It is a well-known fact that the main objective of every corporation is to generate profits and enhance its shareholders' wealth. Corporate growth may be achieved either internally (through organic growth) or externally (through mergers and acquisitions). In parallel with global trends, corporate growth is achieved by cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) that have increased dramatically in economies especially over the last few decades. It is also established that mergers and acquisitions come in waves - so far, six waves have been researched. The main aim of the presented paper is to analyse the activity of the European Union countries on the M&As market and to describe the main motives for cross-border M&As and how the performance of cross-merger M&As is measured.
The aim of this article is to investigate the fiscal policy changes in six Central and Eastern European countries outside the Eurozone: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The analysis covers the period from 2004 to 2017. The study uses changes in the cyclically-adjusted primary balance as a main indicator to assess the fiscal policy stance. The results indicate that, in general, over the period from 2004 to 2017, the fiscal stance in these countries was somewhat contractionary.
Background: The study was carried out as part of the European Network for Patient Safety (EUNetPas) project in 2008-2010. Objective: To investigate facilitators and barriers in implementation process of selected medication safety practices across hospitals within European Union countries. Methods: This was an implementation study of seven selected medication safety practices in 55 volunteering hospitals of 11 European Union (EU) member states. The selected practices were: two different versions of medicine bed dispensation; safety vest; discharge medication list for patients; medication reconciliation at patient discharge; medication reconciliation at patient admission and patient discharge, and sleep card. The participating hospitals submitted an evaluation report describing the implementation process of a chosen practice in their organisation. The reports were analysed with inductive content analysis to identify general and practice-specific facilitators and barriers to the practice implementation. Results: Altogether 75 evaluation reports were submitted from 55 hospitals in 11 EU member states. Implementation of the medication safety practices was challenging and more time consuming than expected. The major reported challenge was to change the work process because of the new practice. General facilitators for successful implementation were: existence of safety culture, national guidelines and projects, expert support, sufficient resources, electronic patient records, interdisciplinary cooperation and clinical pharmacy services supporting the practice implementation. Conclusions: The key for the successful implementation of a medication safety practice is to select the right practice for the right problem, in the right setting and with sufficient resources in an organization with a safety culture. ; Peer reviewed
PURPOSE: The main purpose of this article is to define the level of education of the European Union citizens and to determine the gaps in this scope between men and women. ; DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The analyzed indicators are percentage of the population with tertiary education (X1), percentage of early school leavers (X2), the participation rate in pre-school education (X3), and adult participation in learning (X4). What was also analyzed were such indicators as the percentage of employed graduates (Y1) and general employment level (Y2). The source of empirical data was the information collected by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) about 28 member states of in the years 2005-2019. ; FINDINGS: In recent years, the EU's education (28) member states citizens have been growing steadily. However, according to ISCED, more women than men improve their knowledge and gain an education at the education level of 5-8, and the gap in this scope is getting wider, to the detriment of men. This diversification can be observed particularly in such countries as Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. ; PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: In recent years, one could observe that the EU member states that recent graduates' employment rate remained stable at a high level and that the total employment rate increased steadily. This applies both to men and women. ; ORIGINALITY/VALUE: For women, education and qualifications raising on the labor market should be important as the research indicated significant correlations between the indicators that characterize the differences in the level of education of women in the EU (28) countries and the differences in their employment, which was not observed in case of men. ; peer-reviewed
The empirical literature on the growth impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) suggests a strong positive relationship between the two. Yet, the lack of evidence of a clear causality from FDI to growth impedes our ability to firmly conclude that FDI inflows are a driver and not just a consequence of higher economic growth. Just as a higher return on investment typically attracts more fixed investment, it should be no surprise that it also attracts more foreign investors. Having said that, we need to acknowledge that the difficulty of finding unambiguous evidence of causality from FDI to growth does not refute the notion that such a relationship nevertheless exists. As the growth literature suggests, many different factors combine to create an environment conducive to higher economic growth. Proper policies and institutions have been found to be particularly important over longer periods of time. In this context, we need to view FDI from a broader perspective than its direct and immediate impact on growth itself. Could it not be the case, for example, that foreign investors are more demanding than indigenous firms as regards a stable and favourable policy environment, good infrastructure and an appropriate human capital stock? If governments introduce policies and create institutions with the purpose of attracting FDI, they may create an environment more generally favourable to growth even though some of this growth is not the result of FDI per se. The evidence is stronger that FDI has been boosting growth directly in Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) than in the 15 countries of the European Union (EU-15). The reason, as we have argued, is that while these countries needed to bridge the technology gap to the more advanced countries, they nevertheless met some key conditions - especially in terms of human capital - which helped them bridge this gap more quickly with the help of FDI. In addition, the sheer magnitude of net FDI inflows helped sustain a higher level of domestic investment than would have been possible on the basis of domestic saving and debt-creating capital inflows alone. While FDI is expected to continue to contribute to economic growth in the CEE countries that have joined the EU, it is less clear whether the economic gains from FDI will be as high as during the transition from plan to market. The more the new EU members come to resemble EU-15 countries in terms of inward FDI stocks as a share of GDP, productivity, efficiency and level of technology, the less likely it is that FDI will have a positive influence on economic growth beyond what is observed in more advanced market economies. That said, FDI and the associated activities of transnational corporations will undoubtedly remain an important welfare-enhancing force - both inside and outside an enlarged European Union.
