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THE NEXUS BETWEEN SUSTAINABLE VALUE CHAIN ACTIVITIES AND FINANCIAL BENEFITS OF THE SOYBEAN VALUE CHAIN SYSTEM IN THE NORTHERN REGIONS OF GHANA
Views:291Soybean is an important crop that contributes to economic freedom and food security. The study of soybean value chain is therefore important to improve on the activities of the chain actors for an overall economic gains. This paper aims to examine the nexus between sustainable value chain and financial benefits of the soybean value chain system in Ghana. Specifically, we employ the triple bottom line model to examine the soybean value chain from economic, social and environmental perspectives using sample data from Ghana. With a sample size of 300 including all actors of the value chain, our findings reveal that chain actors do not differ in their perceptions of overall financial gains that accrued to them with their involvement in chain economic activities. The findings further revealed that perceived financial sustainability of chain activities was affected by tangible financial benefits. Moreover, the results further show that chain actors’ perception of social sustainability performance was significantly affected by expected overall financial gains that accrue to them as a result of their participation in chain economic activities.
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The global financial crisis: Implications for capital to agribusiness
59-62Views:290The global economy has continued to experience lingering effects of the global financial crisis that began in 2007. Although attention was initially given to the liquidity crisis and survival of some the world’s largest corporations and institutions, the financial crisis is likely to have long-lasting implications for agribusiness. As the world slowly recovers from the crisis, another round of problems are emerging as governments and international institutions attempt to unwind the positions they took in an effort to prevent the global economic bubble from bursting. Perhaps the most problematic factor for businesses is access to capital in sufficient amounts and at affordable rates. Governments and institutions, particularly in the United States (U.S.) and the European Union, have increased their financial obligations as the result of activities taken to curtail the economic crisis. These financial obligations and the associated financial risks place pressure on financial markets and tend to restrain the availability of capital and increase the cost of capital for businesses. However, the U.S. agricultural credit market has not experienced problems to the same extent as general business (commercial and industrial) and real estate credit markets have. In general, U.S. farm businesses have a strong balance sheet, adequate repayment capacity, sufficient amount of assets to offer collateral for loans, and reasonable profits. Thus, U.S. farm businesses have had an ample supply of credit at relatively low interest rates.
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GENDER-BASED FINANCIAL ACCESS IN LIBERIA'S FISHING INDUSTRY
Views:92One essential component of the competitive operation of the fishing industry is the availability of finance. Access to finance is an important issue, but women's access to finance is more critical than men's. The study's objective is to emphasize gendered experiences with financial need, access to and selection of financial services, and service providers among Liberian actors in the fish industry. The study collected and analyzed data using a cross-sectional design. The research used primary data collection methods. Workers in Liberia's artisanal fishing value chain, both men and women, were the main population of interest. Respondents were chosen for the study using a two-stage sampling technique. Purposive sample of counties and random sampling of respondents were the two components of the two-stage sampling strategy. For the study, 278 men and women fish actors were selected as respondents using the random sampling technique. This study employed quantitative methodologies for data collection. From the findings, access to financial products is generally limited for fish actors. Nonetheless, some financial services and products are exclusive to either gender. Commercial banks are more accessible to men than to women. Because of their low income and educational attainment, women have limited access to commercial banks.
