AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF TAX REFORMS ON BUSINESS CONFIDENCE: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM THE EU MEMBER STATES

Bureaucracy is a common problem in most countries, including the Member States of the European Union. This issue impacts all areas of civil services, including the fiscal system through tax collection and tax compliance. This study aims to analyze the impact of tax reforms on the business environment by using different business confidence indicators as an estimation of the expected evolution of the industrial sector, the construction sector, the retail sector and the services sector, as well as the tax burden as a proxy for the tax reforms.Our research is based on quarterly data collected for the 28 European Union Member States, for a period of 30 years. The conclusions were reached following multiple regression estimations, done for each Member State separately, and followed by a detailed analysis of the results obtained. Thus, focusing on each country individually, the study reveals the influence of reforms in the tax systems on business confidence.</p

Towards a Hedonic Pricing Method for the Bucharest Private Housing Market

This paper aims at exploring the drivers of dwellings’sale prices in Bucharest, Romania, over the period 2014-2018. Several housing structural attributes are covered, such as the number of rooms, useful and constructed surface, type of comfort, floor, the number of bathrooms, balconies and parking, the seniority from construction, as well as from renovation, structure type, height regime, and the duration until completion of the real estate transaction. By estimating a standard hedonic price model via OLS regression for a sample of 765 transactions, we notice that all the selected variables, except the floor level and seniority from construction, positively influence the property prices. However, in case of useful and constructed surface, nonlinear relationships with property prices were acknowledged. Robustness checks in form of quantile regressions reinforce the empirical findings.JEL Codes - C21; R3

Exploring the Determinants of Financial Structure in the Technology Industry: Panel Data Evidence from the New York Stock Exchange Listed Companies

This paper aims to analyze the influencing factors on the financial structure of 51 companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, in the technology industry, from 2005&ndash;2018. The objective is to see the impact of independent company-specific variables such as company size, tangibility of assets, growth opportunity, effective tax rate, current liquidity, depreciation, stock rotation, financial return, working capital, price to book value, price to earnings ratio, as well as the impact of governance variables and macroeconomic variables such as inflation rate, interest rate, market size, gross domestic product per capita. Using panel data and multiple linear regressions, we analyze the relationship between the independent variables listed above and the dependent variables, namely the total debt ratio, the long-term debt ratio and the short-term debt ratio. The results of the analysis showed that variables such as size, tangibility, liquidity, profitability have a significant influence on the dependent variables in accordance with the theories regarding the capital structure

An Analysis Regarding Cash Holdings. Empirical Study on the Bucharest Stock Exchange Listed Firms

Worldwide corporate cash holdings have significantly increased and have become an important tool for managers. This study explores the factors that influence firms’ behavior regarding cash holdings and the signal that financial conservatism is sending to potential investors. Our data consists in annual observations collected through the Reuters Eikon platform. It includes companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, the investigated period being 2005-2014. The econometric analysis employs multivariate regression for an unbalanced panel data, using the OLS technique. The results show a positive correlation of cash holdings with the value registered by this indicator in the previous period, fact that might be interpreted as an attempting of the companies to maintain a target level of cash. Also, the results showed a non-linear relationship between leverage and cash holdings, while the tangible assets determine a negative correlation. As regards firm size and ownership concentration, the correlations were not statistically validated

Does Renewable Energy Drive Sustainable Economic Growth? Multivariate Panel Data Evidence for EU-28 Countries

