Central And East European Countries Research Articles

Female empowerment and masculinity – a cultural trait? Evidence from the CEE countries

PurposeAs women’s position in the economy and society is often explained by cultural factors, this study aims to verify whether the observed changes in female empowerment in the region of Central and East European (CEE) countries of the European Union (EU) are associated with masculinity as a cultural trait.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply the k-means clustering method to group CEE countries into clusters with similar levels of female empowerment in two time points – 2013 and 2019. Next, the authors examine the clusters and cross-reference them with the national culture’s masculinity to explore the interrelations between female empowerment and cultural traits in the CEE countries and their development in time.FindingsThe analyses reveal that female empowerment is not uniform or stable across the CEE countries. The masculinity level is not strongly related to women’s position in these countries, and changes in female empowerment are not closely linked to masculinity.Originality/valueDespite the tumultuous history of women’s empowerment in the CEE countries, the issues related to gender equality and cultural traits pertaining to the region are relatively understudied in the literature. By focusing on the CEE region, the authors fill the gap in examining the independencies between female empowerment and cultural masculinity.

Spillover Effects of Stock Markets in the COVID-19 Pandemic Period: Evidence From Central and East European Countries

This study aims to investigate the correlation and the spillover effects between Central and East European (CEE) Countries’ stock markets during the Covid-19 Pandemic Period. CEE countries are listed as Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania by OECD. The data set was obtained from the Bloomberg data services and includes 308 observations of daily returns between March 11th, 2020 and August 1st, 2021. As a result of the empirical analysis using the Pearson Correlation, the Multivariate VAR Model, and the Granger Causality Test, a high correlation was found between the stock markets of CEE countries, and 15 causality relationships were determined. The analysis also revealed bidirectional relationships between the Bulgaria Stock Exchange Index and Romania Bucharest Stock Exchange Index, the Polish Warsaw Stock Exchange Index and Croatia Zagreb Stock Exchange Index, the Romania Bucharest Stock Exchange Index and Bulgaria Stock Exchange Index, and the Croatia Zagreb Stock Exchange Index and Polish Warsaw Stock Exchange Index. High correlation and causality relationships, which are also supported by impulse-response and variance decomposition test results, reveal that there is a spillover effect between the stock markets of CEE countries.

Challenges of managerial responsibility and ethics for Central and East European countries based on the experience from the Czech Republic

The study aims to identify the typical key factors of ethical thinking and behaviour in Central and East European (CEE) countries, and regard them from the experience of privatization and transformation process in the Czech Republic. The background of ethical scandals and dilemmas of CEE countries reflects their roots in socialist education and state-planned economy, which are based on Marxism, which had and has serious consequences. The study describes the main philosophical reasons affecting the managerial limits in the ethical context of business and management behaviour after the transformation period with the apparent challenges in management thinking and executive education for today. The following description and interpretation of the fundamental implications of the presented analysis for managerial responsibility and ethics are discussed with the relevant professional literature that illuminates the personal, social and economic long-term consequences. Cross-country comparisons reflect developments in the European Union, the Amnesty International Corruption Index and other specific influences according to regional sources. Resulting challenges relate to challenges of business and management philosophy in business schools. The conclusion shows the space for the following professional discussion with European partners and PRME signatories regarding the ethical challenges for executive education and sustainability management in CEE. Recent academic publications show that managerial responsibility and ethical behaviour are increasingly in the focus of interest of both academics and company management.

‘Being’, ‘Becoming’ and ‘Challenging’ European: Subject Positions in the European Heritage Label

This article scrutinises the subject positions of ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European in the context of the European Heritage Label (EHL), a flagship cultural heritage action of the European Union. While the positions are widely used in academia to analyse the relationship between the Central and East European (CEE) countries and the EU/Europe, the setting of the current research shows how the power dynamics between CEE countries and the EU contribute to forming ‘European heritage’ and contribute to the EHL as EU-level authorised heritage discourse in the making. Simultaneously, the transformative potential of heritage makes these subject positions visible and opens them up for changes.

