Importance of the EU integration process for the improvement of legal environment in western Balkan countries

This chapter aims to focus and further develop the issue of the importance of the EU integration process for the improvement of the regulatory quality and rule of law in Western Balkan countries. The process of legislative reforms started in parallel with their transition process from socialist to free market economies. It was mostly ad hoc and focused on key economic laws. The EU process accelerated legislative reforms, contributing to a more systemic approach in the creation of a new legal system. The improvement of the quality of regulations and their implementation is of crucial importance for the creation of a more favourable business environment, especially in the period of economic crisis. The region could benefit from the EU’s “smart regulation” approach by making regulatory reform a key vehicle for promoting support for economic recovery in the post-crisis period. Institutional infrastructure is of utmost importance for the efficient implementation of laws. Regional co-operation is an essential factor for political stability and economic prosperity. The harmonization of national legislation with the acquis will lead to the harmonization of the legislation within the region as well, positively influencing the quality of regional legal and regulatory environment. The chapter begins with the chronology of the legislative reforms in the region. The second part gives the progress achieved in the EU accession process, while the third part analyses the influence of the EU accession process on their legal environment. The chapter concludes with the importance of the regional harmonization of the national legal systems, for the creation of a favourable investment climate on the regional level

Women in the Age of Chivalry and Heraldry

Author discussed the important traditions and rules that the age of chivalry demanded of women in the bearing of arms and how their education reflected the needs of the era. She then indicated current changes about women and the bearing of arms

Organizational Change and Improvement Performance of Companies

Changes are now a reality faced by all organizations, wherever they were, and no matter which activity dealt with. Changes are only a certain constant in all business activities of today's enterprises. Modern organizations must be empowered to develop specific competencies for quality change management, because only in this way, organizations can improve their business performance and stay "in the game" at all on a turbulent global market. The main research objective of this paper is to demonstrate how change management process can affect the performance improvement of business operations and thus make the company competitive. Competitive advantage is the most important competitive advantage of each company, and its achievement, in terms of global change significantly conditioned by creating appropriate models of change management. This work is, in essence, and deals with issues of organizational change, in response to the changes that come from the environment, or by creating an appropriate model of change management as an important prerequisite to improve the business performance of enterprises, which are the guarantee of the survival of the company in a dynamic and turbulent global market

Insurance market volatility: case of Serbia

This paper presents empirical analysis of volatility for insurance sector in Serbia. Generally speaking, the Serbian insurance sector is very small, undeveloped and also in the state of transition, regarding period observed in analysis (from 2007 to 2009). In this analysis we applied univariate GARCH models on daily data for two stocks listed at the Belgrade Stock Exchange (www.belex.rs), Dunav Insurance Company (DNOS), and Globos Insurance Company (GLOS). We examine volatilities of these insurance companies stocks over time. However, we found that volatility of insurance companies stocks in Serbia is infinite. In general, results of our analysis confirm that Serbia is a country with relatively low per capita income and very high volatility (risk), especially in insurance sector

Challenges and Perspectives of Implementation Structural Changes in the Serbian Economy

The main purpose of this chapter is to analyse the pace of structural changes in the Serbian economy predominantly through comparative analysis with other countries of Western Balkans i.e. to identify the progress made in implementation these changes, main challenges and to perceive whether and in what way the concept should be modified. The analysis is mainly based on the surveys of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Transition Indicators), World Bank (Doing business), World Economic Forum (Index of International Competitiveness) and Heritage Foundation (Index of Economic Freedom). The results of these surveys indicate that Serbia currently has not been well positioned in terms of implementing transitional changes, conditions for doing business, level of competitiveness and economic freedom. What is especially worrying is the fact the implementation of structural reforms and business conditions improvements in Serbia are very slow, particularly in the last couple of years. Nevertheless, it is clear that without more proactive policy and strong-minded implementation of structural changes, Serbia will increasingly lag behind other countries of the region and that will only hinder its existing position

Razvoj farmaceutskog sektora u Srbiji u svetlu svetskih tendencia ukidanja carinske zaštite

