programe și proiecte internaționale din cadrul fondurilor UE și granturilor EEA – Granturi Norvegiene (Mecanismul Financiar Norvegian). Printre poveștile de succes poate fi inclusă în mod special cea a integrării populației Roma din cel puțin o zonă transfrontalieră cu proximitate geografică cu regiunea Styria, Austria (cu capitala la Graz). În timp ce procentul tinerilor NEET din rural în Slovenia este modest, asta nu înseamnă absența problemelor de acest gen, care pot fi legate de diferitele caracteristici personale, gospodărești sau de alte feluri, pentru cei vulnerabili și excluși economic și social, NEET din mediul rural. Cei din categoria NEET care nu `se văd`, cei neînregistrați, care nu participă în niciun program sau necuprinși în politici sunt cel puțin la fel de importanți ca cei care sunt înregistrați. Ambele categorii sunt provocări pentru integrarea lor socială și economică, cu scopul de a li se crea oportunități specifice și generale pentru a continua procesul de învățare n vederea unui angajament personal, de familie și social față de integrarea socială și pe piața muncii, pentru supraviețuirea în competitiva piață a muncii, legat de calitatea vieții – (evitarea riscului sărăciei) –, și pentru o dezvoltare rurală sustenabilă. Cuvinte-cheie: tineri; NEET; educație; Politici Active de Angajare; NEET din rural; strategia NEET; măsuri pentru politici; NEET Slovenia.
This article describes an investigation of the relationship between farm size and the growth of farms. Theories about the association between farm size and the growth of farms give mixed results by ...country and over time. The former relationship is tested by assessing the validity of Gibrat's Law for Hungarian and Slovenian farms in the period 2007-2015. The use of a sample of farms from Farm Accountancy Data Network datasets makes it necessary to avoid biases due to heterogeneous structures across farming systems. Thus, we use quantile regressions to control for farm-size-related heterogeneity in the samples. Results suggest rejection of the validity of Gibrat's Law for farms in Hungary and to a lesser extent for Slovenian farms when the growth of farms is measured by growth of output per farm (where smaller farms grew faster than the largest farms), but not in the case of an increase in farm inputs (i.e. land and labour per farm). We provide evidence for Hungarian farms that smaller, mostly individual farms grew faster than larger, mostly corporate farms throughout the period of analysis.
The aim of this paper is to analyze whether different types of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies maintained jobs or even created them on wine farms during the years 2013-2019 using a ...Hungarian Farm Accountancy Data Network panel dataset. Farm employment is separated into paid and unpaid labor. The initial decline in farm employment during the first three years of analysis was due to the decline in paid labor, but later there was rather stable development in both paid and unpaid labor. The dynamic panel regression results confirm that the employment in the previous year is the crucial driver for the employment of labor on wine farms. CAP subsidies for direct payments to farmers and, to a lesser extent, economic farm size, are positively associated with the employment of paid labor (and thus the employment of total wine farms-related labor), but not with employment of unpaid labor, and vice versa rented land share. These results and findings are robust independent of year-fixed effects. While CAP subsidies for direct payments to farmers supported the maintenance or increase in paid labor employment on wine farms, trade-offs arose regarding the efficiency of wine farms and their entrepreneurial-, innovation-, and market-added value-chain efforts.
This paper examines normality in time series econometrics for a sustainable energy transition. By analysing data from January 1997 to December 2021, this study integrates macroeconomic, ...environmental, and energy data to gain insights into the potential changes in daily commuting patterns among Slovenians. Various methods, including unit root tests such as the augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF), Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (KPSS), and Zivot–Andrews (Z-A), as well as other tests, are employed. Additionally, the vector autoregressive (VAR) model, Granger Causality and regression analysis determine the impact. This paper contributes to uncovering valuable information within data from macrovariables using macroeconometric techniques. It also provides insights that can support evidence-based decision-making for sustainable energy transition policies in Slovenia. The results of the normality tests indicate that most macro variables are integrated; there is a need for a careful analysis of integration levels and appropriate testing methods. These findings have implications for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in economics, the environment, and energy supply. At the same time, this research highlights that gross domestic product, unemployment, inflation, and carbon dioxide positively impact car usage among Slovenians, while gasoline prices and commuters have a negative one. While the recently investigated development of sustainable commuting does not work, the study highlights an innovation: the connection of time series econometrics, which offers a better understanding of future commuting patterns on energy consumption and their causalities.
The article focuses on the study of performance factors of Slovenian hotel companies through Data Envelopment Analysis between 2001 and 2018. For this purpose, we introduced a balanced panel data of ...20 hotel companies which differ by their size, type, the number of hotels within the company, and location. To determine efficiency factors, we used the Malmquist index, which can be broken down into a change in efficiency and technological change. The change in efficiency was further broken down into a change in pure technical efficiency and a change in scalar efficiency. Between 2001 and 2018, hotel companies recorded decline in total factor productivity index which was mainly due to the inability to implement new production technologies. One of the key reasons for deterioration in technological change was the 2008 economic crisis.
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