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Based on the panel data of 46 countries in "Belt and Road" (B&R) from 2004 to 2016, this paper studies the impact of innovation investment and institutional quality on green total factor productivity (GTFP). Firstly, the ICRG database, World Bank WDI database, Traditional Foundation database, and Wind database are matched to obtain the balanced panel data of 46 countries along the B&R from 2004 to 2016. Secondly, the Malmquist-Luenberger index, which can be included in the unexpected output, is used to calculate the GTFP of countries along B&R. Thirdly, the evaluation system of national institutional quality of B&R is constructed from three dimensions (political institutional quality, economic institutional quality, and legal institutional quality), and the overall system quality of different countries is measured by entropy method. Finally, an empirical study is made on the relationship among innovation investment, institutional quality, and green total factor productivity. The results show that innovation investment has significantly promoted the GTFP of the B&R countries. It is worth noting that there is a non-linear relationship between innovation investment and GTFP in the B&R countries. With the improvement of overall system quality, political system quality, economic system quality, and legal system quality, the promotion effect of innovation investment on GTFP is further enhanced. In addition, the heterogeneity regression results show that the impact of innovation investment on GTFP is significantly heterogeneous in different regions of the B&R countries. Specifically, innovation investment has the greatest impact on GTFP in South Asia, followed by East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East, and North Africa., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the production function of firms based on the use of intellectual capital. The authors come up with this problem since believe that the new economy conditions require an adjustment and a development of classical firm theory. Design/methodology/approach – The research question addressed in this study is mainly related to the empirical validation of the function based on companies' intangibles in the Cobb-Douglas framework. This model enables the authors to advocate the idea of the complementarity of intellectual resources as well as simplifies the analysis of intellectual capital features. To accomplish the purpose of the research, the authors design a log-linear model and estimate it on a sample of more than 400 European and American companies. Findings – Application of Cobb-Douglas framework allowed designing a production function based on intellectual capital. The complementarity of intellectual capital components is justified on the empirical results obtained in this research. The increasing return to scale for intellectual capital was established for the sample examined in this study. Research limitations/implications – The main shortcoming of the approach implemented in this study is related to the proxy indicators of intellectual capital. Nevertheless, the authors statistically validate the chosen indicators applying hedonic approach. Practical implications – Practical accomplishment of this research is mainly associated with the conclusion about an increasing return to scale of intellectual capital. This phenomenon appears to be of a particular importance for investment decisions. Originality/value – The findings of this paper provide a new insight into intellectual resources interrelation that enhances companies' value creation. The authors also hope to assist future research attempts in application of the theory of company's growth driven by its intangible capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between growth, investment and military expenditure in the case of the European Union-15. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses fixed panel models, random coefficient models and a trivariate VAR model to examine empirically the relationship between these three macroeconomic variables. Findings - The results obtained and reported herein show a significant positive effect of the growth rate on the share of military expenditure and on the share of investment. However, on the whole, the findings do not seem to point to any consistent quantitative relation between defence spending and either growth or investment. Thus, they appear to be in line with the findings of other studies. Originality/value - The economic effects of military spending have drawn considerable attention. Demand side effects on capacity utilisation are one possible channel through which the economy can be positively affected by such expenditure. On the other hand however, reduced investment and capital stock have been reported as a possible negative economic impact of defence outlays that can more than offset any growth inducing effective demand stimulation. The paper attempts a simultaneous assessment of the impact of defence expenditure on both growth and investment for the EU-15, something that has not been tried before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes broad performance-based measures of intangibles in European Union countries to find new sources of growth and shows that intangible capital (IC)-driven growth was halted in European industries during the 2008-2013 financial crisis period. Much of this IC, such as purchased organizational, research and development (R&D) and information and communication technology capital, is unaccounted for in systems of national accounts, so that total IC investment is 29.6% of value added, with R&D having the lowest gross domestic product share at 5.0%. On average, deteriorating IC growth has decreased labor productivity by −2.9% annually. Policies fostering multifactor productivity growth have been strongly biased and have ignored the loss of those skills necessary for long-term growth. During 2008-2013, innovation thus failed to compensate for Europe’s dwindling fixed-capital-intensive manufacturing and job losses, but broad-based IC offers a roadmap for recovery by relying on an increasing role for IC-producing services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in the transition countries of southeast Europe. The empirical analysis embraces seven southeast European countries in the period 1998-2007. The authors use Prais-Winsten regression with panel-corrected standard errors for the preferred estimation model. The main research result is the positive and statistically significant effect of FDI on economic growth. The impact of FDI is statistically significant and robust when including data on domestic investments. The results are robust to considering endogeneity issues (i.e., inverse causality). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the current paper is to investigate empirically the effect of social capital on investments as a key production factor. Theoretically, investments are expected to be higher in societies where there is more social capital between economic agents. Based on the data from World Values Survey, ten components of social capital are considered as factors of investments. Although the regression results are rather mixed, it can be generalised that components related to trust and norms dominate as predictors of overall investment activity, while networks have some effect only for foreign investments. Additionally, it appeared that the relationship between social capital and investments is similar in democratic Western European countries and Central and Eastern European countries with communist background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic literature and related specialty practice, the development of the European Economic Community along with the factors determining them (such investments and staff) represents a topic that is of great notoriety. This paper shows the role and influence that direct investment in the economy and employment ratio can propagate in the growth of gross domestic product per capita to ensure increased economic sustainability of countries in the European Community. The most important economic effects of FDI on the host economy can be represented by labor productivity growth through knowledge transfer (know-how) technology, management skills and marketing term in countries emerging favor progress technological and economic growth. To determine this goal, in the context of economic logic, this research shows the importance of gross domestic product, total and per capita, as a macroeconomic indicator synthetic, and encouraging and using the action of factors that can also provide political steps, organizational and financial, achieving levels attesting social progress and prosperity. The study highlights a Custom Analysis on gross domestic product per capita, direct investment and the proportion of people employed in total for 24 European Union countries in 2014 and also develop an econometric model multifactorial based on system statistics. Research shows utility in making decisions about investment growth in the European Community by attracting a workforce that is in full compliance with state investment policies and by providing a high living standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe's GDP growth is gathering pace as a consequence of both sound policies and external factors. Forecasts are being revised upwards even though they keep potential growth estimates low. This article argues that there are good reasons to expect a scenario with higher medium term growth, where reforms are accelerated, and increases in investment, productivity, and labor participation offset the decline in population and temporary legacies from the crisis. Several studies show the big growth gains from this scenario. Moreover, experience in various European countries confirms that it is feasible. Reforms are underpinned by the current accommodative monetary policy and by a responsible, but more flexible, fiscal policy stance that smoothens adjustment, improves fairness, and supports demand in countries with fiscal space. Successes in growth-enhancing reforms, better awareness of their potential net benefits, and more attention to prevent or reduce negative distributional effects, may restore trust and garner citizens' support for this growth model. They may also help overcome the obstacles to further integration that should make this model more robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the well-recognized and studied causality running from economic growth to health, this study presents evidence of the reverse causation - from health to economic growth. The study tries to analyze the processes and connections that trigger the relationship between investment in health and the achievement of economic growth. This paper goes through a review and an analysis of the effects that health investment has on economic growth and the economic rationale for investing in health. The focus of this research paper is finding out how better health serves as a predictor of economic growth and the degree to which economic growth is explained by health expenditures in South Eastern European countries. Regression analysis, used in identifying the relation between health expenditure per capita and GDP per capita for SEE countries are based in the data of World Bank for years 2000-2011. Based on the findings, there exist a strong relationship between investment in health and economic growth in all SEE countries. By comparing the regression's results of the SEE countries, it can be concluded that health expenditures per capita in Albania, as a measure of investing in health, explain slightly more of the variation in GDP per capita than in the other countries. On the other hand, Macedonia and Albania are the countries where health expenditure has the highest impact on economic growth. To sum up, SEE countries have to consider investment in health sector as a crucial instrument for achieving both, economic and social inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There might be some specific problems for Central East European Countries (CEE/ CEEC) to comply with the additionality principle and to avoid excessive deficits at the same time. The main reason is that the budgets of the CEECs still face some risks for revenues and expenditures. Therefore, maintaining structural expenditure at a stable level without allowing for temporary public deficits will be difficult for CEECs. In this paper we will provide several arguments that suggest not targeting the EU structural assistance exclusively at the reduction of regional disparities within CEECs. Doing so would not only face problems due to missing administrations and statistics at the regional level, but might also be at the expense of national economic growth and extend the process of catching-up. Each CEEC has it own specificity that is reflected more or less on capital region. According