Research on Agricultural Cooperation Potential between China and CEE Countries Based on Resource Complementarity

Central and East European (CEE) countries are attractive among emerging markets due to a combination of factors such as economic growth and market potential. Although the CEE countries as a whole have a very high degree of connectivity, each country has different market opportunities and external environment, so agricultural enterprises wanting to enter the CEE market must take into account the diverse and complex resource base of CEE countries. In the light of economic globalization, China and CEE countries face mutual opportunities and challenges, and it is necessary to strengthen agricultural cooperation. The potential of agricultural investment cooperation between China and CEE countries is the basis for multinational enterprises to allocate resources and implement internationalization strategies rationally. The purpose of this paper is to analyze theagricultural cooperation potential between China and CEE countries in the perspective of resource complementarity, with a selection of macro data related to agricultural capacity from 2009–2018. In particular, this study examines the differences and complementarities between China and CEE countries in terms of agricultural resource conditions and product output and trade; by constructing an agricultural cooperation potential evaluation model, the entropy value method is applied to predict and evaluate the potential characteristics of agricultural cooperation between China and CEE countries in 2021–2025. The research results show that the current intermittent and episodic nature of agricultural cooperation between China and CEE countries does not match the high or medium-high level of complementarity between agricultural production factors. Thus, agricultural enterprises can utiliza such considerable cooperation potential based on the resource complementarity to develop internationalization strategies and overseas investment.

Work, family, Fatherland: the political economy of populism in central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT Since 2008, Hungary and Poland have developed a distinctive populist economic program, which has begun to spread to other Central and East European Countries (CEECs). This article develops a theory of the political economy of populism in CEECs, arguing that these countries’ dependence on foreign capital constrained them to follow (neo)liberal economic policies. After the global financial crisis, populist parties began to break from the (neo)liberal consensus, ‘thickening’ their populist agenda to include an economic program based on a conservative developmental statism. Case studies of Hungary, Poland, and Serbia describe these policies and show that they exhibit a particular form of economic nationalism that emphasizes workforce activation, natalism, and sovereignty. This shift has gone hand-in-hand with attempts to attract investments from Eastern authoritarian states, illustrating the connection between CEEC development strategies and sources of foreign capital.

Decomposing Central and Eastern Europe’s Trade: Extending the Evidence

In the early nineties Central and East European Countries (CEEC) took considerable liberalization efforts which led to visible changes in CEEC trade. In the period under observation, from 1995 to 2016, these countries recorded high growth rates, which exceeded the performance of other regions, such as the OECD and Russia. These trade developments are described and interpreted in this note on a descriptive rather than an analytical basis. First, trade volumes by goods categories are examined to account for what kind of goods are the major trade growth drivers. The expansion of CEEC imports and exports can be accounted for by trade growth specifically of goods used in production, i.e., parts and components, capital goods and transport equipment. It can be associated with the development of vertical production networks among the old EU member states and the new EU-8 countries. Examining EU-8 exports to and imports from Germany confirms this finding: EU-8 states tend to import parts and components and intermediate goods from Germany to produce and export parts and components or final capital goods to Germany. Using the notion of comparative advantage further helps to attribute the extensive development of vertical linkages with the CEEC to the similarity of sectoral productivity vectors between the CEEC and the rest of the world. Second, the effects of liberalization on the variety versus the intensity of trade are described. The liberalization of the CEEC economies is expressed by the strong rise in newly traded goods, especially goods used in production, rather than volume growth in already traded goods. Considering imports, a higher input variety might thereby signal a change of the economy’s state of technology.

Work, Family, Fatherland: The Political Economy of Populism in Central and Eastern Europe

Since 2008, Hungary and Poland have developed a distinctive populist economic program, which has begun to spread to other Central and East European Countries (CEECs). This article develops a theory of the political economy of populism in CEECs, arguing that these countries’ dependence on foreign capital constrained them to follow (neo)liberal economic policies. After the global financial crisis, populist parties began to break from the (neo)liberal consensus, “thickening” their populist agenda to include an economic program based on a conservative developmental statism. Case studies of Hungary, Poland, and Serbia describe these policies and show that they exhibit a particular form of economic nationalism that emphasizes workforce activation, natalism, and sovereignty. This shift has gone hand-in-hand with attempts to attract investments from Eastern authoritarian states, illustrating the connection between CEEC development strategies and sources of foreign capital.

