HUMAN CAPITAL TRAJECTORY: PERFORMANCE OF ALBANIA AND SERBIA IN CATCHING UP THE EU COUNTRIES

Purpose. This paper focuses on the measurement of the human capital level in Albania, Serbia and European Countries and in identifying the gaps between them. In addition, it focuses on the link between human capital and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), by extending the analyse in finding the gender disparity of human capital and GDP relationship. Lastly, this study estimates the growth rate of the human capital level for Albania and Serbia and make a comparison with the average human capital of the European Countries. Methodology. The methodology used in the calculation of the growth rate of human capital is exponential trend method which makes possible the estimation of the years needed for Albania and Serbia to catch up the average of EU-28. The data employed mostly in the above-mentioned analysis is the data set taken from Barro and Lee (2010) corresponding the Educational Attainment Data from 1950 to 2010. For the estimation of the growth rate of the human capital level, additional data until 2015 have been used compiled from the UIS database and UN population database, respectively. Findings. The findings show that Albania has a higher probability of an earlier convergence than the Serbia has. Even though the proxy of human capital for year 2010 for Albania (9.85), is lower than Serbia (10.97), Albania is experiencing a rapid increase in the average years of schooling. Limitations. But again, the study is limited to data related to only the years of schooling without considering the quality of education and skills acquired. Originality. This study can serve as a contributor to the performance examination of Albania and Serbia to the EU community with regard to human capital accumulation

Corruption and Human Development Correlation in Western Balkan Countries

The Western Balkan countries are characterized by a series of obstacles in economic, politics and social aspects. A country's progress is measured by different components but the most important one is the economic growth which in the Western Balkans is not very satisfactory. In these last years, instead of economic growth, the economic development is found to be a better index since it includes not only the quantitative issue (income level) but also the qualitative one (health and education level).  From the other side, corruption level is found to be a negative indicator in this group of countries. Different researches have founded out a negative relationship between corruption level and countries' progress. The aim of this study is to identify the relationship between corruption level and human development. A regression analysis and a comparison of the degree of this relationship are performed for each Western Balkan county[1] during years 2002-2010. The main result of this study is that the relationship between corruption and human development is found to be strong in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania. Croatia shows a weak relationship whereas the relationship in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s case is meaningless. [1] The countries to be used in this regression analysis are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia excluding Kosovo since there do not have available data

Does financial aid help or harm developing countries: Case of Albania

Development aid is a financial aid given by governments, NGOs, global and regional unions, or private entities to support the development of developing countries, as a consequence also of Albania as one of them. Its main reason is decreasing poverty and encouraging development. Many literatures reveal evidences of the impact these financial aids have on the economic growth of a country. This paper creates a link between the research done and the practice by making a detailed description of the phenomena and making clear how the effects are derived. It further analyzes the economic development of Albania in terms of net income during the last 30 years, and the corresponding financial aid allocation for each year. Starting with the interpretation of the financial aid amount allocated each year; this research paper also extends the information regarding the fields of economy where this aid is invested. The descriptive statistics shows that financial aid has noticeably increased from year to year and its impact on the economy as well.&nbsp

THE ECONOMY OF ALBANIA TODAY AND THEN: THE DRIVERS TO GROWTH

Over the past two decades, Albania has faced many social and economic changes, since it changes it economic system from a centralized one to a democratic one in early 90s. During this transitory phase, Albania had faced difficult challenges such as of undertaking all the necessary reforms for the stabilization, liberalization, privatization and integration of its economy in the overall global and regional economic trends. The first aim of this paper is to study the Albania Economy in its democratic era. The second aim of this paper is the identification of the main drivers to economic growth in the Albanian case during past two decades and the challenges that it faces today. Furthermore, this paper deals with some of the challenges that Albanian economy faces today such as SMEs challenges that represent the 98% of the market, rail infrastructure, lack of entrepreneurship, low level of innovation spirit among the enterprises, lack of focus in R&D. This paper finds out that Albanian Economy has performed well but yet, there exists some critical challenges that should be face in order to achieve the desired level of economic development and competitiveness in global and regional market