Energy is crucial to economic progress, but the contemporary worldwide population increase that demands greater energy generated from conventional exhaustible resources, an energy price upsurge, and environmental concerns, imperils sustainable economic growth. Nevertheless, switching to renewable energy produced from naturally replenished resources promotes energy security, likewise addressing issues such as global warming and climate change. This paper aims at exploring the influence and causal relation between renewable energy, both overall and by type, and sustainable economic growth of European Union (EU)-28 countries for the period of 2003–2014. We notice that the mean share of renewable energy in the gross final energy consumption is 15%, while the mean share of renewable energy in transport fuel consumption is 3%, which are below the thresholds of 20% and 10%, respectively, as set by the EU Directive 2009/28/EC. By estimating panel data fixed-effects regression models, the results provide support for a positive influence of renewable energy overall, as well as by type, namely biomass, hydropower, geothermal energy, wind power, and solar energy on gross domestic product per capita. However, biomass energy shows the highest influence on economic growth among the rest of renewable energy types. In fact, a 1% increase of the primary production of solid biofuels increases GDP per capita by 0.16%. Besides, cointegrating regressions set on panel fully modified and dynamic ordinary least squares regressions confirm the positive influence related to the primary production of renewable energies on economic growth. A 1% increase in primary production of renewable energies increases GDP per capita by 0.05%–0.06%. However, the results of Granger causality based on panel vector error correction model indicate both in short-run and long-run a unidirectional causal relationship running from sustainable economic growth to the primary production of renewable energies, being supported the conservation hypothesis

The Impact of Tax Pressure on Companies&apos; Performance Case Study: OECD Europe Zone

Abstract Introduction Taxation is an area in continuous change and transformation that affects many aspects of daily life, whether we are aware of its influence or not. The business environment, in turn, responds to tax changes continuously. This study aims to analyse the link between the business confidence index which represents managers&apos; view on the evolution of the business environment, and taxation, represented by the evolution of the tax burden as a percentage of total tax revenues in the gross domestic product. Business stability is related to fiscal stability and our research aims to reveal these connections. Our study is organized into three parts. The first part concerns the existing state of current research on the problem that we analysed. The second part presents the methodology used in our study, and the last part presents the results obtained from the research conducted. Towards the end we have included conclusions and bibliography

A Cross-Country Empirical Study Towards the Impact of Following ISO Management System Standards on Euro-Area Economic Confidence

This study aims to examine the impact of following ISO management system standards on economic sentiment indicator (ESI) as proxy of economic agents’ general view concerning economic activity, for 21 European Union member states over 2005-2014. The empirical research comprises ISO standards with reference to management systems towards quality (ISO 9001, ISO 13485, ISO 16949), food safety (ISO 22000), environment (ISO 14001), and information security (ISO 27001). Panel data fixed effects regression models provide support for a positive impact of the quality management systems related to automotive industry, as well as information security management systems, on the ESI. Further, dynamic panel data approach by way of two-step system generalized method of moments emphasizes a positive influence of quality management systems standard for the medical device industry on Euro-area economic confidence, but a negative effect of food safety management systems. Also, ISO 9001, ISO 22000, and ISO 14001 Granger cause ESI

Fiscal Convergence in an Enlarged European Union

<p>Taxation convergence in the European Union has always been a heatedly debated issue, and it has constantly resurfaced to the limelight as more and more fiscal directive proposals are being discussed. The current study is an analysis of the evolution of taxation convergence tendencies within the European Union in recent years, using sigma-convergence and cluster analysis. Our goal is to analyze the fiscal convergence trends in the context of European Union enlargement over the last two decades.</p

The Impact of Capital Structure on Risk and Firm Performance: Empirical Evidence for the Bucharest Stock Exchange Listed Companies

This paper analyzes the evolution of the main theories regarding the capital structure and the related impact on risk and corporate performance. The capital structure is a dynamic process that changes over time, depending on the variables that influence the overall evolution of the economy, a particular sector, or a company. It may also change depending on the company’s forecasts of its expected profitability, capital structure being, in fact, a risk–return compromise. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the drivers of capital structure of the firms from the Romanian market. For the econometric analysis, we applied multivariate fixed-effects regressions, as well as dynamic panel-data estimations (two-step system generalized method of moments, GMM) on a panel comprising the companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The analyzed period, 2000–2016, covers a cycle with significant changes in the Romanian economy. Our results showed that leverage is positively correlated with the size of the company and the share price volatility. On the other hand, the debt structure has a different impact on corporate performance, whether this calculated on accounting measures or seen as market share price evolution