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with the introduction of the euro as the domestic currency, economies have faced inflationary pressures caused by price convergence towards higher levels. During the last period of significant negative shocks from the environment, by entering the euro area, the negative effects of the likelihood of inflation caused by the introduction of the euro may be absent. the aim of this paper is to prove that inflation caused by joining the euro area will not materialize due to the negative effects of external shocks. A panel analysis with a fixed effects model was conducted for two models. Model 1 represents the countries that introduced the euro before the escalation of the global financial crisis and Model 2 represents the countries that introduced the euro after the development of the global financial crisis. the research confirmed that due to current negative external shocks and rising long-term interest rates in financial markets, the effect of inflation due to the introduction of the euro will be absent among EU members that will adopt the euro as a common currency in the next few years. The results of the research contribute to the scientific prediction of business and financial trends. The creators of macroeconomic models and monetary policy can use the results to define measures, instruments and activities more precisely for achieving and maintaining macroeconomic balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the convergence of tax systems in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) over the period 1995–2018. Due to the increasing impact of tax competition, we have focused on income taxes, in particular, corporate ones. We have identified the factors that influence the taxation system and trends in income taxation in the CEECs by adapting the hidden Markov model approach. We find that many CEECs have reduced income taxation in the analysis period, mainly by lowering tax rates. Corporate income taxes have also decreased in many CEECs in the same period; however, the reverse has been observed too. Both convergence and divergence have been identified among the CEECs over the period considered. The speed of these processes based on the used variables varied depending on both exogenous and endogenous factors. These factors have been diagnosed as being specific to the periods of tax reforms, i.e., before and after accession to the European Union (EU) and the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effect of credit on monetary policy responses for different regimes in Turkey. To do so, the Taylor rule augmented with the credit gap is estimated by using a Markov regime switching model from January 2006 to December 2019. The empirical findings identify two regimes: the low- and high-interest rate regimes. The prevalence of the former indicates policy authorities' growth priorities. Furthermore, differing responses across the regimes reflect that the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey has an asymmetric policy stance. In the low-interest rate regime, the monetary policy only significantly responds to inflation. In the high-interest rate regime, both inflation and credit have significant positive impacts on interest rate setting. This indicates that credit conditions affected the tightening of the monetary policy stance in Turkey despite the use of macroprudential tools after the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While unemployment rates in Europe declined after the global financial crisis until 2018/2019, the incidence of long-term unemployment, the share of people who have been unemployed for >1 year to the total unemployed, remained high. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic could aggravate the long-term unemployment. This paper explores the factors associated with long-term unemployment in European countries using a panel of 25 European countries over the period 2000–2018. We find that skill mismatches, labor market matching efficiency, and labor market policies are associated with the incidence of long-term unemployment. Among the different types of active labor market policies, training and startup incentives are found to be effective in reducing long-term unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the factors explaining the vulnerability of the European countries' industries to foreign trade and production downturn in the years 2008-2009 and attempts to identify branches and industries (or their features significant in this context) that most greatly contributed to the last crisis transmission in Europe, mainly through the slump in their trade. Among those factors we took into particular consideration: the level of specialization versus diversification of the export basket and production, trade openness in the cross-country and cross-industry perspective, the intra-industry/inter-industry structure of trade and the financial openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing evidence shows that in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, in the euro area, the relationship between price inflation and economic slack became stronger. Instead, there is no clear evidence of a strong(er) relationship between wage inflation and unemployment. In this paper, we estimate a Phillips curve with time-varying coefficients separately for Italy, Spain, Germany and France and we find that, with the exception of Germany, after the global financial crisis, the sensitivity of hourly wage changes to labour market slack increased. Second, by the use of administrative microdata, available only for Italy, we relate daily wage changes to the local unemployment rate. The results confirm the steepening of the Phillips curve after 2008, also when controlling for composition effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two goals. The first goal is to investigate the influence