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This paper analyzes the effect of the fiscal deficit on the current account deficit in the European Union during the period 1995-2018. The purpose is to examine to what extent an increase in government spending affects the deterioration of terms of trade and contributes to increasing external imbalances. Econometric methods for heterogeneous panel data models are used to analyse the existence of a long-run relationship between the fiscal deficit and the current account. The empirical findings indicate that the twin deficits hypothesis is not confirmed for the whole European Union, but only for a certain number of member states, where a long-run relationship still exists, confirming the impact of the fiscal deficit on the current account. Key words: Fiscal deficit, Current account, Twin deficit hypothesis, Panel unit root tests, Panel cointegration analysis, Panel cointegration analysis, Heterogeneous panel data models with cross-sectional dependence. JEL: C01, C52, E62, F40.

The aim of this paper is to point out the limitations of conventional approaches, articulated via political processes, in reducing income inequality. Using the panel data methods, on the sample of 21 affluent OECD countries in the period from 1980 to 2011, it is observed that the increase in labour productivity as well as preferences of voters to parties that advocate greater redistribution, contrary to common perception, not necessarily lead to reduction in income inequality. Increasing dominance of big capital in the field of technological progress changes the conventions about contribution of workers to labour productivity. The result is a weakening of workers’ bargaining power in relation to employers as well as increase in gap between labour productivity growth and real wage growth, which both lead to increase in income inequality. In comparison with the other political parties, it seems that the right-wing parties are more efficient in using voters’ support to implement their concept of the welfare state, which contributes to maintaining the high market-generated income inequality. Such situation could be explained that de jure power of the government depends on election results, whereas de facto power depends on the support of so-called globally-oriented super elites. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 47010]

This paper aims at investigating the role of different trade regimes in determining the bilateral trade of Western Balkan countries and the enlarged European Union between 2001—2010. Special focus is laid on the intra-regional trade of Western Balkan countries and complementarities of this sub-regional trade integration and the EU accession process. Using panel data, we estimated the gravity model of bilateral exports from Western Balkan and Central Eastern European countries to the core EU members in the 2001–2010 period. The results confirm the importance of EU membership for the development of acceding countries’ trade and shed light on asymmetrical trade regimes as important factors of boosting the bilateral trade flows. Additionally, CEFTA 2006 has a significant contribution to intra-regional Western Balkans trade.

This paper analyses food industry labelling behaviour in regulated and unregulated markets of products with nutrition and health claims (N&H claims) in the Western Balkans. The aim is to find out whether the intervention of the lawmakers in the form of labelling regulation improves transparency of labelling behaviour and facilitates a more informed consumer choice. The analysis is based on a shop survey of 475 products with N&H claims, conducted in six Western Balkan countries (WBC). Statistical inference is derived from the results of the Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis non-parametric tests as well as the Dunn post-test for all pairwise comparisons as a form of simultaneous nonparametric inference. Differences among the countries constituting the region are significant. In comparison with regulated markets in the region, unregulated WBC markets are characterized by a higher level of “spurious” statements dominated by regional/domestic producers not obliged to use scientifically-approved claims in their corporate practices. In these conditions, differences in labelling behaviour are expected as well, which is only partly confirmed by our testing results.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of competing trade regimes on Serbian trade with its most significant (traditional) partners, like European Union and CEFTA 2006 signatories, and other untraditional trade partners with favourable trade regime, like the USA. To this end, gravity model with bilateral and time effects is estimated by Hausman-Taylor AR(1) instrumental variable estimator, using panel data on bilateral trade between Serbia and its main trade partners during the period 2001-2010. The results indicate that overall level of development and difference in factor endowments stimulate Serbia’s exports, which is in accordance with theoretical foundation that inter-industry trade is predominant in exports of less developed countries. Moreover, competing trade regimes appear as important determinant of Serbia’s trade relations, whereas additional liberalization of trade regime with the USA as untraditional trade partner, even asymmetrical to Serbia’s favour, cannot divert trade flows from traditional partners in the long-run. This could mean that distance plays more prominent role in bilateral trade than the degree of liberalization of trade regimes in case of Serbia. The result could be due to the contemporaneous effects of trade preferences granted to Serbia by the EU and other CEFTA 2006 signatories, main trading partners of Serbia.

