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on Transition Economics |
| By: | Barbara Brixová (Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Economics); Anna Tykhonenko (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France); Ľubica Štiblárová (Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Economics); Marianna Siničáková (Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the Middle-Income Convergence Trap (MICT) in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries by analysing their economic trajectories and the factors shaping their convergence with more advanced EU economies. Using data from 1995 to 2022 and an iterative Bayesian clustering approach, the analysis reveals heterogeneous convergence patterns. While countries like Bulgaria and Romania exhibit strong catch-up dynamics, others—such as Slovenia and the Czech Republic—show signs of stagnation, suggesting potential entrapment in the MICT. Further analysis using a dynamic fixed effects model identifies trade openness, human capital, and institutional quality as key drivers of convergence, whereas high public debt is associated with increased stagnation risk. The findings underscore the need for comprehensive policy strategies that promote innovation, enhance education systems, and improve governance. Addressing these structural challenges is essential for sustaining long-term convergence and avoiding the risks associated with the MICT in the CEE region. |
| Keywords: | middle-income trap, convergence, economic growth, Central and Eastern Europe, Bayesian shrinkage estimator |
| JEL: | F02 F15 O47 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2025-25 |
| By: | Inaki Veruete Villegas (Charles University, Institute of Economic Studies at Faculty of Social Sciences & The Environment Center, Czech Republic & BETA, CNRS, University of Strasbourg); Milan Scasny (Charles University, Institute of Economic Studies at Faculty of Social Sciences and The Environment Center, Czech Republic.) |
| Abstract: | The current geopolitical landscape, exemplified by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has heightened concerns about energy security. This study delves into the nexus of energy security and natural gas utilization in the Czech Republic, offering a thorough analysis amid these turbulent times. Despite the fact that the environment/energy-extended input-output models have been significantly improved, they still fail to fully capture a sector’s role in an economic system characterized as a network of sectors as they primarily analyze sectors as both ends of the supply chain, ignoring a significant role of transmission sectors. We overcome this gap by applying a multidimensional approach to scrutinize the energy supply chain in order to assess the repercussions of heightened natural gas prices post-Russian invasion. Specifically, we combine domestic energy input-output demand and price models to assess the economic impacts under constrained alternative energy scenarios, particularly relevant given the challenges of replacing Russian gas. Additionally, leveraging network analysis techniques —node and edge betweenness centrality—and the hypothetical extraction method are used to identify critically important structural elements within the country’s natural gas consumption chain. While the former pinpoints vital transmission sectors based on gas flow, the latter gauges sectoral significance by simulating complete disconnections, without being influenced by the number of times the sector appears in the supply chain path. Last, we develop a complete map of the embodied energy flows. Structural Path Analysis traces intermediate product flows, enabling the quantification of embodied energy across the supply chain and its representation as a tree-like structure. Our findings reveal significant implications of natural gas price fluctuations on key manufacturing industries, notably those engaged in international trade which are vulnerable to energy supply and price disruptions. We emphasize the critical role of sectors providing essential household goods and services, like energy, food, and transportation. Strategic interventions may be necessary to safeguard domestic demand and the competitive edge of vital sectors like automotive. As energy security remains a dynamic and evolving challenge, our research contributes significantly to the ongoing discourse on energy resilience, particularly for countries dependent on energy imports. Despite the fact our study is applied to the energy field, this framework is useful to analyze the footprint of any inputs, including usage of critical materials, environmental inputs, or emissions, which face similar complexities. |
| Keywords: | Energy-Extended Input-Output Aanalysis; Energy Supply Chain; Natural Gas Footprint; Embodied Energy; Betwenness Centrality; Hypothetical Extraction; Structural Path Analysis; Input-Output Price Model |
| JEL: | C67 Q43 H56 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2024_18 |