Russian Multinational Direct Investment in East Central European Countries

Abstract This chapter assesses the characteristics of Russian outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) and multinationals in general and in particular in five EU-member Central and East European (CEE) states, including Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Besides official statistics, the research relies on company data analysed using Dunning’s eclectic paradigm and his typology of four motives. In addition to pull factors, the importance of push factors is emphasised. Weiner finds that Russian FDI in the five CEE countries is dominated by market-seeking and, to a lesser extent, efficiency-seeking projects carried out by state-owned or state-related private firms. Most Russian FDI has been done in hydrocarbons, iron, steel and machinery, but banking, software solutions, electronic production, real estate and even the light industry have also been targeted.

The Unexpected Consequences of China’s Cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe

The Central and East European (CEE) region is often overlooked in the conversations on contemporary geopolitics. Yet, owing to China’s growing relations in the CEE countries, the region has been subject to increasing international attention. By process tracing the development of the ‘17 + 1’ mechanism, this article offers a brief overview of Sino-CEE relations. Situated within the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the ‘17 + 1’ has provided a unique regional arrangement for extending Chinese influence in the CEE countries. This article explores whether there is something else than the instrumental economic reasoning for the willingness of CEE countries to partner with China. The analysis detects three distinct (and not always complementary) strategic narratives, motivating the participation of CEE states in the ‘17 + 1’ mechanism. The study concludes with an enquiry on China’s preparedness to respond to such identity geopolitics not only in the CEE region but also throughout the vast expanse covered by the BRI initiative.

The Role of Precarious Employment in Emigration Flows from Croatia

Current global economic trends, trade competition and technological change, have greatly expanded the complexity of labour market contracts and increased the number of employees working under temporary work status and non-standard forms of employment. Part of economic theory tries to explain the influence of those labour market trends on migration. This is particularly important in the case of Croatia, which has been experiencing a large scale of emigration in recent years. The number of people that left abroad increased four times from 2012. The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of precarious employment in international migration movements, especially from Croatia, but also from Central and East European countries (CEEC). Data on migration, wages, employment quality, GDP and unemployment used in this paper come from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics for Croatia and Eurostat databases for the rest of the sample.

China in Central and Eastern Europe: the unintended effects of identity narratives

The Central and East European (CEE) part of the Eurasian landmass is often overlooked in the conversations on contemporary geopolitics. Yet, owing to China’s relations with the CEE countries, the region has been subject to growing strategic attention. This article offers a brief overview of the history of this relationship by focusing on the “17+1” mechanism. Nestled within the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the “17+1” has provided a unique regional arrangement for extending Chinese influence in the sixteen CEE countries. The article inquires whether there is something else than the instrumental economic reasoning for the willingness of CEE countries to partner with China. The analysis detects three distinct strategic narratives motivating the participation of CEE states in the “17+1” mechanism. The study concludes with an enquiry on China’s preparedness to respond to such identity geopolitics not only in the CEE region, but throughout the vast expanse covered by the BRI initiative.

What matters for firms? participation in Global Value Chains in Central and East European countries?

Research background: There has been an extensive body of literature on the growing importance of global value chains (GVCs) in developed and emerging economies. This literature argues that GVCs significantly affect international trade patterns and open new possibilities for participating economies to increase both their exports? quantity and quality, acquire advanced production technologies and improve the overall economic performance. However, the empirical evidence from the Central and East European (CEE) countries, especially at the firm level is still relatively scarce. The majority of existing empirical studies on GVCs in the CEE countries are based on sectoral input-output data.
 Purpose of the article: In this article, we study the determinants of firm participation in GVCs using firm-level BEEPS data for 29 CEE countries. We hypothesize that larger, foreign-owned, more productive and innovative firms producing a limited range of products and employing skilled workers are more likely to be involved in GVCs.
 Methods: The intensity of participation in GVCs is measured by the usage of imported inputs and the intensity of exports. The empirical study uses the BEEPS firm-level data set for the period 2011?2014 and the probit estimation method.
 Findings & Value added: The assembled empirical evidence generally supports these hypotheses. In addition, we find that firms which participate in GVCs pro-duce a smaller range of products, which means that they concentrate on their core competencies. In particular, we find that the EU membership may facilitate participation in GVCs, especially for smaller firms in the CEE countries. This article adds to the existing literature by examining the firm-level determinants of participation in GVCs using the cross-country firm-level survey conducted by the EBRD and the World Bank.