This paper investigates the nature of the causal relationships among interbank market interest rates and corporate loans interest rates in four countries from the euro area (Austria, Belgium, France and Italy), and in the Czech Republic. The paper also estimates a development of bank credit margin in banking industries of these countries in period from January 2004 to March 2010. Using Johansen cointegration and Granger causality tests on monthly data we investigate long-term as well as short-term causalities between the interest rates. The results suggest that interest rate relationships differ in all selected countries, and also that foreign majority owners of the Czech banks could affect interest rate policy of the subsidiaries to offset losses realized by the parent banks.
Due to the rebound effect caused by the improvement in energy efficiency, the decrease in energy consumption may not be translated as expected. This study is the first to estimate the magnitude of direct rebound effect for the long and short run and the impact of climate change on residential electricity consumption for the European Union countries. In order analyse the direct rebound effect a panel data from 1996 to 2017 was used, and a panel ARDL model was applied. The results show that the magnitude of the direct rebound effect in the long run is 35%. The climate changes have a positive effect on the electricity consumption both in the long and short run. This study suggests that policy makers should have both the rebound effect and the climate changes in mind when formulating their energy policies. ; Devido ao efeito rebound causado pela melhoria na eficiência energética, a diminuição no consumo de energia pode não ser traduzida como o esperado. Este estudo é o primeiro a estimar a magnitude do efeito rebound direto para o longo e curto prazo bem como o impacto que as mudanças climáticas têm no consumo residencial de eletricidade para os países da União Europeia. Para analisar o efeito rebound direto, foram utilizados dados em painel de 1996 a 2017 tendo sido aplicado o modelo ARDL em painel. Os resultados mostram que o efeito rebound direto no longo prazo é de 35%. As mudanças climáticas têm um efeito positivo no consumo de eletricidade tanto no curto como no longo prazo. Este estudo sugere que os formuladores de políticas, ao formular as políticas energéticas, devem ter tanto o efeito rebound quanto as mudanças climáticas em conta.
Defining, planning and achieving health goals including health promotion and health promotion for older people (HP4OP) are always the responsibility of the public authority. In European countries the public health and health promotion strategic framework, including HP4OP is provided by the ministry of health or others national public health organisations, which are responsible for defining of legal regulations on the different aspects of health promotion. The goal of this article is the analysis of the central and territorial government (CTG) sector's involvement in the issue of HP4OP, their functions, activities and responsibilities in this area. The analysis is focused on the main differences and similarities between CTG's institutions. The authors triangulated data collected using varied methods: literature review, questionnaire research (conducted in European Pro-Health 65+ project's countries) and in-depth interviews with national experts from selected countries. In the majority of analysed countries, the central government and municipalities are the main stakeholders responsible for providing funding for these programs. The operational level for the implementation of majority HP4OP is the local level. Research countries have been identified as strongly varying in institutional, legal and political specificity. The analysis shows the increasing position of HP4OP in public health policy. Many of the identified problems come from the implementation of a fragmented approach, the duplication of efforts undertaken by different stakeholders and the lack of a co-ordinated strategy and dedicated legal regulations at both the national and regional/local levels.