of stock market development on economic growth for a group of 14 transition economies from the Central and South-East European (CSEE) region in the period 2002-2012, while the second is to analyze the main characteristics and specificities of the stock market in the Republic of Macedonia. To fulfil the first goal, we apply panel regression models (fixed and random effects) and a dynamic panel model (Generalized Method of Moments - GMM), while we use a single country approach and comparative analysis to examine the main characteristics of the Macedonian stock market. The estimated results indicate that stock market development is positive and significantly correlated with economic growth. Additionally, the comparative analysis of the stock market in the Republic of Macedonia suggests that the Macedonian stock market is still underdeveloped and faces a number of challenges before it can enter a new phase of development after the negative impact of the global financial crisis. Those challenges include capital market regional integration and the harmonization of legal and institutional frameworks such as bankruptcy procedures, accounting and reporting standards, public sector regulatory bodies, corporate governance and a liberalized trade regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the financial structure of non-financial corporations in the European Union prior to the 2008 crisis and to determine whether the ex-ante differences in corporate financial structure had an impact on the severity of the 2008 financial crisis in European countries. The analysis confirms a negative relationship between the corporate debt ratio prior to the crisis and crisis-induced contractions in corporate investment and GDP. The results indicate a greater importance of the growth in corporate indebtedness in the years prior to the crisis for crisis vulnerability than solely the level of debt immediately before the crisis. The paper has several important implications for crisis prevention and mitigation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: Public spending is a generator of economic growth as well as its components; this reality is more depicted in the era of the COVID-19 world pandemic where a recession in economic activities has touched all countries. Purpose: In this paper, we tried to study the impact of shocks in public expenditure on some macroeconomic variables in Algeria during the period (1970–2019). Research methodology: The VAR Structural models were used to study the response of these variables to shocks in public spending in Algeria. Results: The results of the modeling indicate a direct response of both exports and imports to a shock in the levels of public expenditure, but this response is relatively weak to the variable value of exports (especially in the short term), which is mainly due to the structure of the Algerian economy that is mainly dependent on the export of oil and gas, which in turn is mainly affected by international energy factors e.g. prices, supply, and demand. For the rate of inflation, there was an inverse response to shocks in the level of public spending. In the context of the global health and economic crisis, we will witness a further faltering of economic growth in Algeria. Novelty: Our contribution is a new feature of the application of the SVAR model in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic that focused on analyzing the impacts of public expenditure on exports and imports [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies the natural interest rate for the Macedonian economy using quarterly data for 2001Q4-2019Q3. To this end, the estimation is made by using different types of models, such as the Holston, Laubach, and Williams model and the full-fledged country-specific structural MAKPAM model. The empirical results show that the natural rate of interest in the Macedonian economy has declined over time, which is similar to the findings for other countries. The decomposition of the natural rate suggests that the main driver for the decline is the slowdown of the Macedonian potential GDP growth in the period after the global economic crisis, although there are signs of its recovery at the end of the sample period. In addition, the results indicate that the monetary policy conditions in the Macedonian economy have been broadly accommodative from 2011Q4 onwards. The substantive conclusions are unchanged across the multiple models used in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper investigates the gaps in performance in the manufacturing sector between Western and Eastern European countries and attempts to analyze how enterprises from these two parts of Europe have tackled recovery after the Global financial crisis of 2007-2009. We uncover the patterns of performance in the after-crisis period and offer insights into the prospects of the manufacturing sector in the European Union, faced nowadays with a new recovery, after the coronavirus crisis. Moreover, we study these patterns in industries with different technological levels. We have selected five performance variables, namely Turnover growth rate, Turnover per employee, Wage-adjusted labor productivity, Gross operating rate, and Investment rate, and employed statistical cluster analysis, which is a multivariate data analysis technique that can detect these patterns in performance, in both its approaches: hierarchical and k-means clustering. Our findings show that the almost perfect groupings of businesses from Western, more developed economies, and Eastern, less developed ones, in all industries, with the notable exception of Portugal, are rather striking, regardless of the technological level of industries. We show that Eastern EU businesses were not the worst performers in the after-crisis period, but rather on the contrary. Certainly, they are smaller in size but have enjoyed higher labor productivity