| By: | Paweł Kopiec (Narodowy Bank Polski); Małgorzata Walerych (Narodowy Bank Polski) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether the transmission of monetary shocks in Poland depends on the level of economic slack. To this end, we estimate smooth transition panel local projections using Poland’s regional data and analyze how monetary shocks affect unemployment and prices in regimes of high and low unemployment. Our key finding aligns with economic intuition: the response of unemployment to monetary policy shocks is stronger when economic slack is high, compared to when it is low. Conversely, the adjustment of prices to monetary innovations is more pronounced when idle resources in the economy are scarce, compared to when they are abundant. Our main conclusion is further supported by evidence showing that the difference in the strength of the employment response to monetary shocks, depending on the unemployment level, is more pronounced in sectors producing non-tradable goods than in those manufacturing tradable goods. Moreover, comparing our model with its linear counterpart confirms that monetary transmission in Poland indeed exhibits state-dependence, while the analysis of monetary shock distributions under low and high unemployment shows that our results are not driven by the presence of a regime-dependent pattern in monetary disturbances. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy transmission, unemployment, local projections, state dependence |
| JEL: | E24 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbp:nbpmis:377 |
| By: | Samuel Fiifi Eshun (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic); Evzen Kocenda (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Environment Centre, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; CESifo Munich; IOS Regensburg); Princewill Okwoche (Environment Centre, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia; School of Economics, University of Cape Town); Milan Scasny (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Environment Centre, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the determinants of industrial energy demand in five new European Union member states (Czechia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia) with a focus on the effects of energy prices, sectoral output, energy-saving investment, and technological progress. Using a panel dataset covering 16 industrial sectors over more than two decades (1995-2018), we employ advanced estimation approaches employed in related literature to address issues of heterogeneity, cross-sectional dependence, and persistence, often overlooked in studies relying solely on fixed effects. Our empirical results show that output levels and energy prices consistently drive energy consumption, with their effects amplified when cross-correlations are accounted for. From our preferred estimation procedure (Dynamic Common Correlated Effects - Mean Group), we obtain evidence of intuitively relevant values: the energy price elasticity is -0.42, and the output elasticity is 0.32. Energy demand exhibits moderate levels of persistence, showing that past consumption patterns drive current energy consumption. Energy-saving investments tend to increase energy use, as they often accompany industrial growth or modernization, whereas research and development show only a limited effect. These findings provide valuable insights to policymakers on energy solutions to influence energy demand and mitigate the pressures of industrial growth. |
| Keywords: | Energy demand; cross-sectoral dependency; income elasticity; price elasticity |
| JEL: | C23 O52 Q41 Q43 Q48 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2025_11 |
| By: | Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Akramov, Kamiljon T.; Ergasheva, Tanzila |
| Abstract: | Nutrition-sensitive agricultural diversification continues to receive interest among developing country stakeholders as a viable option for achieving dual goals of poverty reduction and food/nutrition security improvements. Assessing the effectiveness of this strategy is also essential in countries like Tajikistan. We attempt to enrich the evidence base in this regard. We assess the linkages between household-level agricultural diversification and dietary diversity (both household- and individual-levels) using unique panel samples of households and individual women of reproductive ages in the Khatlon province. Using difference-in-difference propensity-score methods and panel fixed-effects instrumental variable regressions, we show that higher agricultural diversification together with greater overall production per worker and land at the household level leads to higher dietary diversity, particularly in areas with poor food market access. Typology analyses and crop-specific analyses suggest that vegetables, fruits, legumes/nuts/seeds, dairy products and eggs are particularly important commodities for which a farmer’s own production contributes to dietary diversity improvement. Furthermore, decomposition exercises within the subsistence farming framework suggest that nutritional returns and costs of agricultural diversification vary across households, and expected nutritional returns may be partly driving the adoption of agricultural diversification. In other words, households’ decisions to diversify agriculture may be partly driven by potential nutritional benefits associated with enhanced direct on-farm access to diverse food items rather than farm income growth alone. Our findings underscore the importance of supporting household farm diversification in Tajikistan to support improved nutrition intake, especially among those living in remote areas. In a low-income setting with limited local employment opportunities that is vulnerable to a wide range of external shocks, this will likely continue to be one of the most straightforward and realistic paths to improving household’s nutrition resilience. |
| Keywords: | dietary diversity; food security; nutrition; propensity score matching; agriculture; modelling; Tajikistan; Asia; Central Asia |
| Date: | 2024–04–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:gsspwp:140750 |