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The role of mental budgeting in healthy financial behavior: a survey among self-employed entrepreneurs
15-25Views:602Self-employed entrepreneurs (without personnel) manage their business and household finances at the same time. Both domains tend to interact with each other. In this study, it is studied whether and how self-employed entrepreneurs manage their finances. More specifically, the role of mental budgeting and time orientation in healthy financial behavior is studied. Mental budgeting is a way to manage expenses. It entails setting budgets, making reservations on budgets, compensating after too much spending on a budget, and non-fungibility (treating money as earmarked and categorized). It can be expected that self-employed entrepreneurs using mental budgeting strategies behave in a more healthy financial manner. Survey data were collected among self-employed people without personnel in The Netherlands. The survey contained, among others, questions about the company, time orientation, financial management, tax attitude, reported tax compliance, and concern or worry about the future. Questions were factor analyzed using principal component analyses. The resulting scales were used for further analyses. Regression analyses were performed to predict concern or worry about finances, financially restricting to and exceeding budgets, and reporting tax compliance. In this paper, two components of time orientation are distinguished: awareness of consequences and carelessness about the future. From these components, four orientation types of self-employed people were obtained. The orientation type focusing on long-term consequences shows more healthy financial behavior, whereas the orientation type focusing on the present and less on consequences shows less healthy financial behavior. Responsible and healthy financial behavior of self-employed entrepreneurs is related to focusing on long-term consequences, using mental budgeting, and keeping one’s budgets. Aspects of mental budgeting are predicting worry about business finances. Differential effects of mental budgeting were found on restricting one’s budgets, and exceeding budgets, respectively. Of two measures of future circumstances (work disability, pension), only pension measures were predicting worrying about finances. Mental budgeting was not related to tax compliance, except for fungibility. Past tax behavior is predictive of other (past) tax behaviors. Fiscal history measures prove to be correlated with present measures.
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A multi-dimensional ethical approach to accounting and reporting practices
13-26Views:323Purpose – The purpose of this research is to find out the multi-dimensional ethical approach to accounting and reporting practices going on in India and abroad. What has been the shift in Reporting Practices by Indian companies? What drives the Indian companies to report on the non-financial matters?
Design/methodology/approach – This paper mainly focuses on the inclusion of Non-Financial Matters in the Corporate Annual Reports. An Empirical Survey was carried out and the questionnaires were administered to 122 respondents comprising of 75 academicians and 47 chartered accountants. This paper compares the perceptions of academicians and accounting professionals on the ethical reporting practices of the Indian companies.
Findings – The results were tested using the t-test analysis. The research suggests that more companies should report on their environmental, social, and corporate governance performance and find a way to express them in their Annual Reports and the reporting of data regarding the carbon emissions, energy use, pollution, impact on the local economy, etc., should be made mandatory for companies.
Research limitations/implications – The research included respondents who are currently living in Delhi. For more generalized opinion nationwide survey can be carried out. Another important category of stakeholder for judging the usability of Corporate Annual Reports could be the Institutional Investors.
Practical implications – The results of this study would help the policy makers in framing the guidelines for standardized annual reports, synergizing social and business interest needs on top priority. Corporate philanthropy needs to transform into the realm of core business and corporate social responsibility. Integrated reporting could pave the way for synthesizing financial and non-financial reporting into one form and give a holistic view of companies’ strategies to its stakeholders incorporating new dimensions of IFRS.
Social implications – More emphasis on Non-financial matters will certainly contribute in making the corporates more responsible to the society, environment, and to the future generations. -
Recent trends in the Croatian agricultural business sector
109-113Views:272The purpose of this paper is to explore recent trends in the Croatian agriculture and forestry business sector and compare it with the Croatian economy as a whole. This topic is considered interesting because recent business years have been heavily influenced by the global financial crisis. Many authors would say that agriculture, as a specific branch of the economy, does not follow general trends, but is affected rather by other factors, especially such as environmental ones. The global financial crisis had the most negative impact on the Croatian economy in the 2008/2009 period, when the GDP growth rate tumbled from 2.4% to -5.8%. Although some positive movements have been recorded since 2009, a recession is still going on. Based on information from the National Financial Agency (FINA) database we found that during the period 2007-2011, agricultural firms experienced the same trends as the whole economy, except in terms of average monthly salaries and employment. However, due to the impact of / on? agricultural products prices and yields, in two year period from 2008 to 2010, agricultural firms recorded an almost linear fall in revenues, while the national business sector on the whole experienced a sharp fall in revenues in 2009 and then only a modest fall in 2010.