and profitability, as well as higher investment rates in all industries. This points towards a higher dynamism of smaller-sized businesses in general, and Eastern EU located ones, in particular, in the years after the Global financial crisis, which has been reflected in superior performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 plunged countries into a Great Recession and focused the world's attention on the global stock markets. The global contagion has a major impact on global stock markets, with the U.S. DJIA falling to 6,547.05 on March 9, 2009 from a high of 14,164.53 on October 9, 2007, with a loss of more than 54%. Other stock markets also had a precipitous drop during the financial crisis. However, some equity markets have recovered while others have not. This paper looks at how global markets compared in their recovery. This paper also investigates the advanced countries' recovery relative to the emerging and developing countries in the aftermath of the financial crisis and their ability to climb back to the pre-financial crisis levels. Analysis is provided for 31 stock indexes from January 2005 to March 2013. In 2013 the majority of analysed stock markets recovered from the crises regardless of if they belong to the group of developed or emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to explicitly test a research hypothesis that there was no integration effect among the U.S. and the eight Central and Eastern European (CEE) stock markets during the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). As growing international integration could lead to a progressive increase in cross-market correlations, the evaluation of integration was carried out by applying equality tests of correlation matrices computed over non-overlapping subsamples: the pre-crisis and crisis periods, in the group of investigated markets. The crisis periods are formally established based on a statistical method of dividing market states into bullish and bearish markets. The sample period May 2004-April 2014 includes the 2007 U.S. subprime financial crisis. The robustness analysis of the integration tests with respect to various data frequencies is provided. The empirical results are not homogeneous and they depend both on the integration test and data frequency. Consequently, it is not possible to conclude whether integration between the investigated markets is present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to analyze the transmission of shocks from selected developed and Southeastern European stock markets to the stock market of North Macedonia. Using the Bae, Karolyi, and Stulz (2003) co-exceedance methodology, we find that the probability of contagion from the stock markets of United States, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Macedonian stock market increased during the Global Financial Crisis. Regarding the asset classes, we show that contagion is positively associated with the volatility of Eurostoxx50 index, while negatively with the return of the euro dollar exchange rate and the yield of the 10-year US Treasury Note. The results have important implications for portfolio diversification and the asset allocation decisions of investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to present the results of the analysis of development trends in the world consumption of fish and fishery products and the fundamental factors shaping the volume and structure of consumption of fishery products in the last five decades. In the first part, the paper presents the volume, dynamics and structure of world consumption of fishery products, while the second part discusses the determinants of the trend of development in their consumption during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to strong empirical evidence from different markets, existence of value premium became a financial theory standpoint. Although previous studies found that value stocks beat growth stocks in bearish and bullish markets, during the GFC, value stocks underperformed growth stocks. Objectives: This paper aims to examine the performance of value and growth stock portfolios after the GFC. Subjects of our analysis are constituent companies of the DJIA index, out of which portfolios of large-cap value and growth stocks have been constructed and evaluated. Methods/Approach: We measure the performance of stock portfolios, which are created based on the naïve diversification rule and random weighting approach. Statistical testing includes Levene's homogeneity test, the Mann-Whitney U test, T-test, and the One-Sample T-test. Results: Growth stock portfolios outperform value stock portfolios after the GFC. The dominance of growth stock portfolios compared to value stock portfolios is significant, and the value premium disappears. Conclusions: Financial theory and investment management implications show that growth stocks have overtaken the dominance over value stocks since 2009. Causes might be in (1) expansionary monetary policy characterized by very low long-term interest rates and (2) high performance of the tech industry to which most growth stocks belong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, we analyse the role of future topics in Bundestag speeches between 1949 and 2021 using computational linguistic methods. The results show that the discourse on future issues in the Bundestag rose sharply in parallel with the "Wirtschaftswunder" between the 1960s and 1990s. However, since the global financial crisis of 2008, the Bundestag has lost its future focus. An algorithmic content analysis explains this phenomenon: Recent Bundestag speeches deal more with the short-term challenges of multiple crises and less with long-term frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contraction in the gender wage gap in Georgia between 2004 and 2011. Behind the continuous decline at the mean lies a change in the shape of the