our analysis we will find what are the opportunities for investments in this Capital regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a wide variety of flood damage models in use internationally, differing substantially in their approaches and economic estimates. Since these models are being used more and more as a basis for investment and planning decisions on an increasingly large scale, there is a need to reduce the uncertainties involved and develop a harmonised European approach, in particular with respect to the EU Flood Risks Directive. In this paper we present a qualitative and quantitative assessment of seven flood damage models, using two case studies of past flood events in Germany and the United Kingdom. The qualitative analysis shows that modelling approaches vary strongly, and that current methodologies for estimating infrastructural damage are not as well developed as methodologies for the estimation of damage to buildings. The quantitative results show that the model outcomes are very sensitive to uncertainty in both vulnerability (i.e. depth--damage functions) and exposure (i.e. asset values), whereby the first has a larger effect than the latter. We conclude that care needs to be taken when using aggregated land use data for flood risk assessment, and that it is essential to adjust asset values to the regional economic situation and property characteristics. We call for the development of a flexible but consistent European framework that applies best practice from existing models while providing room for including necessary regional adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once with the development of the human capital theory, the education received an economic value, which is a quality variable of human resources and the main determinant of economic growth. The famed economists have shown that the remarkable economic effects of the investments in education influence the chances of acquiring a job and earnings, demonstrating how the theory justifies such an investment. Human capital approach allows also estimating the costs of education in schools and higher education, as well as the profits that comes out of it. Thus, the human capital theory is primarily focused on the demand for education. Moreover, the objective function of the state, in terms of education, contains itself two contradictory arguments: the state, theoretically, is a representative and guarantor of the collective good and its organizer; the state will seek to maximize individual education on the one hand and on the other hand will search for the optimization of the relationship between professional training and formal education. Also, in the context of recent years, the budgetary constraints are raising the problem of optimal allocation of the resources, as well as the funding of the performance of the educational services. The particularities, in terms of flexibility and cumulative distribution of the investment levels in the human factors, are translated into a practical action in the sense that global competition, from which Romania cannot decouple. In the long run, there are winning and resisting only those with academic flexible formation and the intelligent persons. Considering the above arguments, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the main characteristics of funding mechanisms for education systems, the volume of spending on education and ways of managing the resources allocated to the education. The cost allocation for education in Romania is investigated in terms of government policies, but also in terms of human capital theory. Also, to answer to the question how Romania had aligned to the modern trends in terms of allocation of the resources more and more important for human capital formation, this paper attempts to estimate the economic effort claimed by the financing of the education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The impact of economic growth on health outcomes has generated various conflicting results in recent years, particularly with the emergence of cardiovascular disease as one of the most salient global health issues. This paper looks at the relationship between economic development and health outcomes. We first estimate an empirical model using data on annual cardiovascular disease mortality in a panel of 27 European countries, over the period 2003 to 2014, together with per capita GDP levels in each country. We also include a number of additional determinants of health outcomes as prescribed by the literature, including various socio-economic, lifestyle and contextual variables. The results show that there is a statistically-significant inverted U-shaped relationship, whereby as income increases mortality rates first rise, before declining at subsequent levels of development. This trajectory persists even after the inclusion of the other determinants of health, as well as other robustness checks. We then seek to explain the persistence of the inverted U-shaped income-mortality relationship using a microeconomic model of consumer choice, with our findings suggesting that this relationship is consistent with a scenario of increasing returns to scale from healthcare investment. The results emphasise the importance of investment in the latest healthcare technologies and continued improvements to public healthcare systems, particularly within developing countries, in conjunction with efforts to boost economic growth. Highlights • Inverted U-shaped relationship between cardiovascular mortality and GDP per capita. • Results robust to inclusion of various control variables and confounders. • Relationship consistent with increasing returns from healthcare spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey and Europe are closely interlinked through migration, trade and investment flows. In the year 2000, the interrelationships entered a new phase. Return migration of Turkish migrants to Turkey set in, of often well-educated second-generation migrants, triggered by the fast economic growth and shortages of skilled labour in Turkey. At the same time continued family migration to Europe and Turkish business start-ups in Europe promote trade between Turkey and Europe due to preference and network channels. While economic growth in Turkey is dynamic, it is also volatile, depending on foreign capital. The major challenge for stable and sustainable economic growth is, however, the low labour force participation rate of women and the slow progress