Along with the rapid development of industry and agriculture, growth of population, improvement of urbanization level, China has been confronted with increasingly serious deficiency and pollution of water resource. In order to deal with the challenge as well as reduce waste discharge, it is necessary to strengthen all the possible efforts in controlling water pollution. Therefore, the control and management of water pollution is of vital significance to the development of national economy and social society, which is worth doing research on academically and practically. Water pollution management, in a sense, results from the urbanization and cosmopolitanization process. In this aspect, the European countries have acquired a lot of successful experience in water pollution control, which provides plenty of useful knowledge and reference for China's ongoing efforts in water pollution control. This thesis, by taking a comparative analysis approach, looks into the European countries' experience of water pollution control, makes evaluations on their managerial strategies, system and methods. Then it reviews China's efforts on water pollution control, and analyzes the current situation of China's water management, especially the water pollution control system of Huaihe River Basin, and as a result puts forward suggestions to improve China's water pollution control system such as verification of property rights of water resources, enhancement of legal framework, investment and taxation policy preference, technological improvements, public participation and prevention measures. ; www.ima.kth.se
The countries of the European Union, which are final destinations or transit for refugees and migrants, face many social, humanitarian and financial challenges. They are expected to invest efforts and resources to enable migrant communities and the host society to activate their abilities, qualities and skills to build social cohesion and well-being between them. Local administrations provide many services that directly affect the integration of migrants and there-fore have a greater capacity to support the process of social cohesion, as opposed to governance at national level, which in many cases hinders local government initiatives to address social and economic problems arising from immigration. Integration is an extremely individual process and individual needs must be taken into account by the various institutions involved in this activity. Refugee integration is one of the indicators of democratic society, an indicator of the development and promotion of human rights and freedoms. It is a continuous and dynamic process that requires efforts and readiness on the part of refugees to adapt to their host society without having to give up their cultural identity, and therefore - readiness and understanding on the part of the host community and public institutions to perceive refugees as equal persons of themselves. Integration is a long-term two-way process of mutual adjustment of incoming immigrants and citizens of the host country.
International audience ; This introductory essay briefly summarizes the 11 empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank's Inflation Persistence Network.
Abstract The aim of the study is to determine the pace and directions of changes (understood as: improvement or deterioration) occurring in selected areas of sustainable development of EU Member States. The paper analyzes dynamics of changes in selected areas of sustainable development monitored on the basis of headline indicators published by Eurostat from 2008 to 2015. In the paper, three variants of reference points of synthetic measure of development were considered. On the basis of the obtained results, the countries in which the improvement in the sustainable development and its deterioration can be observed were identified. The results have confirmed the existence of significant developmental disparities between EU Member States in this field, but it should be noted that the obtained results depend on the methodological approach both to the selection of features and the adoption of a specific standardization formula, as well as the considered variants of reference points. The results obtained can be utilized in subsequent years to examine the directions of change observed both from the point of view of European Union as one organization, and the individual EU Member States.
This introductory essay briefly summarizes the eleven empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank's Inflation Persistence Network. ; Published in: Managerial and Decision Economics, vol. 31, iss. 2-3, 2010, pp. 63-66
This aim of this work is to study the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade. FDI is a driving force for economic growth for host countries. The positive effects of FDI are seen in many aspects of the economy. However, the implications of FDI on foreign trade are questionable. Therefore, this study uses a Granger causality technique to test whether the relationship between FDI and foreign trade is complementary or substitutive. The findings of this study indicate that this relationship appears to be complementary, and FDI investment does cause an increase in trade flow in the countries that are taken into consideration. This research aims to make a comparison between the relations of FDI flows of three groups of countries from the European Union (EU)—Romania and Bulgaria, the Visegrád Group and the Euro area—for the period of 2005 to 2019. However, the results indicate that this link between the variables is not yet found for the three group of countries, and further research is required in this aspect. This leads to the conclusion that the FDI impact on foreign trade of the host country depends on the type of investment and absorptive capacity of the receiver, the economic development of host and home countries, and not every type of FDI leads to more trade.