This paper explores the heterogeneity of growth in the Western Balkan and Emerging European economies. For that purpose, growth determinants are estimated in the period 1997-2009 by dynamic panel data models. The chosen period provides a comparison for the model results with those estimated for the period up to 2007 in order to analyze changes caused by the global instability. According to the main findings of the paper, macroeconomic stabilization and structural reforms still matter in determining economic growth, but foreign direct investments and economic integrations seem to have the most important role in stimulating growth in the observed countries. Moreover, significant positive effects of foreign direct investments and economic integrations produce differences in growth paths between Emerging European and Western Balkan economies. Sharp decrease of foreign inflows in 2008 determined contractions of growth rates firstly in Emerging European economies with subsequent spill-over on the Western Balkan economies during 2009. Consequently, in the period of global instability, differences between two groups of economies become even more obvious.

This paper focuses on empirical analysis of the Serbian functional food market and its comparison with those in other Western Balkan countries (WBC). The purpose is to examine whether the existence of regulation, as an institutional precondition, makes a difference on the operating of the functional food market. This market is a new, fast developing segment, based on health claims made for food. Consumers in Serbia cannot verify health claims either before or after the purchase/consumption, since the property rights on information are extremely weak. Additionally, with successful innovation the free-rider problem usually occurs. Thus, strong institutional support is necessary to ensure regular market functioning. In order to identify the effects of regulation and some other factors with crucial influence on the differences between Serbian and other WBC functional food markets, pooled cross sectional analysis is conducted. The fixed-group effects model is estimated based on data of product categories observed across WBC. Differences in the current level of WBC market development could be explained by the existence of legal regulation, competition, and other factors. All results implicate the necessity of regulatory supervision as well as closer cooperation between government, the private sector, consumer groups, academics, and the research community in further functional food market development in Serbia.

This paper examines driving forces of economic growth in the second transition decade, by testing which determinants from the first decade remain dominant, and which new factors appear in explaining growth. To this end a panel simultaneous equation model is estimated based on a sample of 27 transition countries in the period 1999- 2009. According to the main findings of the paper initial conditions do not play a role in determining economic growth in the second decade, but macroeconomic stabilization and structural reforms still matter. However, in contrast to the first decade, the overall impact of structural reforms is not positive, indicating that difficult progress with reforms in the second decade could slow down economic growth. Moreover, EU membership seems to have the additional effect of slowing down the growth of the accessing countries, meaning that once a transition country becomes an EU member it has a similar growth path to other EU countries in terms of lower growth rates. All this indicates that only countries that undertook fast reforms in the early phase of transition experienced significant benefits from reforms, achieving higher levels of economic development and becoming closer to developed EU countries. Finally, investments and openness of the economy appear as new important determinants of growth.

The aim of this paper is to present main findings obtained from the empirical analysis of the functional food market in Serbia. The analysis is based on the in-depth interviews with relevant processors and retailers present on the market. The following set of topics are considered: (1) motivations (driving forces) and barriers to offer products with nutrition and health (N&H) claim and (2) perception of consumer demand toward N&H claimed products. Differences between Serbia and other Western Balkan Countries (WBC) are explored by using nonparametric techniques based on the independent samples. Results support overall conclusion that this market segment in Serbia is underdeveloped and rather producer than consumer driven compared to more developed WBC markets.

This study is addressed to the nutrition and health (NH and (2) data obtained from processors and retailers by in-depth interviews. Dairy products milk and yogurt with N&H claims cover one quarter of all products surveyed by store check. The largest number of brands in Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are of domestic origin, while other Western Balkan Countries (WBC) brands are most common on the Macedonian and Montenegrin markets. The number of N&H claims made on dairy products depends on the origin of the product – WBC producers make more claims per product than EU producers. Around one third of all claims are health related. Visual presentation of products included use of different images such as an ideal female figure, a sign for urgent medical help and arrows around the waist. The store check also served to identify producers who were potential candidates for interviews in the six WBCs involved in this study. In total, 36 producers and 24 retailers participated in the interviews. Overall response rate was 71%. Dairy products – milk, yoghurt/kefir and cheese accounted for 52 out of 120 observations. Two of the analyses of this study are presented. The first analysis deals with the examination of differences between dairy and other N&H claimed products, and the second refers to differences between the dairy processors’ and retailers’ points of view. For that purpose, a non-parametric testing procedure based on two independent samples was used. This procedure is based on the Mann-Whitney test which uses the rank of each group and the sum of ranks to examine whether category groups are drawn from the same population.