in the educational attainment level of its workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with the impact of alternative investment funds on economy and possibilities of improving regulation of their activity. The recent years have seen a rapid development of alternative investment funds, namely hedge funds and private equity funds. Due to relatively low interest rates and excess liquidity in financial markets, these funds reached such a scale that they could influence real economies. Although the activities of the alternative investment funds may influence liquidity and efficiency of the markets in a positive way, they could not be valuated unequivocally, since they often have negative consequences. Contradictory objectives of the alternative investment funds and the Lisbon Strategy or at least their different time horizons determine the negative impacts of these funds on the long-term economic growth and employment in the labour market. Furthermore, these funds have different impacts (and most often negative ones) on the behaviour of the companies and financial markets. The lack of transparency and regulation, employment reduction, overindebtedness of the companies, tax avoidance and other corporate governance problems distort competition and endanger economic stability. The present article aims at searching for adequate regulation of the activities of alternative investment funds. The methodology of the research comprises statistical methods and a comparative analysis of the regulation norms. In order to neutralise the negative impacts of hedge and private equity funds, it is recommended to develop the regulation of the considered norms in the following directions: 1) to encourage long-term investments in the following ways: weighting of the voting rights according to the duration of property, higher tax rates for short-term investments; 2) to prevent tax avoidance providing the following: collection of taxes according to the country of the contract subject or fund manager (not to the country of fund registration because most of them are registered in so-called "tax heavens"), tax discrimination of the offshore funds, as well as limited interest exclusion from the taxable profit; 3) to ensure greater transparency of the markets and to strengthen economic stability by the following means: minimum financial reporting standards, a new European directive introducing minimum standards for information disclosure, and minimum capital requirements for companies; 4) to enhance investor and employee protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the ability of the Central and Eastern European countries to attract foreign direct investment during the first decade of transition. After considering a model of profit maximizing firms, we undertake an empirical investigation of the factors that determine multinational firms’ location decisions within Europe. We find empirical support for the traditional market size and cost factors. In addition, we examine the effect of key European Union announcements regarding the accession process. Results indicate that the announcements had statistically significant and quantitatively important effects on foreign direct investment in the Central and Eastern European candidate countries.JEL classifications: F23, P33. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of aggregate production functions of the Cobb-Douglas type to explain the sources of growth and of differences in growth rates, in recent years among eight European countries and the United States is discussed in the article. Output is related to inputs of labor and capital, together with a residual not accounted for by these factor inputs, whether measured conventionally or in efficiency units. Until recently such procedures, when applied to European countries, required the use of balance-sheet data to measure capital, but ignorance of prices and valuation methods implicit in such data has been a serious weakness. Thanks mainly to the enterprise of economists Simon Kuznets, Moses Abramovitz and their co-workers, supported by the Social Science Research Council, historical series on gross investment have recently become available for some European countries. Despite uncertainties surrounding deflation procedures and the paucity of data for estimating useful lives, such capital estimates are greatly to be preferred to figures resting on balance sheet valuations. The availability of these new data prompted the present study, preliminary results of which are given in this paper.

This article reconsiders the relative growth performance of centrally planned economies in the broader context of postwar growth in Europe. It reports a new dataset of revised estimates for investment rates in eastern European countries between 1950 and 1989. Complemented with data on other growth determinants, this evidence is used to re-evaluate the socialist growth record in a conditional convergence framework with a panel of 24 European countries. After controlling for relative backwardness, investment rates, and improvements in human capital, the findings show that centrally planned economies underperformed due to their relative inefficiency only after the postwar golden age. In the 1950s and 1960s, eastern Europe was falling behind mainly due to relatively low levels of investment and weak reconstruction dynamics. Both are explained, in part, by the lack of labour-supply flexibility that, in turn, resulted from the comparatively much larger negative impact of the war on population growth in eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the peculiarities of attracting investments by SMEs of the European Union countries, as well as in the Republic of Moldova and prospects for applying new alternative sources of financing. The actuality of this study is determined by the fact that in most countries with a market economy, SMEs play a dominant role in ensuring employment and the formation of a national budget. For the Republic of Moldova, where SMEs, like in most EU countries, make up about 98% of all companies, their financing is one of the determining factors for economic development and improvement of the population's well-being. Taking into account that in the Republic of Moldova, unlike the EU countries, during the last few years there has been a negative dynamics of attracting investments in long-term tangible assets of companies, in order to apply the best international experience, in this study, based on