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The aims of this dissertation are to analyse the interdependence between C-B M&As and the quality of the institutional setting and observe the economic effects of that nexus at the macroeconomic level in 22 European transition countries between 2000-2014. Our underlying hypothesis is that the progress and durability of institutional reforms are factors that have a crucial influence on the economic performance of C-B M&As in transition countries. The dynamic relationship between the economic effects of C-B M&As and institutional quality is investigated by using the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator. Since the potential benefits of foreign direct investment are determined by the institutional setup, we used different governance indicators in our calculations, both individually and in terms of their interaction with C-B M&As. With the help of our empirical analysis, we established which aspects of institutional setting have contributed most to causing the economic effects of C-B M&As, using their interaction terms with this type of FDI, so we could focus most attention on these areas. Our results indicate that C-B M&As have a negative effect on GDP per capita in the initial period. This negative impact in the year of merger and acquisition could be explained by the rise in unemployment and the crowding-out of less efficient domestic companies which are not able to withstand the competitive pressure in the domestic market. The influence of one-year lagged C-B M&As is positive and significant, suggesting that this form of FDI might have a delayed effect. However, this type of FDI does not have a positive economic impact on host transition countries in the long-run because it might be motivated by rent-seeking interests. We show that the overall quality of the institutional setting (measured with the help of the EBRD indices of structural reforms and World Bank's Governance Indicators) is important for GDP per capita in the short and long term. On the other hand, its interaction terms with C-B M&As are negative but not significant in current period. All governance dimensions stimulate GDP per capita of host transition countries. Our findings indicate that the higher level of C-B M&As with a negative impact offsets the positive effect of the control of corruption and the rule of law on economic growth both in short and long run. Voice and accountability were found to be important for explaining an FDI's influence on GDP per capita. In terms of the influence on domestic investment, we have found that contemporaneous M&As have a crowding-out effect, while the influence of their lagged level has a crowding-in effect. Their long term impact is also negative and significant (when controlling for overall institutional quality index and separate governance indicators), suggesting that foreign investors reduce the competition on the domestic market over time. We show that foreign investors may be motivated by rent-seeking interests based on the fact that the interdependence of C-B M&As and the overall quality of the institutional setting had a negative effect on domestic investment. We have not found evidence to support our hypothesis that overall institutional reform (as well as the speed of implementation) and its interaction with C-B M&As encourages domestic investment in European transition countries. We have found that political stability has a positive effect on domestic investment and is the only significant variable of all the institutional factors. This means this governance indicator is a crucial determinant of domestic investment in transition countries. The only significant interaction terms with a negative effect on domestic investment, are between C-B M&As and the Rule of Law and overall institutional quality. Political Stability (positive coefficient) and the interaction terms between C-B M&As and Rule of Law and overall institutional quality (both negative coefficients) have a