Paper analyses ?, ß and unconditional convergence of the real GDP per capita level in the new EU member states during their EU integration. Analysis showed a clear break in convergence and its resumption thus we discuss reasons for this and countries convergence prospects. Central and eastern European countries (CEEC) are considered as normal European economies despite their ongoing transition. Looking back at the old EU15 members, many of them have also gone through what can be considered transition from more protected and less liberalised economies into the economies of modern EU internal market.
COBISS.SI-ID: 28046637
This article presents an analysis of economic implications of the major EU enlargement in 2004. The research is based on sigma (s) and beta (b) convergence of per capita GDP among the 10 countries which joined the European Union in 2004. Our results confirm the existence of both types of convergence in the second half of the 1990s and the 2000s. Generally, the poorer new EU member states grew faster than the richer new EU member states. As a result, the income gap between these two groups of countries has narrowed although it still remains quite large. The convergence occurred at the rate of 4.2% during the period 1992-2006 and 7.0% and 9.6% during the sub-periods 1995-2006 and 2002-06 respectively.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10465564
The paper presents an original methods from the neural networks family. The development of the method has on original way solved some shortcomings of the already known methods in the field of spherical SOM networks. With an original way of optimisation of the neuron placements on the sphere is the presented method more efficient than her predecessor. The method can be used within numerous scientific fields also outside the economic research since it enables a big data analysis.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11637788
Rewarding cooperation is in many ways expected behaviour from social players. However, strategies that promote antisocial behaviour are also surprisingly common, not just in human societies, but also among eusocial insects and bacteria. Examples include sanctioning of individuals who behave prosocially, or rewarding of free-riders who do not contribute to collective enterprises.We therefore study the public goods game with antisocial and prosocial pool rewarding in order to determine the potential negative consequences on the effectiveness of positive incentives to promote cooperation. Contrary to a naive expectation, we show that the ability of defectors to distribute rewards to their like does not deter public cooperation as long as cooperators are able to do the same. Even in the presence of antisocial rewarding, the spatial selection for cooperation in evolutionary social dilemmas is enhanced. Since the administration of rewards to either strategy requires a considerable degree of aggregation, cooperators can enjoy the benefits of their prosocial contributions as well as the corresponding rewards. Defectors when aggregated, on the other hand, can enjoy antisocial rewards, but due to their lack of contributions to the public good they ultimately succumb to their inherent inability to secure a sustainable future. Strategies that facilitate the aggregation of akin players, even if they seek to promote antisocial behaviour, thus always enhance the long-term benefits of cooperation.
COBISS.SI-ID: 21604360
The most common assumption in evolutionary game theory is that players should adopt a strategy that warrants the highest payoff. However, recent studies indicate that the spatial selection for cooperation is enhanced if an appropriate fraction of the population chooses the most common rather than the most profitable strategy within the interaction range. Such conformity might be due to herding instincts or crowd behavior in humans and social animals. In a heterogeneous population where individuals differ in their degree, collective influence, or other traits, an unanswered question remains who should conform. Selecting conformists randomly is the simplest choice, but it is neither a realistic nor the optimal one. We show that, regardless of the source of heterogeneity and game parametrization, socially the most favorable outcomes emerge if the masses conform. On the other hand, forcing leaders to conform significantly hinders the constructive interplay between heterogeneity and coordination, leading to evolutionary outcomes that are worse still than if conformists were chosen randomly. We conclude that leaders must be able to create a following for network reciprocity to be optimally augmented by conformity. In the opposite case, when leaders are castrated and made to follow, the failure of coordination impairs the evolution of cooperation.
COBISS.SI-ID: 22051080
This article assesses the theory of purchasing power parity for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia in comparison with Austria, Germany, France and Italy, employing data from January 1992 to December 2006. The unit root tests applied fail to prove stationarity of the real exchange rate series. Although cointegration was found among nominal exchange rates and selected consumer price indices, the theory of purchasing power parity could not be confirmed for any of the three advanced transition countries. Following the literature on price movements and macroeconomic policies in transition economies, we list some arguments that substantiate our findings.
COBISS.SI-ID: 9327132
In the monograph we estimate the relations of retail price levels between Slovenia and France, and between Slovenia and Slovakia, based on a comprehensive sample of prices of goods and services. The calculations show that the level of retail prices is in Slovenia by 25% lower than in France and at the same time by 14% higher than in Slovakia. The directions of price deviations are expected, as more developed economies show higher national price levels compared with national price levels of less developed economies. The price deviations are even more pronounced in the case of prices of services as non-tradeables between countries observed. Our additional goal was to estimate the relative purchasing power of the Slovenian average net wage by including corrections for price levels of selected countries. After estimating the relations of internal purchasing powers of reference wages, we found out that the purchasing power of average Slovenian net wage in Slovenia reaches 60% of the purchasing power level of average net wage of employed Frenchman in France. Simultaneously, the purchasing power of average Slovenian net wage in Slovenia exceeded the purchasing power of average net wage of employed Slovak in Slovakia by 5%.
COBISS.SI-ID: 79110401
The purpose of this paper is to provide a new non-technological innovation to manage socio-economic crises. Economic theory, which is one-sided and fails, cannot manage these crises; the model suggests that crises should be solved using social responsibility (SR), human requisite holism (RH), and well-being (WB). Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative analysis using SR, Human RH, and WB as well as dialectical systems theory is applied. Field research involved Slovenian mid-sized enterprises. Findings - The current global socio-economic/environmental crisis reflects decision-makers' one-sidedness and resulting oversights. SR supports their holism and honesty and fights their abuse of impact. SR can help solve crises by reducing human one-sidedness better, if SR is upgraded with increasing WB, not welfare alone. Both SR and WB support RH behavior. The innovative synergy between WB and SR leads to a solution of crises. Dialectical systems theory supports WB and SR. Research limitations/implications - The hypothesis is researched to the greatest extent possible, with qualitative analysis in desk and field research. Practical implications - Findings support new requisitely holistic approach to managing socio-economic crises in politics and business. Originality/value - Available literature offers no similar concept.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11323932
In this research we propose a new method for retail credit risk modeling. In order to capture possible non-linear relationships between credit risk and explanatory variables, we use a learning vector quantization (LVQ) neural network. The model was estimated on a dataset from Slovenian banking sector. The proposed model outperformed the benchmarking (LOGIT) models, which represent the standard approach in banks. The results also demonstrate that the LVQ model is better able to handle the properties of categorical variables.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10767900
Our research proposes a new way of using publically available information in order to outperform the market. We suggest that, under the assumption that target-to-real ratio is stationary; it could be implemented in several trading and/or portfolio optimization techniques. We use target price to develop TRP ratio and implement this information into the optimization model. We use deviation from the mean reverted TRP ratio to indicate future potencial of the stock. Our portfolio outperformed the best-performing benchmark by more than 25% and returned 47% ROI in the challenging market conditions.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11382300