gender wage gap across the wage distribution before and after the 2008 crisis. Before the crisis, the growth in state sector wages and the expansion of construction and transport industries contributed to these developments. After the crisis, it was the contraction of male-dominated industries and potentially the female added-worker effect. In the analysis, we employ the decomposition approaches proposed in Firpo et al. (Decomposing wage distributions using influence function projections, 2007) and Ñopo (The Rev of Econ and Stat 90:290-299, 2008). JEL Classification: J16, J31, P2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the portfolio optimization area, most of the research is focused on insample portfolio optimization. One may ask a rational question of what the efficiency of the portfolio optimization strategy is and how to measure it. Objectives: The objective of the paper is to propose the approach to measuring the efficiency of the portfolio strategy based on the hypothesis inference methodology and considering a possible data snooping bias. The proposed approach is demonstrated on the Markowitz minimum variance model and the fuzzy probabilities minimum variance model. Methods/Approach: The proposed approach is based on a statistical test. The null hypothesis is that the analysed portfolio optimization strategy creates a portfolio randomly, while the alternative hypothesis is that an optimized portfolio is created in such a way that the risk of the portfolio is lowered. Results: It is found out that the analysed strategies indeed lower the risk of the portfolio during the market's decline in the global financial crisis and in 94% of the time in the 2009-2019 period. Conclusions: The analysed strategies lower the risk of the portfolio in the out-of-sample period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international financial cooperation is essential to ensure international financial system stability and thereby should contribute to improving the economic and social situation on a global scale. Today's global challenges require transnational resolutions, based on worldwide multilateral cooperation. The international financial cooperation involves a wide variety of participants, formal organizations, but also informal fora. The Group of Twenty is perceived as the primary forum for international economic and financial cooperation. This paper aims to assess critically the G20 activities in the conditions of global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subprime crisis which started in the USA in 2007 was the cause of the most significant economic disturbances since the Great Depression in 1930s. Soon it transmitted to other countries, including those in which banks were not engaged in the subprime mortgage market. The crisis hit various sectors of national economies and led to changing of the trends on the stock markets, which are connected to American capital market. In the following article we researched the influence of the American market on the other markets in the context of the financial crisis. Our analysis is based on the results obtained from the multivariate parametric models. Seeing that the data space is high-dimensional, we used GO-GARCH models introduced by van der Weide (2005) and Boswijk and van der Weide (2006). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex connections, spillovers and feedbacks of the global financial crisis remind how important it is to improve the analysis of risk modeling. This article introduces a new framework for mitigating systemic risk by using a risk-adjusted balance sheet approach. In this regard, the analysis of individual banks in Poland shows potential risk which could threaten all the financial system. Traditional banking models do not adequately measure risk position of financial institutions and cannot be used to understand risk within and between balance sheets in the financial sector. A fundamental subject is that accounting balance sheets do not indicate risk exposures, which are forward-looking. The paper concludes new directions for measuring systemic risk by using Merton's model. It shows how risk management tools can be applied in new ways to measure and analyze systemic risk in the Polish banking system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a period of declining debt in the current decade, recent developments in view of the current global financial crisis brought again to the fore the issue of public debt in SEE emerging market economies. The existing fiscal vulnerabilities pose a major challenge for consolidation. This paper places an emphasis on the SEE countries' fiscal structure in a comparative perspective, since public debt has often had more immediate consequences for economic performance and debt crisis has been a recurring phenomenon of the histories of many of these countries. The mocroeconomic data series show that all countries in our sample have made efforts towards a successful fiscal consolidation over the last decade - largely supported by strong output growth and low real interest rates. However, the empirical evidence is suggestive of a weak link between public debt sustainability and the short-run conduct of fiscal policy. This means that the short-run conduct of fiscal policy does not tend to improve debt sustainability and hence to reduce the probability of sovereign risk in SEE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction and purpose: In practice, the existing models of tackling companies' crises are still lacking effectiveness and efficiency. The agile crisis project management model (ACPM) is based on the crisis project management doctrines, which we upgraded with the principles and methodologies of agile project management. It was developed for the resolution of such crises. Methods: Relying on scientific knowledge and in accordance with the defined research problem, we decided