significant impact on domestic i ; Cilj disertacije je analizirati medsebojno odvisnost čezmejnih združitev in prevzemov ter kakovosti institucionalnega okolja in prepoznati ekonomske učinke, nastale kot posledica te zveze na makroekonomski ravni v 22-ih evropskih tranzicijskih državah v obdobju med letoma 2000 in 2014. Naša osnovna hipoteza je, da sta uspeh in vztrajnost pri izvajanju institucionalnih reform dejavnika, ki odločilno vplivata na ekonomsko uspešnost čezmejnih združitev in prevzemov v tranzicijskih državah. Dinamično zvezo med ekonomskimi učinki čezmejnih združitev in prevzemov ter kakovostjo institucionalnega okolja smo raziskali s pomočjo sistemske cenilke posplošene metode momentov. Glede na to, da so potencialne koristi neposrednih tujih investicij opredeljene z institucionalno ureditvijo, smo v naših kalkulacijah uporabili različne kazalnike upravljanja, tako posamično kot v njihovi interakciji s čezmejnimi združitvami in prevzemi. S pomočjo empirične analize smo določili, kateri vidiki institucionalnega okolja so največ prispevali k ekonomskim vplivom čezmejnih združitev in prevzemov, prek njihove vzajemne povezave z neposrednimi tujimi investicijami, da bi se lahko osredotočili predvsem na ta področja. Naši rezultati kažejo, da imajo čezmejne združitve in prevzemi negativen vpliv na BDP na prebivalca v začetnem obdobju. Ta negativen vpliv, ki se uresničuje v letu realizacije združitve in prevzema, lahko pojasnimo z naraščajočo brezposelnostjo in izrinjanjem manj učinkovitih podjetij, ki ne morejo vzdržati konkurenčnega pritiska na domačem trgu. Vpliv za eno leto odloženih odloženih čezmejnih združitev in prevzemov je pozitiven in pomemben, kar nakazuje, da ima lahko ta tip NTI odložen učinek. Vendar tovrstne NTI ne zagotavljajo dolgoročnega pozitivnega ekonomskega vpliva na tranzicijske države gostiteljice, ker so lahko motivirane z rentno usmerjenimi (»rent-seeking«) aktivnostmi. Opažamo, da je splošna kakovost institucionalnega okolja (merjena s pomočjo kazalnikov upravljanja Svetovne Banke in EBRD kazalnikov o napredku strukturnih reform) pomembna za BDP na prebivalca tako v krajšem kot daljšem časovnem obdobju. Po drugi strani so v začetnem obdobju njegove interakcije s čezmejnimi združitvami in prevzemi negativne ali niso statistično pomembne. Vse dimenzije upravljanja stimulirajo GDP per capita države gostiteljice v tranziciji. Naše ugotovitve kažejo, da višja raven čezmejnih združitev in prevzemov z negativnim vplivom izravnava pozitiven učinek nadzora korupcije in pravne države na BDP na prebivalca, tako v krajšem kot daljšem časovnem okviru. Ugotovljeno je bilo, da sta glas in odgovornost pomembna za pojasnjevanje vpliva NTI na BDP na prebivalca. Ko gre za vpliv na domače investicije, ugotavljamo, da sočasne čezmejne združitve in prevzemi prispevajo k učinku izrinjanja (»crowding-in«), medtem ko njihova odložena spremenljivka povzroča učinek kopičenja (»crowding-in«) investicij. Dolgoročni vpliv teh transakcij je tudi negativen in pomemben (ob kontroli skupnega indeksa institucionalne kakovosti in posamičnih kazalnikov upravljanja), kar kaže, da tuji vlagatelji s časom prispevajo k zmanjšanju konkurence na domačem trgu. Pokazali smo, da tuje vlagatelje lahko motivirajo rentno usmerjeni interesi, utemeljeni na dejstvu, da je imela soodvisnost čezmejnih združitev in prevzemov ter splošne kakovosti institucionalnega okolja negativen vpliv na domače investicije. Ne moremo potrditi hipoteze, da sta skupna institucionalna reforma (kakor tudi hitrost njene implementacije) in njena interakcija s čezmejnimi združitvami in prevzemi spodbudili domače vlagatelje v evropskih tranzicijskih državah. Ugotovili smo, da je politična stabilnost imela pozitiven učinek na domače investicije in da je med kazalniki institucionalnega okolja edina pomembna spremenljivka. To pripelje do sklepa, da je zagotavljanje stabilnega političnega okolja ključni dejavnik domačih investicij v tranzicijskih državah. Edina pomembna interakcija z negativnim učinkom na d