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Information content of a sports undertaking’s statements serving different purposes – particularly with reference to the player rights
119-133Views:445In the 21st century, sport is not just a fun, social cohesive force but also a business; it has become an independent industry by now and several countries possess developed sport markets. According to estimates, sport accounts for 4% of the EU’s GDP. The actuality of our research is given by the fact that the economic aspect of sports develops continuously which is also due to that more and more amounts already stream into sports in our days. In Hungary, sport is mainly state aided and has mostly financing problems while the sport businesses existing in the more developed Western Europe are principally sponsored by the private sector. The government considers sport as a strategic branch (HERCZEG et al, 2015) and manages as such because they see the international breakthrough potencies in sport as well. Sport companies must also adapt the business-based thinking, which requires the strategic planning and operation (BECSKY, 2011). The research covers the subject of economic approach of the players’ rights. The task of accounting is to give a true and fair image about the property, income and financial situation of an undertaking. Information provided by accounting is essential for both the management decisionmaking and the market operators. In Hungary, the sports undertakings, as each managing entity, have to prepare their statements according to the Act C of 2000 on Accounting (AoA.) (NAGY – BÁCSNÉ BÁBA, 2014). The purpose of this research is to examine how a domestic sports undertaking demonstrates the value of available players in the books and how the incomes and expenditures incurred with the players are accounted for, based on the regulations of the Hungarian, international associations and the Union of European Football Associations (hereinafter: UEFA). In order that the leaders of the businesses can make quick and appropriate economic decisions, it is essential in this intensively changing world that an enterprise should have a well-functioning accounting system based on up-to-date information. International Financial Reporting Standards (hereinafter: IFRS) are intended to provide the comparability across borders. Firstly, we deal with the accounting reporting system, both the Hungarian, international financial reporting standards and, relating to UEFA, the investigation of the intangible assets to a great extent during analysing the balance sheets. Then, we examine the income statements from the viewpoint player transfers. To what extent the rules of a statement laid down by UEFA differ from the ones of a statement prepared according to AoA? What is the difference in domestic and international relations? In this study, we search after the answers for questions mentioned before.
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New tools and opportunities in growth and climate friendly greening for small and medium enterprises in the European Union
25-31Views:353The role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is unquestionable in the European economies, while financial opportunities are still inadequate for them. The more than 20 million SMEs play a significant role in European economic growth, innovation and job creation. According to the latest EC Annual Report , SMEs are accounting for 99% of all non-financial enterprises, employing 88.8 million people and generating almost EUR 3.7 tn in added value for our economy. Despite the fact that there is plenty of EU funding available for these SMEs, for certain reasons these funds hardly reach them. But we have to see that the EU supports SMEs by various way, e.g. by grants, regulatory changes, financial instrument, direct funds. On the other hand, SMEs and decision makers realised that the environmental sustainability has to be attached to the economic growth, therefore more and more tools are available for these enterprises. Over the last few years, public institutions, the market, the financial community and non-governmental associations have explicitly demanded that firms improve their environmental performance. One of the greatest opportunities might lay in the Climate- and Energy Strategy till 2030 as 20% of the EU budget is allocated to climate-related actions, however the easy access to finance is still a key question. Does the EU recognise the actual difficulties? Is there a systemic reason behind the absorption problems? Is the EU creating a more businessfriendly environment for SMEs, facilitating access to finance, stimulates the green and sustainable growth and improving access to new markets? The paper analyses the current European situation of the SMEs and the effectiveness of some new tools, which are specially targeting SMEs.
JEL classification: Q18
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Determinants of dividend payout policy: An empirical study of banking sector of Pakistan
101-106Views:732One good way to communicate financial performance of a bank to its shareholders is the payment of dividend. The present study is attempted to explore the influence of financial efficiency, safety, risk and profitability on dividend policy using panel data of 10 commercial banks listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) for a period of 9 years between 2006 to 2014. The panel regression technique is used to analyze the data. The analysis shows a positive relationship of dividend payout ratio with safety and profitability in banking sector of Pakistan. The study identifies a negative association of dividend payout measure with financial efficiency and risk. The results show the statistically significant association of safety, risk and profitability with dividend payout ratio. Based on these findings it is concluded that safety, risk and profitability measures are relatively strong measures for defining dividend policy. The results are strongly indicating that safer the banks, the greater payout ratio the bank has. Moreover; banks with higher profitability and lower non-performing loans (NPLs) are believed to pay more dividends.
