Search results for "regional economics"
showing 10 items of 70 documents
‘Experimental Union’ and Baltic Sea cooperation: the case of the European Union’s Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR)
2018
In the past, Baltic Sea cooperation has been characterized by a plethora of actors, embracing a wide range of policy objectives, such as the establishment of a good environmental status for the regional sea. In 2009, the European Council endorsed the European Union’s (EU) Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) as a new tool in the repertoire of Cohesion Policy and European Territorial Cooperation (ETC). The EUSBSR seeks to foster cross-sectoral coordination and functional cooperation in policy areas of ‘macro-region-level’ relevance, such as transport infrastructure, economic development and environmental protection – thus projecting a ‘soft space’ of transnational Baltic Sea cooperati…
The emergence of new industries at the regional level: alignment of organizational and regional industrial culture
2021
This article provides insights into how and where new industries emerge and grow through theoretical reasoning and the advancement of relevant arguments through empirical examples from industry emergence in two Norwegian regions: the establishment of the boatbuilding and the electronics industry in Arendal; and the cancer medicine and educational technology industry in Oslo. The article focuses on culture as an important asset for new industry emergence. We argue that industry emergence is supported if organizational culture in emerging industries and existing or altered regional industrial culture become aligned. The four industry cases demonstrate how in some situations industries emerge …
Empirical Approaches Upon Pension Systems in Central and Eastern European Countries. Triangle Assessment: Free Movement of People, Labor Market and P…
2020
Abstract Nowadays, around the world, it can be noticed an important trend towards the pension system reforms. The creation of the European fiscal space, the effects of globalization and the movement of the labour force are important vectors towards creating a new type of social economy. The labour force is constantly moving around the countries that gathered important amounts of capital, especially in industrialized countries. Moreover, the lower levels of the birth rate combined with the increasing level of death rate unbalance the labour market. The entire European continent undergoes a demographical transition period, highlighted by aging and intensive migration. This phenomenon is regis…
Audit fees and earnings management: differences based on the type of audit
2020
In spite of the extensive research about the impact of audit fees on audit quality, there is no research examining if the association between voluntary audits and audit pricing affects audit quality. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to empirically examine whether the effect of audit fees on audit quality, measured by the level of earnings management, is affected by the type of audit (voluntary vs mandatory), as well as whether the effect of audit fees on audit quality is different depending on the type of audit. Using a sample of Spanish SMEs composed of both voluntarily and mandatorily audited companies, we find that voluntary audits have higher quality when audit fees are lower, but th…
Audit fees and cost of debt: differences in the credibility of voluntary and mandatory audits
2019
Despite the extensive research on audit fees, few studies have examined the effect of audit fees on the cost of debt. Based on the credence goods theory, we examine whether the effect of audits on the cost of debt is affected by the type of audit (voluntary or mandatory) and the audit fees, as well as whether there is a combined effect of voluntary audits and audit fees, so that the effect of voluntary audits on the cost of debt is affected by audit fees. Using a sample of Spanish SMEs, we find an asymmetric effect of audit fees on the cost of debt: higher audit fees are associated with a lower cost of debt for voluntarily audited companies, while the association is not significant for mand…
Does doing good do well? An investigation into the relationship between consumer buying behavior and CSR
2022
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged globally as an important field of study as corporations increasingly recognize the positive consequences of ethical behavior in their business operations. However, despite a growing body of literature, results and definitions remain somewhat contradictory and fractured. Taking a marketing business ethics perspective, this article examines the influence of CSR in firms and its impact on consumer buying behavior through a systematic examination of state of the art literature over the past two decades (2000–2020). Our review identifies a theoretical connection between CSR initiatives and positive consumer reaction yet a lack of material relevan…
Changes in determinants of the interest margin in today’s economy
2019
This study examined the interest margin following the significant drop in its contribution to credit institutions’ total income. Balance sheet variables, income statement and annual report variables, and external variables were studied separately. Variables that had not previously been studied in the literature were considered, and determinants that had already been studied were revisited after the reduction in the interest margin. The diversification of investment in associated companies and investment in fixed and variable income are causes of this decrease in the interest margin. Higher fees and commissions offset this decrease. Greater size and market power have reduced the interest mar…
Measuring the shadow economy and its drivers: the case of peripheral EMU countries
2019
We adopt a long-run perspective to investigate the size of the shadow economy and explore the trends in this area. The analysis is based on a panel of peripheral EMU countries over the period 1965-2015. Our empirical approach relies on a multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) framework. This approach is a variant of structural equation modelling (SEM). We used two sets of variables, (i.e. potential determinants and indicator variables) to estimate an underlying (unobserved) index that measures the evolution of the shadow economy. Ascertaining the relative importance of the shadow economy enabled analysis of its relationship with other institutional and social issues (e.g. corruptio…
Revisiting bank failure in the United States: a fuzzy-set analysis
2020
Past financial crises have illustrated the importance of recognising the combinations of factors that can cause financial distress in the banking industry. Accordingly, this study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the combinations of factors that lead to bank failure. The data consist of 30 annual financial ratio series for 156 U.S. banks over a 15-year period (2001–2015). Identifying combinations of conditions that can produce bank failure is crucial to help regulators and bank managers. The fsQCA presented in this paper sheds light on the relationships between combinations of conditions and bank failure, providing a solution comprising two sufficient and …
How to boost clusters and regional change through cooperative social innovation
2020
The aim of this paper is to illustrate how social innovation is promoted and spread by cooperative clusters in order to develop regional change. This paper focuses on the main drivers of the spreading and exaptation processes of social innovation. The cooperative cluster model, the exaptation concept, the top-down approach, the meso-institutions concept and the meso-level perspective are used to capture the strategic approach of spreading social innovation. The study analyses two successful clusters: Mondragon, made up of industrial SMEs, and Anecoop, an agricultural cooperative group, both leading clusters in their respective region. Qualitative methodology is used to compare both case stu…