Despite a pandemic that has brought most of the global economy to its knees, Chinese economic growth continued in 2020 and strongly accelerated in 2021. An almost certain scenario in which China is becoming the leading world economy already brings strong geopolitical implications, primarily in the form of shaking the existing world order, which is practically managed by Washington. The key reason for the strong growth of China's economy is the high share of both savings and investments in GDP (over two-fifths each) in a very long period, together with its impressive technological progress. In this regard, the direct reason for the current tension between the two countries is China's economic transformation towards the upper end of global industrial value chains. Attempts to end China's economic expansion through forced technological unbundling, US trade sanctions, or forced changes in global supply chains, seem doomed to failure given its vast internal market and conquest of entire product ranges or supply chains. America will continue with its efforts to maintain primacy over China in the basic technologies of the future, from artificial intelligence to quantum computing, with the help of huge investments in science. Although the US and China are not necessarily on the path of confrontation, this certainly cannot be ruled out. The aim of this paper is to project the future of the American and Chinese economies' dynamics of GDPs. The applied methodology is based on a linear projection of the GDP growth of both countries in the period after 2026.

Growing tensions between Russia and the West modify the foreign policy of the Balkan countries. A typical example is the Republic of Serbia, which strives to maintain an equidistant position in confrontation of geopolitical centers, but it is forced to be in the wake of the foreign policy of Brussels as a result of holding the status of the EU candidate country. The imposition of sanctions has shown the lack of unity of EU member states on the issue of relations with Russia. Belgrade considers the support of sanctions against Russia as unacceptable and is interested in increase of the volume of agricultural products export to the Russian market. Position of Serbia could be explained not only by economic pragmatism, but by the fact of the long history of friendly relations between the two countries. Among the main challenges of the Russian-Serbian cooperation are difficulties in the development of energy dialogue, mainly caused by the cancellation of the "South Stream" project. The lack of security concerning natural gas supply after the probable suspension of Ukrainian supply route forces the Serbian authorities to make adjustments in energy policy, in particular, to accelerate the process of diversification of energy resources import. The West, therefore, has got a favorable opportunity to reduce the level of dependency of Serbia on Russian gas and, in general, to influence the potential of its cooperation with Russia in the energy sector.

The article deals with the features of contemporary political development of Serbia, including the main areas of cooperation with the European Union (EU). Since the early 2000s the strategic priority of the country's foreign policy is participation in the European integration process, which is accompanied by support of consistent and pragmatic relations with the other key partners, primarily with Russia. The principle of multi-vector foreign policy has been developed since the fi rst half of the 2010s, but its use is treated with the lack of uniqueness by different social strata and political movements. Mechanisms of acceleration or slowing down the integration process are used by offi cial Brussels depending on the current aims and political conjuncture (for example, to weaken Russian infl uence in the country and in the region). However, despite the success achieved on the path to the EU accession and the favorable dynamics of negotiation process, the level of support of pro-European policy has been decreasing in Serbian society since the end of the 2000s. The main challenges of the near future, in addition to the growth of euroscepticism, include problems of institutional harmonization with the EU and the compliance with the Copenhagen criteria, the enforcement of the Brussels agreement with Pristina, as well as maintaining of balanced foreign policy.

China's 'One Belt, One Road' initiative puts new emphasis on the development of the system of international relations, and it is expected to contribute to the further displacement of the gravity center of the world economy and the expansion of intercontinental trade flows. Increased attention to the proposed project could be explained not only by its scale and supra-regional territorial coverage, but also with an ambiguous attitude to it in potential member countries, as well as by uncertainty of content, which allows experts to find different interpretations of its goals and objectives. Over time, it becomes increasingly clear that China is seeking to expand the scope of 'One Belt, One Road' (OBOR) by the realization of various projects in partner countries, deliberately giving them the initiative for the development of investment proposals. Having succeeded in creating the financial basis of this strategy and reducing the number of possible political risks, the Chinese authorities are rewarded not only with the growing interest to OBOR in the partner countries but also with the increasing competition between them for transportation routes development. This eventually will allow China to control the critical elements of an extensive network of ground transportation in Eurasia, which will be used for the intercontinental trade, especially for deliveries to remote areas of the hinterland (although the prospects to compete with sea transport remain non-obvious). We should not underestimate the other political and economic benefits of OBOR initiative that modestly silenced in official statements and documents. But at the same time while assessing the strategy we should refrain from the alarmist predictions about the formation of a new world order and hegemonic aspirations – at this stage, Chinese authorities consider OBOR as an opportunity to address the crucial problems of socioeconomic development, resource provision and the reduction of regional disparities. Neighboring countries, regardless of their regional ambitions and economic weight, have a chance to take advantage of externalities that will arise during the implementation of the new Chinese project.

Relying on relevant studies of internationally recognized economists, using content analysis, synthesis, and comparison methods, we monitor the process of de-dollarization, i.e. phenomenon of establishing a new balance of power in the global financial order. The main intention of the work is to project future directions of international monetary policy by pointing out the institutional and other barriers to the internationalization of the main contender for the status of global currency — the Chinese renminbi. The aim of the work is to provide guidelines to the creators of domestic economic policy in the context of the increased importance of non-Western currencies, and consequently, the need to rebalance the foreign exchange reserves and create the necessary infrastructure for the increased use of the Chinese currency on the domestic foreign exchange market. We conclude that despite a certain weakening of the global importance of the US currency — especially from the beginning of 2022 — the process of dedollarization is in its initial phase, and that could last for decades. Namely, in order to form a multilateral currency system, taking into account the current hegemonic status of the dollar, a substantial increase in the use of other currencies is necessary. This applies to world trade crediting, where the greatest, but still limited, progress of the yuan is seen, but also to the other domains such as the allocation of central bank's foreign exchange reserves, the securities' denomination, and the invoicing of financial transactions in bilateral trade and other arrangements.