JEL code: G21, G23, G35
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Reporting companies’ performance – in respect of the international financial reporting standards (IFRS)
107-112Views:357The role of information became more important due to rapidly changing technical conditions, market and economic regulations in our globalizing world. Several regulations tend to provide the framework for reporting performance and income of the companies, but in different statements performance is inconsistently presented and many kind of evaluation method exist in the practice. These facts led to the demand of properly assess the financial health of an organization, and created a commonly accepted rule-system, which name was International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). In this paper I tend to present the statements, definitions and factors, which can have great influence in representing the performance, income of the company in the frame of the IFRS, and reveal the differences between the other accounting regulations (EU directives, Hungarian Accounting Act) in this field.
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The analysis of agro-economic effects of household food wastage through the example of bread
9-18Views:427In our busy world, where numerous people starve and where the resources are restricted, it is a key issue to pay particular attention to the topic of prevention and decrease of food loss as well as food wastage.Wastage of food produced and delivered to the end user (customer) is an issue arising globally and nationally as well, which results in efficiency loss at economic level in any case. While the FAO study mentions food waste of the order of 1.3 billion tonnes on a world scale, then the annual quantity of food waste in Hungary is estimated at about 1.8 million tonnes, which contains the waste of every member of the chain from production to consumption. On the basis of the data published by the Hungarian Food Bank (2015), the amount of food waste caused by the population is 400 000 tonnes. In compliance with our objectives, inputs – expressed by non-financial and financial indicators – emerge during production are assigned to the quantity of wasted food. Applying the aforementioned method we would like to make customers realize how many resources (land, water, artificial fertilizer, pesticide, seed and gasoil) are utilized needlessly in food verticum by the end products – at present by different breads they throw out. As our calculations prove by 10% waste of breads the utilization of 5 300 hectares of wheat land and 660 hectares of rye land can be considered unnecessary. By 10% waste of breads the financial value of the utilized resources is altogether 3.25 million EUR. Out of this the financial value of utilized artificial fertilizer is 1.10 million EUR (34%), of utilized pesticide is 1.15 million EUR (35%), of utilized gasoil is 0.70 million EUR (22%) and of utilized seed is 0.30 million EUR (9%). Among different breads, white bread is purchased in the greatest volume by the Hungarian households, from which 121 900 tonnes are bought annually on an average. This quantity is equal to almost the 40% of the annual bread sell. If 10% of purchased white bread is thrown out, it results in useless utilization of 2 676 hectares of wheat land in food verticum. The quantity of utilized water arising form wastage is 15.8 million m3. Further losses emerge as regards material inputs: artificial fertilizer- to the value of 0.50 million EUR, pesticide- to the value of 0.58 million EUR, seed to the value of 0.15 million EUR and gasoil-loss to the value of circa 0.35 million EUR. Totally, material input to the value of 1.58 million EUR is owing to the Hungarian households in case of 10% white bread wastage.
JEL code: Q53
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The development of integrated accounting in small and medium-sized companies in the agri- and foodsector f the Russian federation
131-135Views:313This paper focuses on the regulation of financial accounting in SMEs in the agri- and food sector in Russia. The paper presents the factors which influence the accounting system and the quality of the information it provides. The information and reports that are prepared according to international standards are not comparable with reports prepared by Russian standards. They do not facilitate external users in gathering relevant information on the current financial position. The present usage of different systems for procuring information to satisfy the needs of multiple stakeholder groups takes time, distorts information, and often does not provide a true and fair view on business performance. One way to overcome this is the use of an integrated accounting system which allows, within the limits of Russian legislation, to provide a broad information base for external reporting. International standards could be used like IAS41 or those applied in the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The derived data could be used for attraction of investments, presentation of information to all interested users, comparison of results of activities in similar companies, and as a benchmark for the activities of companies in various regions and/or segments. They could be used to compare Russian companies with similar ones in the European Union. This paper describes the benefits and pitfalls which companies potentially experience from implementing an integrated accounting information system for company management and financial reporting purposes in the Russian Federation.