Sporazum koje je poznat pod nazivom „Inicijativa nula-za-nula“ je stupio na snagu 1995. godine. Inicijalno su se 22 zemlje dogovorile da eliminišu carinsku zaštitu na proizvodima farmaceutske industrije. Srbija je pristupila sporazumu tokom 2007. godine. Sektorska inicijativa u farmaceutskim proizvodima u skladu sa Carinskom tarifom Srbije se sastoji od 114 tarifnih linija i proizvoda i oni su svi uključeni u sporazum o harmonizaciji Hemijske industrije. Ovaj sektor čini 3.24% ukupne proizvodnje Industrije Srbije u 2006. godini, sa vrednošću godišnje proizvodnje od 308 miliona evra. Godišnja stopa rasta u 2006. godini je bila 15%. U periodu 2001-2006 spoljnotrgovinska razmena je imala stalni trend porasta trgovinskog deficita, sa većom stopom porasta uvoza od 24.14% u odnosu na stopu rasta izvoza koja je bila 14.63%. Učešće ovog sektora u ukupnoj spoljnotrgovinskoj razmeni Srbije se kretalo na nivou od 2.3%

Foreign Direct Investment and Political Risk in Pacific Rim

The main purpose of this article is to study the effect of political risk on foreign direct investment in the Pacific Rim. The considered time period is from 1984 to 2008. In this study, 12 indexes of political risk offered by Political Risk Services Group have been used. After studying the stationarity of variables by Im-Pesaran Shin test, the benchmark model is estimated for 12 political risks and we come to the conclusion that the risks of Corruption, External Conflict, Internal Conflict, Investment Profile, and Military in Politics have significant effect on FDI

Social Aspects in Buyer-Supplier Relationships of SMEs in Hungary

Cooperation among companies was brought to the focus of attention by the fast changes of economic circumstances and the role it can play in coping with risk, appreciating all those characteristics which can help fast reactions and adaptability, like faith among business partners and long run relationships. The entrepreneur him/herself has a great influence on the characteristics of cooperation as well, besides these processes pushing them to the direction of cooperation, whose intention to get involved depends on his/her skills, abilities, but such characteristics of the company like scale, fields of activities affect it too. Economic, social and cultural circumstances are of major importance too, among which the above mentioned factors pursues their effects. Cooperation among companies can happen on any fields of the firms’ activities, for example research and development, marketing, purchase, or trading. This present paper intends to introduce the reader to the characteristics of supplier-purchaser relationships of small- and medium sized enterprises, based on an empirical research’s experiences. According to our opinion, we can draw conclusions on the intention to cooperate concerning the nature of the buyer-supplier relationships of companies, so a wide range of information can be concluded on small- and medium sized enterprises’ partnerships

Methodological Proposal to Measure Social Performance in Microfinance Institutions

In the last decades, the microfinance sector has globally grown. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) were created to fight and reduce poverty; however, many MFIs seem to no longer achieve their social missions because they act as conventional financial institutions. This slows down the financial support that most low-income families need in order to improve their quality of life. This paper presents a methodological proposal to measures social performance in MFIs. Thus, MFIs and other institutions with a social mission may benefit from an efficient tool used for a transparent and actual control of their social performanc

Possibility of Applying Regional Diversification in Capital Markets of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republic of Serbia

Generally, risk is an uncertainty associated with future outcomes or events. In economic terms, risk is an expected deviation from the planned return of real, financial and intangible assets, of loss or cash flows associated with the uncertain event. The most famous way of reducing the overall risk is diversification of assets. Thus, diversification is a process of investment in a number of unrelated or partially related assets or activities in order to achieve stable business operation, and it shows that portfolios are poor to the extent that they should be avoided in order to increase yields and reduce risk. The portfolio diversification works because prices of different shares do not move in the entirely same direction. Statisticians generally mean the same thing when they say that share price changes are nothing less than perfectly correlated. The main objective of this paper is to discuss the impact of the global financial crisis on the movement tendency of the stock exchange index in the Western Balkans, developed countries and individual EU member states, and determine the feasibility of implementing regional diversification in order to further reduce risk and establish the portfolio of share with the lowest coefficients of correlation