| By: | Matthew Collin (EU Tax Observatory, Paris School of Economics, NMBU); Florian M. Hollenbach (Copenhagen Business School); David Szakonyi (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of beneficial ownership transparency in the British real estate market. In an effort to reduce illicit investment following the invasion of Ukraine, the UK government announced a new law in 2022 requiring offshore companies that owned domestic real estate to identify their ultimate owners in a public register. Using a difference-in-difference framework, we find that new property purchases by companies registered in tax havens fell relative to those made via non-havens, a result consistent with transparency raising the costs of illicit investment. These declines persist even after dropping tax havens favored by Russians, suggesting that the reform drove the decline, rather than sanctions. We do not find strong evidence of price effects nor substitution into ownership through suspicious domestic companies. While the policy does appear to have been effective at deterring some anonymous investment into the British property market, incomplete implementation led some clients to still successfully shield their ownership information, implying scope for better design and enforcement in the future. |
| Keywords: | Illicit financial flows, tax havens, real estate, transparency, hidden wealth |
| JEL: | D73 F21 K42 R30 |
| Date: | 2025–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbp:wpaper:028 |
| By: | Czyżewski, Bazyli; Poczta-Wajda, Agnieszka; Matuszczak, Anna; Smędzik-Ambroży, Katarzyna; Guth, Marta |
| Abstract: | CONTEXT. The European Union actively supports and promotes the development of more sustainable and resilient farming systems and contributes to the significant expansion of organic farming. Despite the considerable growth of the organic agricultural sector, this process faces several structural challenges, especially in countries with fragmented agriculture, such as Romania, where small-scale farming dominates. Small-scale farmers are quite reluctant to transition to organic farming even despite financial incentives. OBJECTIVE. This study aims to understand small-scale farmers’ reluctance to adopt organic farming by combining embeddedness theory, which links economic activities to social structures, with the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). METHODS. A survey of 150 small-scale farms in Romania's Centru region was conducted in 2023 using semi-structured face-to-face questionnaires. The research framework combines embeddedness theory and the extended TPB using structural equation modelling and simultaneous confirmatory factor analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS. It was demonstrated that network embeddedness exerts the most significant influence on pro-ecological behavioural intentions when considered in the context of other TPB constructs. However, this positive impact is partially offset by the negative impact of embeddedness at the farm level. Our research results suggest that changing the approach of small-scale farmers to organic farming requires strengthening network embeddedness through workshops, training sessions, rallies, and meetings that would highlight the benefits of organic farming. SIGNIFICANCE. We shed more light on the behavioural drivers of adopting organic practices in small-scale framing and argue that the relational embeddedness construct represents a significant extension of the TPB framework for agri-environmental studies. |
| Keywords: | organic farming, Romanian agriculture, structural equation modelling, extended TPB, social embeddedness |
| JEL: | Q15 Q18 Q56 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:123832 |
| By: | Francesco Ferlenga; Stephanie Kang |
| Abstract: | We study how expanding immigrants’ rights affects their political and social integration by exploiting Romania’s accession to the EU in 2007, which granted municipal voting and residency rights to Romanian immigrants in Italy. Using an event-study analysis at the municipality level, we find three key results. First, enfranchisement increased Romanians’ turnout and the likelihood of electing Romanian-born councilors in municipal elections, particularly in competitive races. An instrumented difference-in-differences strategy shows that this effect is driven by the enfranchisement of preexisting immigrants, not by new arrivals. Second, the rate of consent to organ donation among Romanian immigrants increased after 2007, indicating that the expansion of rights extends beyond political representation to prosocial behavior. However, we also find that the presence of immigrants still increases the probability of right-leaning party victories and municipal spending on public security, while reducing spending on social programs. This suggests that native backlash to immigrant presence outweighs the political influence of newly enfranchised immigrant communities in shaping local electoral outcomes. |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notnic:2025-04 |
| By: | Mondon, Camille; Trinh, Thi-Huong; Martín-Fernández, Josep Antoni; Thomas-Agnan, Christine |
| Abstract: | Given samples of density functions on an interval (a, b) of R, categorized according to a factor variable, we aim to test the equality of their mean functions both overall and across the groups defined by the factor. While the Functional Analysis of Variance (FANOVA) methodology is well-established for functional data, its adaptation to density functions (DANOVA) is necessary due to their inherent constraints of positivity and unit integral. To accommodate these constraints, we naturally use Bayes spaces methodology by mapping the densities using the centered log-ratio transformation into the L^2_0 (a, b) space where we can use FANOVA techniques. Many traditional contrasts in FANOVA rely on squared differences and can be reinterpreted as squared distances between Bayes perturbations within the densities space. We illustrate our methodology on a dataset comprising daily maximum temperatures across Vietnamese provinces between 1987 and 2016. Within the context of climate change, we first investigate the existence of a non-zero temporal trend of the densities of daily maximum temperature over Vietnam and then examine whether there is any regional effect on these trends. Finally, we explore odds ratio based interpretations allowing to describe the trends more locally. |
