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The author discusses the Central European retail trade in terms of its free economy characteristics and restrictionist policies. World War I is described as a primary factor in trade restrictions and the difficult economic conditions at this time. The author states political and economic challenges prevented business from producing profitably. Faced with a decision between closing businesses or limiting competition, governments and business owners chose to limit competition.

The article presents an analysis of economic conditions and trade barriers in Central Europe in the years 1919-1939. Restrictionist and isolationist tax laws worked to promote depressed economies in Central Europe. Nationalism and strong dislike of neighboring countries caused policies by which people paid to support inefficiency. Socialist experiments prevented cheap imports from industrialized countries and excluded the products of cheap labor. An example of the coal trade between Austria and Czechoslovakia is presented which illustrates the self-defeating trade policies in Central Europe during this time. The article describes how poor economic foreign relations led to the rise of Nazism, particularly in Austria.

We examine how unconventional monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) influences macroeconomic stability in three Central European economies. We estimate various panel vector autoregressions (PVARs) using monthly data from 2008 to 2014. Using the shadow policy rate and central bank assets as measures of unconventional policies, we find that output growth and inflation in Central Europe temporarily increase following an expansionary unconventional monetary policy shock by the ECB. Using both impulse responses and variance decompositions, we find that the effect of unconventional policies on output growth is much stronger than the effect on inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Falling real incomes, rising utility prices and the historically poor thermal quality of the housing stock are some of the main factors that have driven the rise of systemic injustices surrounding energy poverty in the post-communist states of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE). We undertake a socio-spatial and temporal assessment of energy poverty in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, using Household Budget Survey micro-data and the consolidated national results of the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions. Our results indicate that increases in domestic energy prices and expenditures during the last decade have not been offset by purchasing power gains or energy efficiency improvements, resulting in sustained and growing levels of energy poverty. Capital city regions have fared better than rural areas even if traditional macroeconomic performance indicators do not easily match domestic energy deprivation metrics. We thus question policy approaches that favour income-based solutions and fail to recognise housing- and demography-related vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Monetary Studies (Bank of Lithuania) is the property of Bank of Lithuania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper analyses the transport of exotic fruit from tropical and subtropical areas to the shopping malls located in Central Europe. The exotic fruit belongs to the group of perishable goods. After its harvest and stowage into transport boxes, it is transported in the refrigerated containers by container vessels. Specific conditions (the temperature, the humidity of air) have to be provided in these containers so that the fruit would not be spoilt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose two novel methodological approaches-the detrending moving average based regression coefficient estimator and the scale-dependent instrumental variable estimator - and show their utility on a specific case of dependence between stock markets and connected foreign exchange rates in the Central European region - the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. The methodology has proven useful as we uncovered several interesting findings such as scale dependence of the shock transmission and differences between the Euro and U.S. dollar currency pairs. The Polish currency is also the most sensitive of the three with respect to the stock market shocks. The proposed methodology can be applied to any system with potential endogeneity issues if one is interested in the scale variability of the effect of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cow traction was a major source of energy in the agriculture of various European countries deep into the 1950s. As the losses in milk yields were by far outstripped by energy gains, a great number of continental smallholders preferred cows to horses and oxen regardless of a negative impact on labour productivity. However, the triple use of cows (milk, meat and traction) became widespread only after 1800 in accordance with an increasing availability of fodder resources. In this sense the expansion of cow traction can be considered as that part of the agricultural revolution which contributed to the protracted survival of smallholder economies in countries like Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany and Switzerland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central and east European new member states are being affected by the shockwaves of the Eurozone crisis, made manifest also in the presence of different stages, or 'speeds', of integration. In this article, we attempt to examine the different aspects of this picture of a multi-speed Europe, and the lessons of those regions and countries that have been affected by the crisis and by the implemented therapy, and we identify the major risks that this means for the future of Europe. New member states find themselves in a rather unique situation in the context of the enduring Eurozone crisis. On the one hand, as 'junior partners' they are more vulnerable (and are also in the eye of the financial markets); on the other hand, economically they are fully docked to the core of the EU, i.e. Germany, that results in ambiguous and sometimes contradictory consequences. One particular aspect will be to examine if 'convergence' - a basic and distinguishing idea behind European integration - would ultimately turn out to be a myth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper carries out a growth accounting exercise for the 10 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that are part of the European Union over the period 1993-2008. We estimate the capital share (a) from a Cobb-Douglas production function in an intensive form, by employing panel data techniques. The Hausman and Chi-Square tests indicate that a Cross-Section Random Effects with Period Fixed Effects model best suits our data. Based on this model, we find a capital share between 0.45 and 0.83, higher than the usual 0.3-0.4 used in growth accounting literature. When we take into consideration the quality of labour force the estimated capital share slightly decreases, but still remains high, in a range between 0.39 and 0.79. Our growth accounting results reveal that, on average, capital per worker accumulation is the main engine of growth in CEE, followed by the contribution of total factor productivity (TFP). However, when dividing by sub-periods, we found that the contribution of TFP cannot be neglected since during 1997-2004 it proved to be the main engine of growth in some CEE countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania and Romania). Some policy implications are offered based on our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain drain as the diffusion of talented people from home to host country is a concern to many nations. Based on a case study of brain drain in developing countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), this article explores new insights related to the determinants of brain drain phenomenon using data provided by World Economic Forum throughout the Global Competitiveness Report (WEFGCR) 2014–2015. According to our knowledge, this article reveals a new methodological perspective considering that the performed analysis is based on data provided by WEFGCR and applied on emerging countries sample. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper focuses on the foreign direct investments (FDI) in the Central Europe and on the development changes among the individual countries. The paper follows from the work (Gauselmann et al. 2011) dealing with the development of the transient economies with focus on the role of the FDI. The objective of the paper is identification of the impact of the FDI on the economic growth and economic performance during the post-transformation era where differences among the countries at the beginning of the monitored period in 2000 and at the end of 2011 are evaluated based on data of United Nations Conference for Trade and Development. The development of FDI following 2000 was positively influenced by new system of the investment incentives for the foreign investors, accession of the countries to the European Union, it increased their credibility for foreign investors. High inflow of foreign direct investment ended with beginning of the economic crisis in 2008. Current trend in FDI is below its level before the economic crisis, and their amount increase only by few percent per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's (EBRD's) place in the gendered political economy of Eastern Central Europe's post-communist transition. We document the gendered modalities surrounding the EBRD's policy strategies for post-communist transition, suggesting that they help to naturalise certain gendered constructions of neoliberal development and market-building. To elaborate these claims we show first, how the EBRD largely ignored gender until the ‘global financial crisis’ when it discovered gender mainstreaming by mobilising the Gender Action Plan (GAP); and then second, how the 2013 revision of the GAP, the Strategic Gender Initiative extended the EBRD's gender aware activities. Both policies illustrate how the EBRD's understanding and application of gender fit firmly within a neoliberal framework promoting transition as a form of modernisation where gender inequality is always posited as external to the market and reproduces uneven and exploitative social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As distinct from income or wealth inequality, ‘social inequality’ is currently poorly understood and, at best, unevenly measured. We conceptualize social inequality as the relative position of individuals along a number of dimensions that measure achieved outcomes and, innovatively, expectations about future outcomes. Using data from 12 Central and Eastern European countries, we find that cross-national patterns of social inequality differ significantly from patterns derived from income inequality measures. Moreover, our measure of social inequality is much better correlated than income inequality with other country differences such as higher levels of economic performance and human development, and stronger political institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Historia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Several countries in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe used a rich set of prudential instruments during the recent credit and housing boom and bust cycles. We construct a comprehensive database of these policy measures covering 16 countries at a quarterly frequency. We use this database to investigate whether the policy measures had an impact on housing price inflation. The measures that appeared to be effective were capital measures (minimum capital adequacy ratio, maximum ratio of lending to households to share capital) and nonstandard liquidity measures (marginal reserve requirements (MRRs) on foreign funding, MRRs linked to credit growth). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore and analyze the main characteristics of East-Central Europe's spatial structure, including its changes during the recent years. In many territorial researches, there is an intention to define different types of regions and to establish territorial regularities, create models, etc. In this case, we analysed the regions of East-Central Europe based on their comprehensive socio-economic data and described the most important characteristics of the spatial structure of this macroregion from different perspectives. Some results show that the social and economic core areas are highly separated from each other and the development "image" of East-Central Europe has remained the same viewing from the aspects of bigger, homogenous areas, but became more mosaic with the appearance of some separated and improving regions, strengthening the model of the "Bunch of Grapes", not the "Boomerang". Other results show that it is difficult to create a spatial structure model for this macroregion, because the results may depend on the viewpoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study I review the main scientific contributions of Minsky and other scholars to the financial instability and crisis issues, and the role of institutions in modeling the medium and long financial and business waves. The topics developed in this paper are the following: the relationships between financial instability, financial and business crisis and institutions; the thwarting of the explosive instability by the specific institutions' actions and regulations; the impact of the institutional changes on the financial and business cycles; an empiric approach to the financial and business cycles and their synchronization in the Central and Eastern European countries/ members of the EU, taking into account the main characteristics of the changes in these countries' institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Spatial Economic Analysis is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The indicators on financial stability provide a multitude of information related to the strength and stability of the financial system which are essential to the macroprudential analysis. The objective of this article is to analyze the main indicators developed by the IMF on financial stability at the level of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and to observe their trend in crisis. Through the calculation of FSI we can clearly observe the overall image of an economy as well as its strengths and the vulnerabilities. The Indicators developed by the IMF on financial stability provides a wealth of useful information in taking monetary policy decisions and also for counteracting severe financial disturbance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed the evolution of systematic risk (beta) for a sample of 436 non-financial companies from five Central and Eastern European countries for the period 2002- 2012. We found that Polish companies present the higher systematic risk, while Latvian companies, on average prove to be less risky. Our results suggest that high tech companies from Central and Eastern Europe have higher beta than utilities companies. We also identified a set of "defensive" shares in Czech Republic, Hungary and Latvia, and numerous "aggressive" shares in Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims central to the dynamics research of clustering processes in various parts of Europe, namely the European Union, in order to identify how