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Problems with the application of conventional financial ratios in corporate risk measurement
5-12Views:453One of the enterprises’ biggest fears is a potential bankruptcy situation. This is the reason there are a lot of people who try to anticipate it. To be aware of the actual and expected future situation of a company is in the interest of all those who are related. This topic has come to the fore after the economic and financial crisis of 2008. Companies, their creditors and internal stakeholders should be aware of the liquidity and solvency situation of a given company, because its deterioration can cause serious problems for all of them. During the financial analysis of companies, the problem of liquidity indicators showing bad signals can often be experienced, although there is no visible sign of difficulty in their operation. In other cases, the situation is just the opposite, i.e. liquidity ratios are adequate, but still, the business faces payment issues. How could it happen? The purpose of this study is to present indicators which can measure more accurately and reliably the actual liquidity position of a company.
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Assessing the financial viability of the floricultural industry in Ghana
119-126Views:404This study determines the financial viability of the floricultural industry in Ghana using both discounting and non-discounting investment appraisal methods. The feasibility analysis suggests that large-scale floricultural firms are more profitable particularly with the production of cut flowers. However, investors with limited capital can venture into small-scale production specifically cut flowers. The conclusion is that the floriculture industry is financially viable therefore investors are encouraged to expend their resources in the industry. We recommend that the government and stakeholders need to create institutional support to enable the already established firms to further develop and attract new investors in the sector.
JEL. Code: Q13
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Performance indicators in CSR and sustainability reports in Hungary
137-142Views:616Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Corporate Sustainability reporting is a relatively new phenomenon in Hungary. As the external pressure from the civil society, public authorities and the media has so far been fairly low, this important corporate activity emerged only at the beginning of the last decade. In spite of this, several pioneering companies have started to publish information on its environmental and social performance in recent years. CSR and sustainability reports are seen increasingly as strategic documents that offer a balanced, objective, and comprehensive assessment of a firm’s non-financial performance. In 2008 and 2009, more than a third of the 100 largest companies reported on their non-financial results (most of them were GRI based reports). In 2010, sixty-one organisations published a report about their non- financial performance, and 22 of these for only the first time. The aim of this paper is to present recent attempts to use indicators in CSR and sustainability reports. On the basis of a detailed review of 70 CSR/sustainability reports published during the last 9 years in Hungary, an analysis was made on the performance indicators appearing in the reports. The motivations of indicator selection processes was analysed and the intended roles of indicator set in communication and strategy design was presented. The significance of and limits to the proposed indicators was discussed.
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The influence of direct support under common agricultural policy on farm incomes in Poland
33-37Views:344The main objective of the paper is the analysis of changes on the level of income of agricultural producers, which took place in Poland in the early years of the accession to the EU, as well as a determination of the scale of the impact of financial support under the Common Agricultural Policy on the farm income situation. Poland’s membership in the EU gives rural farms opportunities to improve their economic situation. Financial aid, mainly in the form of a direct payment, has been the main factor determining the economical status of rural farms, whilst the other income making factors, such as improved productivity and increased agricultural production have played a much smaller role. The increase in revenue has enabled farmers not only to increase current expenditures, but also to carry out modernization efforts, which will determine the future economic and structural situation of the Polish agricultural sector and its competitiveness. However, a strong differentiation in terms of the economic situation of rural farms according to their size and specialization in production was also noticed. As a result, there is a still large number of farms in which the revenues received by farmers are insufficient to assure them adequate life standard. Therefore such farms are not able to both develop and invest. Only economically strong rural farms with high production potential have such opportunities, meaning that EU support will never be able to fully minimize the effects of small-scale production or to offset the insufficient efficiency and productivity of production factors.