Relationship between Albania and Turkey after Free Trade Agreement

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the trade of Albania toward a larger country such as Turkey and to observe how the trade volume has changed after the Free Trade Agreement. A multiple regression model is used to calculate the overall impact of trade. The dependent variable is GDP and the independent variables are total imports and exports in Albania. Data are obtained mostly from the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) and Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK). The Albanian GDP has been derived from yearly data in order to match the model, during the period of 1990 to 2013. To have a closer view on the significance of trade and compare the periods before and after Free Trade agreement, the data are obtained monthly from 1996M1 to 2015M3. Imports and Exports resulted to have a strong relationship with GDP, therefore proving the economic theory that trade has a direct impact over the economy of the country. Regarding the trade volume between Albania and Turkey, there seemed to be more imports entering in Albania, rather than exports. As expected, the results show once more that after 2006 the overall trade in Albania has increased and along with it the trade between Albania and Turkey has increased too

A Survey on Poverty in Albania: Comparison between Rural and Urban

The aim of this study is evaluation and measurement of poverty in Albania by comparing poverty of urban and rural regions. In the poverty complex area this study is focused more on comparison of how different individuals concept poverty, and on evaluation of different factors mainly affecting poverty.    To achieve the main goals of this study and to perform the necessary estimation is used a survey based on deep literature review. Questioners are used to collect the needed data and information to attain the result and perform the analyses of poverty in rural and urban regions of Albania. There are interviewed 1000 individuals from four different regions of Albania determinate according to the allocation method of INSTAT and distribution of questioners is based on the percentage of each region population in order to avoid any possible bias. All analyzes performed for rural and urban region data’s are done separately to compare the level of poverty of the two regions and factors that impact on it. Based on the result it is observed that the level of poverty which is represented by total income has different values in urban and rural areas

INTEGRATING TEACHING AND LEARNING IN GRADUATE STUDIES: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COURSE

Development economics is a field of study, trying to explore the reason of economic success and failures of different countries or regions in the world. It deals with important issues and gaps of 21st Century, such as poverty, inequality, education, health, demographic changes, migration, trade and globalization. Moreover, the basic issues of development economics have been in focus since 1776 within the famous book of Adam Smith “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”. Development economics, it can be argued, has to be concerned not only with protecting its "own" territory, but also with keeping alive the foundational motivation of the subject of economics in general. All the above-mentioned aspects on development economics are the main motivation of this paper. Furthermore, this study tries to analyze, synthesize and recapitulate the integration of teaching and learning in graduate studies. It is the case of an actual course, termed “Development and Growth”, offered in the economics department of the Master of Science program. The study will cover two main analyses: the first analysis, dealing with the specifics of course organization and management and the second one, exploring the students’ projects and their integration with the course

THE LONG RUN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOURISM AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN WESTERN BALKAN COUNTRIES: A PANEL CO-INTEGRATION ANALYSIS

Nowadays, tourism is a fast-growing industry, and one of the most vital sectors that drive the economic growth. This paper analyzes and tries to shed light in the contribution that tourism has on economy. The analysis is done for four Western Balkans countries, making a comparison between their tourisms, economies and tourism impact on GDP. The model is done for 14 years, for the period 2000-2014. Independent variables included are the number of foreign arrivals, visitor exports, foreign overnights in hotels and capital investment. While as a dependent variable stands the tourism contribution to GDP. Since the variables are not stationary, has been applied Panel Johansen Co-integration technique. After implementing the model, the results show that some of tourism independent variables such as visitor exports and capital investments influence the economic growth of the four countries, but in total we can say that there is no long run relationship between the tourism and economic growth of these countries.</p

Comparative Economic Development: Albania-Western Balkan

The purpose of this paper is to make an economic comparison, both theoretical and empirical, for different development aspects of Albania aside Western Balkan countries. The theoretical development of the subject gives an overview of recent macroeconomic and structural developments in the countries of the Western Balkan region by dissecting the various contributors of growth. Another important point, that is developed includes the trends of economic, political and institutional development of the Western Balkan countries with relation to two major factors shaping the region&rsquo;s context, the international economic and financial crisis and the process of European integration reflected in the fiscal and structural reforms undertaken in the respective countries. The descriptive statistics illustrates the relationship between economic growth and selected macroeconomic indicators by the explaining of the econometric model built and studied