come the experience earned here could be used in the process of clustering in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In this regard, studies were conducted designed to identifying the main guidelines in clusters conceptualization, discerning clustering processes and their dynamics, in two groups of countries. The first group includes the countries where public policies were those that stimulated the space organizations innovation of business in clusters form. The second group includes countries where private initiative stimulated and maintained the entire process of clustering. These specific paper intents, based on a comparative analysis in the dynamics of clustering conducted in the "top down" and "bottom up" logic, to inspire the entire clustering process in Central and Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of the divergence of economic development paths of Eastern European countries (Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia) that joined the EU in 2004 and of the European post-Soviet states (Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldova) for the past twenty years with an emphasis on trade and financial openness is carried out in the article. A detailed description of institutional mechanisms and institutional changes in the economies of these two groups of countries is presented. In my opinion, in order to ensure a sustainable economic development and sustainable economic growth, the macroeconomic equilibrium has to be supplemented by the institutional equilibrium. The equilibrium criteria have to match the actual functions of the institutions, assigned to them by society, and contribute to the development of the whole society along with formation of the middle class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central and Eastern Europe is a region with widely divergent development paths. Until World War II, these countries experienced comparable growth patterns. Whereas Austria and West Germany remained part of the capitalist West and underwent periods of rapid growth, other countries, under state socialist regimes, experienced, on average, far lower growth rates. The lack of data, however, often limits the possibilities of a detailed, quantitative analysis. In this paper, we use a new data set on physical and human capital in seven Central and East European countries for the period 1920-2006 to calculate their effect on economic growth. In addition, we analyze the effect of including the quality of education in human capital. This allows us to perform a growth accounting analysis with the several production factors for Central Europe between 1920 and the present. The difference in growth path across countries is partly explained by differences in technical efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the new economy in Eastern and Central Europe involves a complexity of economic and social processes. The sectoral structures and territorial location of the industry and the higher education show significant inequalities. Capital city concentration, low level of research orientation and insufficient linkages with industries are the most important barriers to the development of higher education and reindustrialization. The regional and cohesion policies need strong relations between economic restructuring and higher education development. The paper focuses on demonstrating the regional differences in these fields and proposes the development of environmental industry and a disciplinary reform in the university training and R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the impact of the emergence of the Cold War on the post-World War II relief work of the Anglo-American-led United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) through an analysis of relief workers' attitudes towards their work. Focus is given to relief work in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe, although work was also carried out in China and other Asian countries. The author explains the cultural relativism and support for cultural diversity embraced by many relief workers and initially theorized by anthropologists. She goes on to demonstrate how changes in U.S. foreign policy in 1946 and '47 as outlined by the Marshall Plan led to decreased aid to Soviet-dominated countries largely to the dismay of relief workers in those countries.

Almost a decade has passed since the first post-communist states accessed to the EU. Ten years after the confirmation of conutries' successful development of democratic and market-economic institutions it is time to ask what type of institutions really developed. This article critically reviews contemporary research of capitalism in the eight countries, the main approaches applied and published findings. Firstly, this paper attempts to answer what type of capitalism has developed in the region. Secondly, the paper highlights some pitfalls in the contemporary study of capitalism in Central Eastern Europe and discusses possible remedies for the future research. The main recommendation, discussed in more detail in the study is that the stricter theoretical reasoning would improve in eliminating the contradictory results many authors have arrived at. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FDIs have also entailed a series of political implications in addition to the economic effects, especially in the context of the accession of Central and Eastern European countries to the European Union. According to the specialists, for a given country intense growth periods are characterized by the attraction of important Hows of foreign direct investments (Lipsey, 2000, page 72). Although Romania has experienced high economic growth rates, it was not supported to the same degree by foreign direct investments. For the countries with developing or in transition economies, these resources can not be provided from the domestic economy, and therefore, these states elaborate their policies to attract foreign investors capable to provide the best possible investment structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we have used a stochastic frontier approach (SFA) in order to analyse the efficiency and determinants of the mafucaturing firms from Central and Eastern Europe. The results reveal that firms from Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary have a higher efficiency than firms from Romania and Bulgaria. The evolution in time of the efficiency show that years 2008 and 2009 have brought a decrease of the efficiency's index. This drop-off is caused by the global economic crisis that has reduced the demand and affected the turnover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Central European panic of the spring 1931 is often presented as a cause of the sterling crisis of September. But what was the transmission channel? This article explores how the continent's financial troubles affected Britain's banking system. The freeze of Central European assets created a liquidity strain for London merchant banks because they had accepted (guaranteed) the commercial bills of German merchants. I use new balance sheet data to quantify this shock and explore how the liquidity crisis contributed to the sterling crisis. The evidence demonstrates that international contagion was crucial in transmitting the 1931 global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers a discussion on regional economic resilience concepts. It further discusses the need for an evolutionary perspective in order to understand economic resilience indicators for adjusting capabilities as well as to understand general preconditions for economic resilience of Central European post-industrial regions. It also presents two cases of the two East German urban areas of Leipzig and Halle in Germany.