Liquidity measures and cost of trading in an illiquid market

We provide the first in-depth study of trading on the Ukrainian stock exchange, using trade-by-trade data. Although Ukraine has some large listed companies, the market is quite illiquid. We study the efficiency of five liquidity measures in the market. The proportion of no-trading days is the most reliable of the five, while turnover, which is widely used in the literature, is a poor measure. On trading cost, trades in all size categories are executed within the quoted spread, as in other dealership markets, with medium-sized trades being the cheapest. The cost of sales is higher than the cost of purchases under all market conditions

Does Social Capital Matter?

Summaries The role of social capital has come to the fore in recent development analysis in which the level of institutional capacity and consequent level o economic development depends on the amount of social capital available. Economies managing transition have revealed weak institutional capacity: social capital is minimal and distrust predominates. A project in southern Albania illustrates the problem of low social capital. Introducing and transferring techniques of participation in decision?making over local economic development enabled the creation of networks and local organisations, beginning the process of social capital accumulation to strengthen institutional development and enhance economic performance

Survival through networks: the 'grip' of the administrative links in the Russian post-Soviet context

© 2014 Taylor & Francis. Based on an analysis of the post-Soviet transformation experience of four defence sector organizations in a Russian region where the defence sector occupies a substantial part of the local economy, this article develops a typology of network relationships: Grooved Inter-relationship Patterns (Gr’ip) networks and Fluid Inter-relationship Patterns (Fl’ip) networks. This typology can be applied to a range of transition/emerging market and low system trust contexts. Gr’ip networks, in this case, represent the persisting legacy of the Soviet command-administrative system. Fl’ip networks are here an attempt by the defence companies to link into the civilian supply chains of a developing market economy. This article argues that Gr’ip networks had and still have a crucial role to play in Russian enterprises’ survival and development

On-the-job training and human resource management : how to improve competitive advantage of an organization?

Background: In this paper, the effects of four groups of factors on organizational performance are examined. Those are human resource management (HRM) policies and practices, financial and business indicators, location, and firm characteristics. A review of selected literature confirmed that a similar set of factors, through its positive effects on boosting organizational performance, may significantly improve competitive advantage of firms. Methods: An empirical analysis using firm-level data is conducted on the sample of enterprises operating in Serbia. A microeconometric approach is employed in order to specify and estimate empirical models. Two statistical models are applied. The ordered probit model is used for investigating organizational performance and the standard binary probit model for examining the decision of a firm to integrate the human resource development (HRD) department into its organizational structure. The goodness of fit measures confirmed the statistical reliability of estimated models. Results: Estimation results revealed that optimization of the number of employees, sales and revenues, firm age, increased market demand and competitive environment, as well as the ‘right decisions’ of the top management have significantly positive effects on boosting organizational performance. Significance of on-the-job training for boosting organizational performance was not empirically supported. In the same group of factors are firm size, industry and region. An auxiliary model shown that large- and medium-sized firms, firms with high level of revenues, privately owned, foreign and those located in or near to the capital city are more likely to have HRD departments. Conclusions: This paper provides a survey of the theoretical literature and explains empirical findings that are relevant for understanding to what extent on-the-job training, managing human resource, as well as some other internal and external organizational and financial factors are important for enhancing competitive advantage of firms

Competition and financial constraints: a two-sided story

This paper examines the relation between competitive pressure and financial constraints using firm-level survey data from 27 emerging economies of Eastern Europe and Central Asia for the years 2005 and 2009. In the empirical analysis, we disentangle the impact of product market competition on the demand and supply of credit. Our results support the hypothesis that competitive pressure on borrowers affects both sides of the credit market. We find that in industries with greater competitive pressure firms’ demand for credit is typically higher but a greater proportion of firms are discouraged from loan application due to greater cost of credit. Interestingly, we find the detrimental effect of competitive pressure on credit access breaks down when firms are audited, when they can pledge collateral and when they engage in export activities. These results point to the role of competitive pressure in the lenders’ information set when limited information is availabl