| Keywords: | Analysis of variance; Density data; Functional data; Log ratio; Odds ratio; Bayes spaces |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:130641 |
| By: | Bachev, Hrabrin |
| Abstract: | There has been enormous development in land supply governance in Bulgarian farms during the last two decades. However, due to insufficient (statistical, official, etc.) information and traditional inadequate (Neo-classical economics, Agency theory, etc.) approaches, there is no complete knowledge of dominating modes and driving factors of land governance. This chapter fills the gap and identifies dominating modes and factors of land supply in Bulgarian farms. Interdisciplinary New Institutional Economics methodology is incorporated, and original new representative data from the managers of farms of different types and locations is analyzed. The study found that rent and lease contracts are the most common forms of farmland supply, followed by ownership mode and joint cultivation. The importance of different governance modes, forms of supply contracts, the intensity of transactions, types of partners, and kinds of land rent and price varies considerably depending on the juridical type, size, specialization, and geographical and ecological locations of holdings. The main factors for the governance choice are frequency, uncertainty, asset specificity of transactions, and professional experience of farm managers. The amount of transaction costs for finding needed lands and natural resources is among the critical factors strongly restricting the development of many Bulgarian farms, particularly of sole traders and cooperatives, farms with large sizes, holdings specialized in permanent crops and mix crops, those located in plain regions, protected zones, and near big cities, and enterprises in North-east, North-central, and South-central regions of the country. Most problems and costs for land (purchase, rent, and lease) deals of farms are consequences of the lack of available lands, high prices, great fragmentation of land plots, and needs for deals with numerous (co)owners. A comparative analysis with a similar study demonstrated enormous modernization in land supply and overall governance of farms in the last two decades. |
| Keywords: | land supply; farms; governance; modes; factors; transaction costs |
| JEL: | D22 Q12 Q13 Q15 Q18 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125065 |
| By: | Minasyan , Gevorg (Asian Development Bank); Schipper , Stefan (Asian Development Bank); Khachatryan , Lusya (Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia); Movsisyan, Seda (Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia); Lapitan, Pamela (Asian Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the transition from X12-ARIMA to X13-ARIMA-SEATS for the seasonal adjustment of Armenia’s quarterly national accounts (QNA). We analyze the methodological advancements and their impact on key economic indicators, focusing on the precision and reliability of seasonally adjusted data. Our findings suggest that the indirect seasonal adjustment method, despite larger revisions, is preferable, given potential variations in seasonal patterns among gross domestic product components and strong user preferences for preserving accounting relationships. Furthermore, a partial concurrent update strategy achieves a better balance between accuracy and revision minimization compared to current or fully concurrent methods. Finally, deriving seasonally adjusted price deflators from seasonally adjusted volume and current price data aligns more closely with the underlying economic structure of Armenian QNA, given that QNA data is available primarily in nominal terms. These results remain consistent across various sensitivity checks, supporting our methodological approach for analyzing Armenia's QNA series |
| Keywords: | Armenia; JDemetra+; national accounts; seasonal adjustment; X13-ARIMA-SEATS |
| JEL: | C22 C32 C50 |
| Date: | 2025–06–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0786 |
| By: | Enkhbaatar Oyungerel (Bank of Mongolia); Urangoo Erdenebileg (Bank of Mongolia) |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to develop a framework for implementing the Countercyclical Capital Buffer (CCyB) in Mongolia's banking sector by identifying early warning indicators of systemic risk and examining the impact of capital adequacy on bank lending. Using quarterly data from 2000 to 2024, the study employs signaling (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve), logit regression, decision tree analysis, and panel regression techniques. Results show that credit-to-GDP gaps, external and fiscal imbalances are strong predictors of banking crises. Additionally, a one-percentagepoint increase in the capital adequacy ratio reduces loan-to-asset ratio by 0.74 percentage points, with the effect more pronounced among larger banks. These findings support the case for a tailored, data-driven CCyB framework in Mongolia and offer broader implications for countercyclical policy design in small, open and commoditydependent economies. |
| Keywords: | countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB); capital adequacy ratio; bank lending; early warning indicators; financial stability |
| JEL: | E58 G28 G32 C23 |
| Date: | 2025–07–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp10-2025 |