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This paper examines banking industry practice in the area of circular economy reporting with the specific emphasis on waste management reporting in this sector. Paper answers the basic question - is financial service sector exempt from the circular economy reporting requirements having low material usage and resource consumption? Manuscript indicates that in Serbia waste management reporting in banks is in the early stage. Most of the waste management indicators in banks are included as integral part of sustainability reports or as part of management report. Paper indicates that less than half of the bank population in Serbia prepares standard report required by the Environmental Protection Agency. Having in mind these results, banks managers and state officials should take into consideration the fact that most of the banks do not report on flow of waste and most of these indicators are not regularly published on website implying that stakeholders and investors are not adequately informed on the inclusion of banks into circular economy environment. Lagging behind waste management requirements could be potentially hazardous having in mind the fact that Serbia strives towards European Union membership where the legislation and practical alignment with the EU regulation is inevitable process.

In the paper, the mutuality of the market production of beef, pigmeat, sheep meat and poultry meat and the achieved level of development of agriculture as per Serbia's districts in the period from 2001 to 2016 are analyzed. The ranking of districts in Serbia is done by the I-distance method. Similarities are determined by cluster analysis method, while results are represented by a dendrogram. Belgrade District shows a deficit in the market production of all meats. In the three districts of Vojvodina Region, there is a deficit in sheep meat and in the two districts, there is a deficit in poultry meat. The three districts of Sumadija and Western Serbia Region, there is a deficit in the production of pigmeat and poultry meat. The Region of Southern and Eastern Serbia has a deficit in the production of poultry meat.

The paper shows that there is a need in most of the Balkan countries to change the law governing the insolvency issue by clearly defining insolvency and thereby removing the confusion surrounding it from the legislation. It is also essential to harmonize the legal provisions so that the term insolvency is used consistently throughout the legal text. The paper also shows the need to define solvency properly in textbooks and present the correct methodology to assess solvency. In this way, it can be expected that neither the term (in)solvency nor the (in)solvency indicator(s) will be incorrectly used by scholars from the Balkan region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Ekonomika is the property of Society of Economists 'Ekonomika' 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.)

Despite the constant development of the system of forecasting unpredicted events and risks, there are many economic sectors where revenues depend directly on the wheather variables. Risk management is a continuous process whose goals are to predict and stabilize cash flows and maximize profit of a company. Weather derivatives are special form of financial risk transfer instruments and they are associated with specific weather events or conditions that directly or indirectly affect the third party outcomes. Unlike traditional insurance contracts, weather derivatives are realized when the agreed time variable exceeds a predefined value for a specific period. Therefore, financial derivatives make more probable the uncertainty of future operations in terms of present actions. Market for the weather derivatives is the youngest and also the fastest growing market for financial derivatives. Insurance against weather risk primarily was applied in the energy sector. Market development and the ability to trade with weather derivatives, enabled the development of new types of weather derivatives offered to companies. These new types of derivatives provide protection not only from changes in temperature, but also from rainfall, wind intensity, humidity and pressure, cloudiness, snow melting, sea temperature, wave height etc. This paper presents a definition, classification and historical development of weather derivatives. The aim is to emphasize characteristics of this type of derivatives and their distinctive features related to weather conditions and variables. In this paper the focus is on weather derivatives used by agriculture industry whose results of operations mainly depend on weather variables.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate privatization process, obstacles and difficulties faced by the Libyan economy, particularly financial institutions, mainly banks. Despite the fact that goals of privatization proclaimed by the Government dereliction in the area of developing financial markets and making the economy more efficient, it is the process with many obstacles. Privatization has also been motivated with political reasons and all the effects of it in this paper will be considered through this prism. In this paper we analyzed the privatization of one of the largest commercial banks in Libya, named Sahara bank. This bank was purchased by French BNP Paribas bank and the results of this privatization supported the idea that when privatization process is led efficiently and smoothly it affects the entity its employees and economy as a wholpositively affects the entity, its employees and economy as a whole.

Accounting information system can be divided into traditional system based on computers with the database allocated among divisions and integrated business application (ERP- Enterprise Resource Planning) where all divisions have access to the data needed to successfully complete their basic functions. Integrated business solutions increase business efficiency, encourage preparation of reports of a high quality and increase efficiency of decision making processes. However, not only that these ERP models and their implementation is not cost effective they also decrease employee moral because ERP solutions are seen as a method of downsizing. Only 9,9% of Serbian enterprises use ERP solutions. The goal of this paper is to point out problems and challenges of ERP implementation, but also to focus on its advantages in terms of increased efficiency of the business.

Up until now accounting standards regarding financial instruments were changed several times. The latest change was the issuance of the IFRS 9 Financial instruments published for the purpose of simplifying the rules in its predecessor IAS 39 Financial instruments: recognition and measurement. From the above mentioned changes of accounting regulatory regime for financial instruments we may conclude that accounting bodies, so far, have not found the adequate approach and treatment for the financial instruments. They considered that fair value would be a revolutionary measure for the financial instruments and that this measure would provide more relevant, transparent and comparable information. But the standard setters did not predict that this measurement attribute might have an effect on earnings power and financial position of a company. In this paper we observe critiqually the main differences between IFRS 9 and IAS 39 regarding the recognition and measurement of financial instruments and with an emphasis on of some problems of early adoption of IFRS 9 by companies.