The aim of the paper is to assess the possible consequences and risks for the global economy due to the increasingly pronounced geoeconomic fragmentation, dominantly determined by the trade and technological war of the US against China. Based on benchmark studies' findings, we reason that decoupling and trade fragmentation could manifest through several main channels. These are, among other things: the slowdown in the growth of global trade, reduced migration, decreased FDI, and bans on the transfer of certain high technologies. In order to achieve the primary goal of the study, we suggested pragmatic ways to preserve as many of the benefits as possible resulting from trade openness, that is, international economic cooperation. First of all, in addition to more intensive communications of the main global economic actors, in which additional efforts would be made for compromise solutions along the lines of argumentation of the academic community and experts in relevant international institutions, the work of leading multilateral organizations should be revitalized, giving greater importance in their leadership to developing countries, especially China. In the end, we argue that, despite all the risks, it is not realistic that geo-economic fragmentation will lead to a significant decline in most types of economic cooperation at the global level since there are no valid (geopolitical) reasons why Western countries would stop importing price- and qualitatively competitive products from China. Instead, collaboration will primarily be reduced to a limited number of high-tech sectors, perceived in Washington, Brussels, and Beijing as strategically important.

This paper aimed to investigate the FDI determinants in 27 transition countries within the 2002 – 2018 period by employing system GMM analysis. One of the results of our research is that an uncertain political situation and civil liberties violations have a significant negative impact on foreign investors' confidence. Generally, the erosion of democratic institutions acts as a deterrent to FDI inflows. Transition countries which experienced prolonged periods of central planning also recorded lower levels of FDI inflows. The results show that creating conditions for stimulating foreign investors through the improvement of institutional quality embodied in the control of corruption and voice and accountability impacted positively on FDI inflows. The interplays between overall institutional quality, voice and accountability, regulatory quality, government effectiveness and GDP growth are positive and significant. Hence, macroeconomic development has an important impact on the marginal effect of institutional quality. Therefore, we concluded that the influence of governance on FDI inflows is conditional on the transition countries' macroeconomic performance. Our findings also reveal that of the governance dimensions, control of corruption and voice and accountability have a significant influence on the decision of multinationals to undertake investment.

This paper aimed to investigate the FDI determinants in 27 transition countries within the 2002 – 2018 period by employing system GMM analysis. One of the results of our research is that an uncertain political situation and civil liberties violations have a significant negative impact on foreign investors' confidence. Generally, the erosion of democratic institutions acts as a deterrent to FDI inflows. Transition countries which experienced prolonged periods of central planning also recorded lower levels of FDI inflows. The results show that creating conditions for stimulating foreign investors through the improvement of institutional quality embodied in the control of corruption and voice and accountability impacted positively on FDI inflows. The interplays between overall institutional quality, voice and accountability, regulatory quality, government effectiveness and GDP growth are positive and significant. Hence, macroeconomic development has an important impact on the marginal effect of institutional quality. Therefore, we concluded that the influence of governance on FDI inflows is conditional on the transition countries' macroeconomic performance. Our findings also reveal that of the governance dimensions, control of corruption and voice and accountability have a significant influence on the decision of multinationals to undertake investment.

In this article we analyse the impact of the interaction between cross-border mergers and acquisitions and the quality of the institutional setting on domestic investment using panel data for 22 European transition countries from 2000 to 2014. We investigate whether the progress and durability of institutional reforms have a crucial influence on the economic performance of crossborder mergers and acquisitions in transition countries. Our empirical findings indicate that contemporaneous cross-border mergers and acquisitions have a crowding-out effect on domestic investment in the year of merger or acquisition, but the influence of their lagged level has a strong crowding-in effect one year later. We find that the overall quality of the institutional setting and the rule of law negatively and significantly affect the relation between this type of foreign direct investment and domestic investment, both in the short and long run. Political stability exhibits a positive and significant impact on domestic investment in the current period and over time.

South-Eastern European countries (SEE countries) are still net importers of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the form of cross-border mergers and acquisition. Their companies have not significantly involved in this type of expansion on the foreign markets. The main obstacles to entrepreneurship in their business environment are high levels of corruption and large state bureaucracy. Therefore, their economies are mostly characterized by low competitiveness, high trade deficit and insufficient inflow of FDI necessary to support their transition process from centrally planned toward market economy. Design of an efficient, transparent legal and institutional framework is a crucial determinant of FDI. Institutional setting in SEE countries has an impact on the entry mode choice as undeveloped institutions drive up the costs of organizing business. Therefore, efforts towards the higher quality of institutional setting may help them to attract more FDI inflow and catch up more advanced economies. To enable an insight into the quality of institutional setting in Serbia, authors will show the most important economic and political events since the beginning of the 90s which had direct or indirect influence on the level of FDI.