to use the qualitative research methods while using a method of highly structured interviews for data collection. A comparative case studies method was used for the comparative comparison of effectiveness and efficiency among the sample companies, which were divided into groups A and B. Companies in group A used the non-project approach, the traditional project, and/or the hybrid non-project-traditional project approach (CM approach) in implementing the planned measures and activities in the restructuring process and/or renovation; companies in group B used the agile project and/or the hybrid agile project-traditional project approach (ACPM approach). Results: The studied companies facing crises used various implementation approaches for the planned measures and activities within the framework of the crisis solution. The companies using the ACPM approach (group B) completed their restructuring and/or renewal process more quickly and were more effective and efficient after the crisis than during the pre-crisis period. At the same time, their net sales growth was also higher than the growth of companies using the CM approach (group A). Conclusion: The article demonstrates the results of the research, which studied the effectiveness and efficiency of resolving the sample companies' crises. In accordance with the research results, we conclude that supplementing the crisis project management with an agile project approach when resolving company crises positively affects the efficiency and effectiveness of companies after the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article was to observe the relationship between the tourism movement and the economic development of island territories during the global economic crisis (2008-2010). The aim of the paper was also answer the questions: why did some island territories react differently to the global economic crisis and if the coefficient of variation is a good indicator for assessing the changes in tourism movement during crisis events. Countries that have larger tourism expenditures as a proportion of GDP had a weak relationship between changes in tourist arrivals and changes in GDP. The islands prone to the global economic crisis did not have a stronger correlation between changes in tourist arrivals and GDP. The coefficient of variation was a good measure to indicate the island regions that were characterized by major changes in the volume of tourist movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to examine the impact of financial constraints and financial distress on cash holdings, both in normal and crisis times. We collected the 4,406 firm-year observations of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). Our research shows that companies maintain higher cash holdings during a crisis than in a normal period. However, in contrast to our expectations, companies with financial difficulties (constraints and distress) have lower cash holdings both in normal and crisis times. The originality of our research lies in realizing that different sources of difficulties might overlap at the same time (external with internal). We also analyze how cash holdings react to a combined impact of difficulties of different natures (external and internal). We believe that cash holdings have recently increased their meaning as we face the situation of constant and increasing uncertainty: still ongoing COVID-19 crisis prolonged with Russian aggression on Ukraine and outburst of inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the 2008+ crisis economic protectionism was feared to return. Financial turbulence, trade imbalances, instability of fiscal policies and labour market deterioration made intervention by the state justified. To cushion the blow various measures were launched. Whereas major economic policies such as the fiscal, monetary or labour market policies were adjusted, little is known about possible modifications in other, less popular, areas of government activity such as the policy on foreign direct investment (FDI). By combining available sources - mainly international scoreboards and rankings - this article sought to classify the member states of the European Union (EU MS) according to their policies pursued in respect of outward and inward foreign direct investment (OFDI and IFDI) after 2008. The main value added could be seen in: (i) the selection, compilation and assessment of various indicators proposed as the most suitable approximation of FDI policies; (ii) the coverage of all the EU members without a priori focusing only on some cases; and (iii) touching upon OFDI which is rather rare in FDI literature dominated by studies on IFDI. The major obstacle which may impair the quality of the research outcome was the lack of proper indicators i.e. lack of variables which can stand for genuine FDI policy. The results obtained indicate the dominance of rather more restrictive attitudes in respect of inward and outward FDI amongst the EU member states in the aftermath of the 2008+ crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The causes of the global financial crisis are observed in the various aspects of the functioning of the financial system. It is pointed out that this was excessive bank lending, the development of modern financial instruments - derivatives, increasing role of securitization process, incorrect ratings of the financial instruments of the credit rating agencies, inadequate macroeconomic policies, in particular monetary and fiscal policies, development of the shadow banking market, increase in systemic risk or changes in the management of financial institutions. However, there is one more problem in the global economy. This is the growing importance of the financial sphere, which has started to affect and determine the real economy. This process, known as financialization also increases the risk of instability in the financial system and