The Impact of a Crisis on the Innovation Systems in Europe: Evidence from the CIS10 Innovation Survey

The varieties of the national innovation systems among European countries are reflected in the large differences, discrepancies and sometimes unexpected results in the innovation processes and their influence on labor productivity growth. The goal of this paper is to find the differences between the drivers of the innovation systems and their influence on growth of productivity between two groups of countries with different institutional settings in the period of the financial and economic crisis in Europe. The first group consists of a selection of CEE (Central and East European) countries. The second group consists of Germany, Norway, Spain and Portugal. In order to measure the role of innovation on productivity growth we use the CDM (Crépon, Duguet and Mairesse) model of simultaneous equations. The model directly links R&D engagement and intensity to innovation outcomes measured either as process or product innovation, and then estimates the effectiveness of the innovative effort leading to productivity gains. The company-level dataset is drawn from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS10). There is one common result for the two groups, that in general the probability for a typical firm to engage in innovation increases with its size. The other factors influencing the decision process differ. A firm’s productivity increases significantly with innovation output, but only with firms operating in Western Europe. The results for firms in Central and Eastern Europe indicate that these countries’ national innovation systems are vulnerable, and in periods of crises higher level of innovation output leads to lower labor productivity. Therefore, systemic faults in the national innovation systems result in their unsustainability, especially visible in periods of crises, as was the case in 2008–2010. When it comes to Western European countries, the financial and economic crisis did not have negative effects on their innovation systems as innovation activity resulted in higher levels of labor productivity. Regarding the CEE group of countries, the crisis influenced both the innovation process and labor productivity as a whole negatively.

Diversifying away from Russian Gas: The Сase of Poland

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Efekty makroekonomiczne polityki fiskalnej i monetarnej w gospodarkach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej

Objective : The aim of this paper is to study the effects of budget balance and money supply on producer price inflation (PPI), the current account balance and the output gap for five Central and East European (CEE) countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania). Research Design & Methods : Based on the quarterly data over the 2000–2017 period, macroeconomic effects of the budget balance and money supply are estimated with the Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) model, which anticipates reliance of the money supply upon the current account balance on impact, with a simultaneous dependence of the latter upon the business cycle. Findings : A budget surplus did not cause any output losses in any of the five CEE countries. For three of the countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland), a budget surplus is associated with decelerating producer price inflation and improvement in the current account balance (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland). A budget surplus is likely to bring about an increase in the money supply. Expansionary monetary policy is a factor behind either worsening of the budget balance (Bulgaria, Poland), or a short-lived improvement in it (the Czech Republic, Hungary). Macroeconomic effects of the money supply tend to be heterogeneous, supporting both demand-side and supply-side transmission mechanisms. Implications / Recommendations : Our results favour conservative fiscal and monetary policies in all five of the CEE countries, particularly in the Czech Republic and Poland. Contribution : The scientific contribution of the article is that it justifies the use of the dependent economy model, with output disaggregated into tradable and nontradable sectors, for analysis of economic policy in the CEE countries.

Benchmarking agricultural and other environmental performances of Central and East European countries

Enhancing agricultural and other environmental performances has become an essential part of sustainable development policy in countries around the globe. Although Europe is considered as a global leader in the environmental competitiveness, the national economies within Europe region achieve different results in this field. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate current agricultural and other environmental performances of sixteen Central and East European (CEE) countries, but also to identify critical determinants for its improvement in the future period. The research is conducted through comparative analysis, benchmarking method, and correlation analysis. The data basis includes the Environmental Performance Index (2018). The research findings suggest the inferiority of CEE countries in the comparison with the bestranked European countries. The paper contributes to the sustainability literature and could serve as a practical guide in the process of formulating the development policies connected with agricultural and other environmental performances in CEE countries.