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Economical aspects of thermal and medical tourism
77-84Views:407Thermal and medical tourism in Hungary are characterised by a continuous development. The management, efficiency, operational effectiveness and offer of enterprises in the field of tourism influence the competitiveness of Hungary’s tourism. In the present day economic life the thorough analysis of the enterprises’ economy is indispensable. The result of the analytical methods applied by the report provide information for different stakeholders (owners, transporters, customers, employees, habilitators). The aim is to have data which inform us about the functioning, financial situation and profitability of the economic entities parallel with the factors and conditions determining these elements. In our paper we present the financial situation of the Demjén Thermal Spa Ltd., being one of the newest thermal spas of Hungary.
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The empirical examination of changes related to value drivers in the effects of the 2007-2008 crisis
31-35Views:315The article brings into the focus the corporate value creation and the main value drivers. The first goal of the study is to classify the most relevant value drivers, and their function of the firms’ value. Further objective of this paper is to present the effects of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. This article demonstrates the following. The first part introduces the value chain and illustrates the primary and the support activities of the companies. The second section briefly presents the 2007-2008 global economic crisis, introducing its causes, events and financial aspects. The third empirical part of the paper analyses the database featuring data from 18 European countries, 10 sectors and 1553 firms in the period between 2004 and 2011. At the end, the fourth part contains conclusions. Based on the related literature reviewed and in the conducted empirical research it can be assessed that 2008 can be seen unambiguously as the year of the crisis. In this year, all independent variables had a negative effect on the dependent variable.
JEL code: P40
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Co-innovation: what are the success factors?
29-36Views:281The problem we address in this paper is that in projects focusing on public-private cooperation to stimulate innovation in the Netherlands, initiatives often lack continuation after the study-phase. We extracted possible influencing variables from business and (transaction) cost economic theorizing, stakeholder and capability theory. Moreover, we used measures for classifying projects with respect to financial interdependencies between participants. We supposed that project characteristics influence managerial behavior to continue or stop. We studied 28 projects (20 supply chain projects and 8 biological product development projects). Our aim was to explore the barriers and success factors for these co-innovation projects: innovation as a cooperative effort between public sector/research institute and private organization(s). We derived data from project descriptions and performed semi-structured interviews with project informants. Critical to success appears to be ex ante commitment of all parties. Goal congruence, both at a personal and a company level, and proportionality of sharing in project results are of decisive importance to establish such commitment. Estimations about financial project results should be made in an early stage; they should be used as a basis for negotiations on the (re)distribution of costs and benefits, especially if the value added is disproportionally distributed over the participants. Ideally, project teams of co-innovation projects should bring in complementary capabilities: technical, marketing, financial and organizational. Project governance should therefore be organized in such a way that the knowledge gaps are filled in before kick-off.
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Empirical research on corporate strategies in Hungarian dairy industry
169-179Views:353Corporate strategy has never been as important as it is nowadays. Markets are changing rapidly because of consumer demands, innovations, information flow and economic changes. Our paper concentrates on Hungarian dairy industry (hereinafter dairy) and four main objectives were defined to be analysed: (1) domestic dairy company features, (2) main strategic characteristics, (3) how companies’ strategy resonates on the consumer side and (4) companies’ financial background were analysed as well. A company database was made in order to prepare for the primary research and to understand better the nature of today’s market. B2B (26 companies) and B2C (503 people) surveys were used in order to gain primary data. In 2017 132 Hungarian companies were observed in milk processing, but 44% of the market participants are not present in dairy competition. It is a fairly fragmented market structure because 10-20% of the annual turnover is accumulated among the 80-90% of competitors. The factor analysis of the data proved that the dairy companies followed m strategies at the same time; and it is assumed that most of them are unconscious. Strategically, the majority of the dairy sector is not up-to-date and modern enough. SMEs sector management skills and strategic preparedness are considered to be out-of-date and insufficient. Strategic planning can possibly have an influence on financial results, which was only partly proved by the analysed criteria system. The production and use of own raw milk supplies might make companies experience financial benefits. Nearly 78% of the respondents would rather purchase goods made from own raw material. The willingness to pay a higher price for this was in average 5-15%.