the role of banking institutions in maintaining the stability of the whole economy. The main aim of the study is to analyze the importance of the financialization process, which is observed in the global economy, in destabilizing the banking sector. The study also identifies its consequences for the framework of the modern banking sector and the functioning of individual banking institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to estimate and compare the efficiency of the four largest banks in South Africa. The total factor productivity of the four largest banks was estimated and the multilateral total factor productivity indexes of the four banks compared. Nedbank had the highest productivity level, followed by Standard, ABSA and FRB. All four banks experienced various strategic changes during the sample period (1994 to 2010), as well as considerable changes in the banking arena in South Africa. The changes in the banking arena included the first substantial rewrite of the Banks Act and Regulations since 1990, following the adoption of the international guidelines known as Basel II which took effect on 1 January, 2008, the introduction of the National Credit Act in 2007, as well as the financial sector charter. These changes as well as the strategic changes combined with changes in input volumes resulted in changes in output volumes, which impacted on total factor productivity levels. The result of the Global Financial Crisis is evident in the decline in total factor productivity during the period, 2008-2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The motivation for this article is the observation of political and private efforts to establish an EU-based rating agency as a counterweight to the three major agencies and observe other approaches to increase competition in the rating market. Objectives: This article aims to analyse the potential regulatory impact of the oligopo-listic situation on the European Union (EU) rating market in the regulation imposed on the agencies. Methods/Approach: Selected key figures are applied to observe if and how the dominance has changed. The different rating service range offered by the registered rating agencies in the EU is also considered in the analysis. Results: The re-search results show that new agencies potentially impact the EU rating market. While the three major rating agencies still dominate the market, they do so within a chang-ing environment. Conclusions: The employment of external ratings is significant in the financial sector. Ratings provide relevant information on the default risk of financial instruments and assess the solvency of issuers. The market for external ratings thereby can be classified as oligopolistic. Turbulences during the financial crisis of 2008 trig-gered stricter regulation of the credit rating agencies. Such regulation has now been in force for a good decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Aim/purpose - This study examines the time-series properties of home loans and domestic credit in Poland and the three Baltic countries, first in the univariate sense by identifying structural breaks in the series, and then using a multivariate model to identify the key drivers of loan growth. Design/methodology/approach - Structural break tests are conducted using the method of Bai & Perron (1998), while orthgonalised VARs are used for the macroeconomic model. Findings - The Estonian and Lithuanian home lending growth series have structural breaks in 2007, preceding the onset of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Estonian home lending has two additional structural breaks in 2009 and 2013. Neither of the two Polish lending series has any break after the sample begins in 2009, indicating more stability in the country's markets. In the macroeconomic model, consumer price inflation and real effective exchange-rate appreciations have the largest influence on lending and credit growth, and Poland more affected than the Baltic countries. Research implications/limitations - This study opens the door to future research behind the specific causes of structural breaks in these series. While there is some evidence of an 'early warning' before the 2008 crisis, longer data series are needed for Poland and especially in the case of Latvia. Originality/value/contribution - This study offers insight into the lending markets in an area of the world that was significantly impacted by the 2008 crisis. Understanding the behaviour and causes of lending growth will help avoid future problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central banks, after the experience of the global financial crisis, are now starting the implementation of the exit strategies, which are the process of normalization of monetary policy. The pace of monetary policy normalization process depends on the market reaction to central bank's decisions and macroeconomic conditions, in which they will be implemented. The main aim of the study is to present the principles of the exit strategy of the Federal Reserve System (Fed), on the background of the changes that have occurred in the United States within the monetary policy during the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investment portfolio management process consists of an integrated set of steps to create an appropriate mixture of assets. Since it is highly depending on characteristics of the investor, it is possible to stress three main steps: planning, execution and feedback. The most crucial part of portfolio management is the execution step during which a suitable portfolio is built. The procedure takes into account asset allocation, security analysis and clients' requirements. The main aim of the article is to present and compare asset allocation procedures used today, such as mean-variance approach, Black-Litterman one and risk based strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]