Journal of Economics - Obsahy ročníkov

The goal of the article is to evaluate the impact of accession to the European Union (EU) on the complexity of goods in Slovak exports. The traditional theories of trade show that such an engagement in economic integration may lead to specialization in the production of either more or less sophisticated goods, depending on the country’s technological advancement and factor endowment. At the same time, increased FDI flows may stimulate the engagement of a country in international production chains with ambiguous effects on export complexity. Because it is impossible to a priori predict the effect economic integration may have on the complexity, it is reasonable to verify it empirically. The authors used the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) to compare the observed post-accession levels of exports complexity in Slovakia with the counterfactual values of that country remaining outside of the EU.

In this paper, we investigate whether the knowledge capital model (Carr Markusen and Maskus, 2001) is satisfied in Slovakia by applying the bootstrap rolling window subsample test to examine the causal relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports (EX). This method provides more accurate evidence of a connection between these two variables considering structural changes. The empirical results show a positive correlation between FDI and EX and support the vertical FDI in the knowledge capital model in most sample periods. Specifically, when FDI is rising, EX increase accordingly, and vice versa. In addition, FDI exerted a negative effect on EX in 2011, which is attributable to the relative state of the situation at home and abroad. The findings illustrate that FDI and EX benefit from the free economic institution reforms and inexpensive resources. Therefore, the Slovakian government should improve tax reforms and maintain the stability of legislation to achieve mutual promotion between FDI and EX.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis the European financial system, particularly banks, still struggles to recover the lost public confidence. Ethical financial behavior and customer centricity have gained weight, not only from the viewpoint of banking customers, but also from international organizations’ one. The paper aims at analyzing the strengths and challenges associated with a different banking model, namely the cooperative banks’ one, in terms of its ability to maintain its genuine, cooperative principles. The paper provides a comprehensive insight into the intrinsic financial indicators and their evolution over time. The descriptive statistics analysis comprises the 23 member organizations of European Association of Co-operative Banks, which represent the cooperative banks operating in EU countries, to have a complete picture of their positioning, in terms of market share, liquidity, capitalization and contribution to the domestic financial depth. Secondly, we conducted an exploratory approach named Cluster Analysis, for two years of reference, in order to identify most resembling business models and gather them in the same cluster. The results emphasized which cooperative member organizations still follow the original cooperative business model and mission, and which of them have migrated towards a more commercial banking one.

This paper tries to thoroughly investigates the multi-horizon nexus between national stocks and 10Y bonds in six emerging markets (the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia and Turkey). For the computational purposes we use two complementary methodologies – wavelet signal decomposing technique and phase difference. Wavelet coherence results indicate that low coherence areas are overwhelmingly present in WTC plots in all the selected countries, which indicates that these instruments might be useful for diversification and hedging purposes. Additional wavelet correlation approach measures average wavelet correlations across the scale very precisely, revealing that majority of the wavelet correlation coefficients are negative, which imply that these financial instruments are good hedging tools. Phase differences were found dominantly in domains beyond /2 and –/2 boundaries in midterm and long-term in most of the countries, which also suggests negative coherence. Overall findings are in line with the general perception that stock returns and bond yields of the selected countries move in opposite direction, primarily because interest rate is constituent part in dividend discount model, and due to portfolio rebalancing activities.

Low price anomaly describes the phenomenon in which low-priced stocks grow faster than high-priced stocks and generate higher rates of return. The aim of this article is to verify the existence of low price anomaly on the example of mergers and acquisitions of European companies. The authors’ proposal was to analyze this phenomenon in case of stocks up to 1 euro and above 100 euro. Authors proved that rate of returns differ according to price what corresponds to the literature. The study shows that in case of M&A it is more likely that the investors will gain when purchasing stocks of overtaking companies valued up to 1 euro, than those valued above 100 euro. Investments in low-priced stocks are more likely to generate higher profits than investments in high-priced stocks, however, they are also characterized by higher risk.