JEL Code: L1, L66
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Impacts of the global financial and economic crisis on the agro-food industry and rural livelihoods in Serbia
113-118Views:333Sixty-five per cent of the Serbian land area is agricultural and 55% of the population is rural.Agriculture share of GDP is more than 10% and about 47% of the rural labour force deals with agriculture. The aim of this work is to analyse the impacts of the global financial and economic crisis on the Serbian agro-food sector and rural communities. Measures introduced, mainly by public institutions, for relieving the consequences of the crisis are presented and discussed. Easily accessible yet high quality data from the central Office of Statistics in Serbia and specialized literature have been used. Impacts have been assessed by analyzing and discussing the trends of many socio-economic indicators. The crisis has had general impacts on the Serbian economy (low GDP growth, unemployment increase, price volatility, purchasing power decrease, etc.). Due to the crisis growth in agricultural production has been very low (0.1% in 2009). Agro-food exports decreased dramatically in 2008. About 9000 agricultural jobs were lost in 2008 and 2009. Reduced exports and lower domestic demand impacted negatively on agricultural commodity prices and agricultural household incomes.Access to credit became more difficult especially for small producers. However, agriculture is still a very important safety net. Agricultural employment share has increased both for men and women. The importance of agriculture is even higher if we consider the “grey agricultural economy”. To mitigate the crisis effects, the Government provided subsidies to rural people and will adopt the National Strategic Plan and Programme for Rural Development. Nevertheless, public institutions - in partnership with private, civil society and international organisations - should improve rural producers’ access to market information and credits and foster investments in rural areas including non-agricultural ones and those aiming at improving physical capital.
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Analysis the advanced ICT usage of the Hungarian SME sector for preparing a domestic agri-food research
147-153Views:352In the Hungarian agro-food sector SMEs have a key role but regarding the tendency of the performance of SME sector, comparing to EU-28 average, the performance of Hungarian SME sector has gradually worsened between 2008 and 2015 while the EU average has an increasing trend. ICT can help enterprises and this article is an overview of the ICT situation of Hungarian SMEs. It is important to analyse in detail the ICT usage characteristics of agro SMEs in the food supply chain because these ICT devices, tools and services are crucial to smooth the information flow within the chain. For all these reasons our work aims to find out how Hungarian agro-food SMEs use ICT and how ICT adoption affect their business procedures, performance and development. A striking observation to emerge from the data comparison is the difference among SMEs and large enterprises regarding the usage of the different basic and advanced ICT solutions. A much bigger percent of large companies use advanced ICT then SMEs and mainly small enterprises are lagging behind as the attitudes of medium sized enterprises are rather similar to the large ones. In Hungary small enterprises in agro-food industry are in difficult financial state and for them free Cloud Computing services can offer good opportunities as they do not have initial costs. ICT adoption is very important to them as ICT sector is a dynamically growing sector and if customers and partners of an enterprise adapt faster to these technological innovations, it may have a negative effect on the different processes, performance and financial results of the organisation. In this article our aim was to determine the main question groups for our questionnaire which focus mainly on ICT solutions supporting the quality of communication and relationship between partners. As the basic IT tools are available in the major part even in the SMEs besides large companies, the two main issues will be the usage of advanced online services and the usage of high quality ICT solutions.