The aim of this paper is to present the basic theoretical concepts, clients and current global practice of private banking. Research on the topic of private banking in Serbia is rare and it is not surprising that bank clients and even bank employees are not familiar with it or have a wrong perception of the concept. This paper clarifies doubts and misinterpretations of the terms and related concepts used in the private banking industry. It also provides an overview of the typical clients, taking into account geographical distribution. The focus of banks is shifted towards the Asian market where the new model of private banking is emerging. Switeerland is still dominant in the private banking segment, although significant changes occurred after the liberalization of capital flows in the developing countries and subsequently as a result of the regulatory changes due to the global economic crisis. In Serbia, private banking is in the embryonic development stage. Clients who meet the criteria for entry are rare, while the financial market is shallow and illiquid with little opportunity for profit.

The clearest picture of an actual gender policy in a country could be given by investigating the local authorities’ appointment of the directors and supervisory board members of public enterprises since no mandatory quotas have been imposed on membership on those boards. On the other hand, the election of the supervisory board member of those enterprises by the employee could show if gender inequality is present in the population. The paper’s second goal is to detect any patterns in the appointment of the directors, supervisory board chairmen, and supervisory board members regarding their age and gender and the firm’s characteristics. In a sample of all of Belgrade’s public enterprises, we found that gender inequality is widely present in the world of politics. At the same time, it does not appear to be present in the population. Regarding age policy, older people are more likely to be appointed by the local authority in financially more powerful enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research: Driven by the idea that women do not realize their full potential in society based on not being equally paid, having lower education level than men and facing discrimination based on maternity leave have been a primary motivation to do the research on the following sources of data: HDI; GDI and GII indexes published for four West Balkan countries and average data of women on boards for the same countries experienced in the most developed and female-dominated industry such as banking. This idea helps us formulate primary research questions -if a country has a better human and gender development index it should have more women that actively participle in business and have a real influence on decision making. Our findings are in line with the fact that Slovenia and Croatia are leading countries in the West Balkan region in terms of the index mentioned, therefore shaping a better place for the position of women in society. On the other hand, Serbia has the lowest value of 2 out of 3 indexes. The similarity between bank board diversity can be found between Serbia and Slovenia. In those two countries, women occupy more positions on the executive boards, but fewer on the supervisory board. The situation is different for Croatia and Montenegro where more women are included in supervisory boards. Contribution is that in Western Balkan countries it is arguable that women have no real influence on businesses and results of operations in the banking sector despite the fact that the mentioned countries have quite a good ranking in the gender development reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to investigate whether the gender and age of the director, the supervisory board chairman and other supervisory board members influence earnings management practices in public enterprises established by the Serbian capital city. We have found that the age of the directors and the age and gender of the board members appointed by the local authority are statistically insignificantly associated with earnings management practices. But the study reveals a huge gender inequality concerning the directors and supervisory board members appointed by the local authority and opens up a debate on whether supervisory board members are sufficiently qualified for the task assigned to them by Law. As a result of this research, we suggest several inputs for the ongoing public administration reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak, the corporate "(in)solvency" issue will probably be one of the most frequently discussed topics in the business and economics fields. We analysed the meaning of the term solvency and the solvency assessment methodology in the papers published in the journals indexed in SSCI from 01.01.2017 to 31.12.2019. We have found that the term "solvency" is inadequately used by the authors from Roman law countries, particularly by those who are from the East European countries. We have also found that the inadequate use of the solvency assessment methodology is conditioned by the scientific field of the researchers. The further the authors are from the legal and accounting fields, the more they are inclined to misuse the term (in)solvent and to introduce the solvency ratio. Finally, we explained the probable origin of this confusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting has been subject of various discussions of academicians and accounting practitioners. Although the importance of CRS reporting is not under question, the quality of disclosed non-financial information is still under review. In the light of the new Serbian Law on Accounting (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia 73/2019) and EU Directive 2014/95 requirements regarding nonfinancial information, this article investigates the state of non-financial reporting development in Serbian companies in the pre-EU Directive period in order to give suggestions to policymakers how to establish and structure the implementation of the EU Directive and expected challenges on this path. The current state of development of nonfinancial activities is measured by using content analysis and by creating a non-financial reporting index, namely the CSR index for the Serbian companies listed at Belgrade Stock Exchange. CSR index has been corelated with accounting variables (size of the company, auditor type (non/Big 4), revenue and financial results) in order to get deeper understanding of its value drivers. Serbian companies, listed as large, audited by Big 4 and with better financial performance variables, are companies with the higher value of the CSR index and have a higher quality of non -financial reporting. Big companies can serve as a benchmark for the rest of the companies in the economy, but also those companies will have fewer challenges in the EU non-financial Directive implementation in the post-Directive period. Therefore, Serbian policymakers should focus their attention and implementation procedures on the rest of the economy struggling with the non-financial reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]