such research methods as: documentary method, analogy and grouping of quantitative and qualitative data; graphical method, method of synthesis, comparison, etc., are analysed possibilities on expanding the range of instruments of attracting capital used by the SMEs of the Republic of Moldova, taking into account modern financial technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world economy is facing a variety of financial and economic challenges caused by different economic and political crises. Furthermore, the crises have had a negative impact that has been reflected on the macroeconomic indicators of each national economy. In these circumstances the transition economies, especially the Western Balkan countries needed to cope with the ever growing international competition, increasing unemployment, lack of private initiatives and investments, low level of economic growth and development. As a result, the attention is oriented towards SMEs, the importance of SMEs as a key pillar to sustainable growth and competitiveness on national and global market. The focus of this research is the importance of various contemporary forms which support entrepreneurship in order to increase investments, such as: business start-up centres, clusters, business incubators, economic zones and investment funds. The main objective of this research is to determine and measure the relationship between the SMEs from Polog region and contemporary institutions: business development centre (BDC) and technology park (TP) at SEE University, Enterprise Support Agency (ESA) as a private company and economic chamber of Macedonia which support private initiatives and increase their investments. In order to determine the relationship, a survey on SMEs in Polog region is conducted. The methodology used is cross tabulation two-way tables with measures of association based on data analysis from surveys and processed by STATA software. The main finding of this research is the positive impact of BDC, ESA and economic chamber on Polog region SMEs on the increase of their investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses economic growth and unemployment in Europe. Topics discussed include economic condition of Euro zone countries, European Central Bank and investment in the region. Other topics which includes de industrialization, private investment and macroeconomics are also discussed. In addition, economic stagnation of the country is also mentioned.

We rank European countries' collective commitment to development on seven cross-border issues: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security and technology. We calculate a consolidated score for 21 European countries and show that they perform well on aid and environment but lag the rest of the world on trade and technology. We find that Europe's approach to development energetically tackles the symptoms of poor economic opportunities for developing countries by providing relatively effective aid, but there is an opportunity to do more to tackle the underlying structural causes of poverty. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an empirical analysis of economic growth determinants in the 10 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The analysis covers the period 1993–2009. All the calculations are performed on five three-year subperiods and one two-year subperiod: 1993–95, 1996–98, 1999–2001, 2002–04, 2005–07 and 2008–09. The analysis is composed of three steps: data selection, correlation analysis and regression analysis. The correlation analysis is based on the coefficient of partial correlation to exclude the impact of the global crisis. In the regression analysis we build 10 alternative variants of empirical models of economic growth. Our results suggest that the most important economic growth determinants in the CEE countries are investment rate (including FDI), human capital measured by the education level of the labour force, financial sector development, good fiscal stance (low budget deficit and low public debt), economic structure (high services share in GDP), low interest rates and low inflation, population structure (high share of working-age population), development of information technology and communications, high private sector share in GDP and favourable institutional environment (economic freedom, progress in market and structural reforms). Our study indicates that the CEE countries have developed in line with the hypothesis of income level convergence (both in absolute and conditional terms). This means that less developed CEE economies grew on average faster than more developed ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate if financial development eases firm level financing constraints in a crosscountry data set covering much of the European economy. The cash flow sensitivity of investment is lower in countries with better-developed financial markets. To deal with potentially serious biases, we employ a difference-in-difference methodology. Subsidiaries of other firms have access to internal capital markets and hence depend less on the external financial environment. As predicted, the benefit of financial development is smaller in subsidiary firms. This shows that financial development can mitigate financial constraints, and sheds light on the link between financial and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested that members in the EC or the EFTA experienced significantly higher growth rates compared to nonmember countries. This suggests that the European integration either captures omitted variables or that it gives rise to increased growth rates through enhanced investment and/or increased knowledge transfer. The present study attempts to resolve this issue. The analysis identifies a two-link chain between European integration (EI) and growth through investment. In addition, on examining whether there are any knowledge spillovers resulting from integration it is found that integrated countries do in fact experience more knowledge spillovers compared to nonintegrated countries. Employing both the neoclassical and endogenous growth approaches, it is found that trade variables are especially important for growth in Total Factor Productivity (TFP). The study is undertaken for a panel sample consisting of 20 OECD countries and covering three time periods between 1976 and 1990. Special emphasis is placed on specification and sensitivity analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]