JEL Code: M15
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The problems of regional development in Montenegro
85-88Views:283Economic development is a continuous, stochastic process considering that development depends on a multitude of historical, political, economic, cultural, ethnic and other factors. In the process of development, each country puts effort into strengthening their manufacturing potential, increasing the competitiveness of their economy by modernizing technology, and raising the level of education, culture etc. Owing to the accentuated actions of these factors, and different social, economic and other circumstances, there has been emerging polarizations in regional development, urbanization and so on. Proof of a country’s level of economic development can be found in various indicators such as capital equipment; the share of manufacturing, agriculture, and foreign trade; the share of the private sector in total ownership; the development of financial institutions and capital markets; the development and stability of the legal system; the development of transport, telecommunication and other infrastructure; the realized standard of living; the development of democracy and human rights protection; preserved environment etc. Economies of developing countries, including Montenegro, are usually characterized by a low capital equipment and low labor productivity, expensive manufacturing and insufficient share of world trade, high import dependence, uncompetitiveness, high unemployment, undeveloped entrepreneurship, and an undeveloped financial institutions. Polarized countries in an economic and development sense, are therefore those which are unevenly developed, and are constantly faced with highly pronounced problems of disparity in regional development and demographic problems. Solving these problems is a long-term process and necessitates. The design of a regional policy that is more efficient than the previous ones, as well, as building a different procedure for fulfilling the adopted regional policies.
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A Quantitative Assessment of the Rurality and an Efficiency Analysis of Emigration in Romania
39-46Views:353In Romania, as in many other Eastern European countries, the early 1990s were marked by a significant emigration from the countryside as a consequence of the transition from a centralised economy to an open one and due to key changes in the political framework. The permanent emigration has predominantly been concentrated in rural areas where multiple socio-economic variables such as GDP per capita, unemployment, and public financial subsidies aimed at supporting people at risk of severe deprivation and poverty have all had a direct effect on rural depopulation. The rurality is a complex theoretical construct comprising many items and variables and is, therefore, difficult to define in a concise manner. The aim of this paper is to assess the evolution of emigration in Romania between 2001 and 2016 through a quantitative approach, estimating an index of rurality for the same period composed of a set of socio-economic variables having a direct or indirect nexus to it. In the first phase of research, a matrix of correlation and a multiple regression model has been used in order to estimate the direct links among all investigated variables. Following the quantitative methodology, in the second phase Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) has been used in order to assess the main cause-effect relationships among a few selected endogenous variables and a set of socio-economic items. Furthermore, using a non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) output-oriented model, this research has assessed the efficiency in terms of permanent emigration from Romania estimated as an output to minimise and not as an output to maximise, as investigated by traditional efficiency approaches. In terms of efficiency, financial subsidies allocated by national authorities and the level of per capita Gross Domestic Product have acted directly on the level of emigration. The index of rurality in 2016 has been influenced in particular by he pluriactivity in farms in terms of agritourism, the dimension of farms in terms of land capital endowment, and the level of GDP per capita.
JEL Classification: Q10; Q18
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Note on simple and logarithmic return
127-136Views:1092In this paper we describe and clarify the definitions and the usage of the simple and logarithmic returns for financial assets like stocks or portfolios. It can be proven that the distributions of the simple and logarithmic returns are really close to each other. Because of this fact we investigate the question whether the calculated financial risk depends on the use of simple or log returns. To show the effect of the return-type on the calculations, we consider and compare the riskiness order of stocks and portfolios. For our purposes, in the empirical study we use seven Hungarian daily stock prices and for the risk calculation we focus on the following risk measures: standard deviation, semivariance, Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall. The results clearly show that the riskiness order can depend on the use of the return type (i.e. log or simple return). Generally, often – due to missing data or the nature of the analysis – one has to use approximations. We also examine the effect of these approximations on the riskiness order of stocks and of portfolios. We found differences in the riskiness order using exact or approximated values. Therefore, we believe, if this is possible, exact values instead of approximated ones should be used for calculations. Additionally, it is important that one uses the same type of return within one study and one has to be aware of the possible instabilities when comparing return results.
JEL Code: C18
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