The Visibility of Papers Written by Authors from European Post-Socialist Countries as an Indicator of Integration into the EU Legal System

The equality of the European Union (EU) Member States is one of the principles that the European Union is based on. However, in terms of the economy, culture and influence, a hierarchy of EU Members States is evident. The European post-socialist or Central and East European (CEE) countries are often perceived as being at the lower end of the scale or on the ‘periphery’ of the EU. The aim of this paper is to gain insights into the specificities of the CEE countries’ legal scientific communication and the visibility of legal scholars’ work within the EU. Bibliometric analysis results show that scientific productivity has been significantly contributed to by papers published in domestic journals indexed in Scopus, with a share of 70%, and that the largest contributions are from Croatian, Romanian, Slovenian and Hungarian law journals. The Baltic States and EU candidate countries, representing nine out of 15 CEE countries, did not have their law journals indexed by Scopus in the period 1996-2013, which influenced their potential accessibility and visibility. The remaining 30% of papers were scattered over 112 international law journals, predominantly from the EU15 countries. On the other hand, the research shows that the recognition of papers measured in terms of the average number of citations speaks in favour of publication in international journals, with 2.9 citations per paper compared to 1.2 in domestic journals. It also shows that the citation of a paper is influenced by the language of the text and whether the paper has more than one author. Thus, although the vast majority of papers are published in domestic journals, the ones published in international journals are distinctly more visible in the academic community. In order to accomplish the integration of CEE countries into EU academic legal communication, the visibility of CEE countries’ legal scholars’ work is crucial. According to the analysis of this research, to achieve visibility, CEE countries’ legal scholars should publish more in a lingua franca, which nowadays means English. The other possible way is to enhance the visibility and strengthen the position of scientific journals published in CEE countries by accepting professional journal standards. Needless to say, the aspect of the content and issues explored and published is also crucial.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Central and Eastern Europe

The Central and East European (CEE) part of the Eurasian landmass is often overlooked in the conversations on contemporary geopolitics. Yet, owing to China’s investment in the CEE countries, the region has been subject to growing strategic attention. This article offers a brief overview of the history of this relationship by focusing on the “16+1” mechanism. Nestled within the broader Belt and Road Initiative, the “16+1” has provided a unique regional arrangement for extending Chinese influence in the sixteen CEE countries. The article inquires whether there is something else than the instrumental economic reasoning for the willingness of CEE countries to partner with China. The analysis detects four distinct (and mutually exclusive) strategic narratives motivating the participation of CEE states in the “16+1” mechanism. The study concludes with an enquiry on China’s preparedness to respond to such identity geopolitics not only in the CEE region, but throughout the vast expanse covered by the BRI initiative.

Publiczne wydatki na badania i rozwój i ich oddziaływanie na sektor prywatny: komplementarność czy substytucyjność? Analiza dla krajów Europy Środkowo‑Wschodniej

Celem artykułu jest analiza publicznych wydatków na B+R w Polsce i innych krajach Europy Środkowo‑Wschodniej (ESW) w kontekście ich udziału w strukturze wydatków publicznych ogółem oraz oddziaływania na wydatki na B+R finansowane ze źródeł prywatnych. W artykule postawiono hipotezę badawczą o komplementarności prywatnych i publicznych wydatków na badania i rozwój, którą poddano weryfikacji empirycznej w oparciu o panelowe modele regresji dla okresu 1999–2015. W badaniach potwierdzono komplementarność publicznych i prywatnych wydatków na B+R, jednak w przypadku modeli dla Polski tylko pod warunkiem, że nie wiązało się to ze wzrostem udziału wydatków publicznych w strukturze wydatków na B+R. Głównym wnioskiem wynikającym z modeli dla krajów ESW‑11 jest potwierdzenie braku efektu wypychania inwestycji prywatnych oraz obserwacja, że najbardziej prowzrostowe były nakłady publiczne zrealizowane w sektorze publicznym, pod warunkiem, że udział wydatków publicznych w strukturze wydatków nie był zbyt wysoki.