Suchergebnisse

The objective of this study is to measure the effects of state aid distributed to private enterprises in North Macedonia on the enterprises' efficiency. We examine the governmental Plan for Economic Growth (PEG) pursued through the Financial Support of Investment Law (FSIL) and the Fund for Innovation and Technological Development (FITD). We rely on a rigorous impact evaluation method, whereby comparison groups are sourced from the pool of rejected applicants for the two programs. We pursue conditional matching on firms' observables and then apply the difference-in-differences method to isolate the effect of the subsidy. FSIL State Aid showed largely ineffective, with producing hardly any difference in sales, investment, wages, or profits among recipients, except employment. These results demonstrate the absence of the incentive effect as it relates to FSIL state aid. On the other hand, the FITD State Aid showed to be considerably effective, as the recipients were found to have increased their sales revenue and their investment in technology and profits, corroborating the presence of the incentive effect as it relates to FITD state aid. Notwithstanding the legitimacy of the policy objective to equalize domestic and foreign firms in terms of their access to state aid, these findings document partial failure of the PEG to do so due to its structural problems.JEL classification: H25, C90

The objective of this article is to qualitatively assess the scope of diaspora contribution to the economic development of North Macedonia. The author's key argument is that diaspora presents an indispensable source of opportunities for helping the development of the country. The author collected qualitative data and used existing quantitative data, and set them in an exploratory framework. Findings suggest that diaspora works positively for the economic and, broadly societal development of North Macedonia. The contribution of the various forms of diaspora engagement has been assessed as positive. The more systematic evidence existing on the role of remittances in development supports their poverty-alleviation role, as well their acting as informal social protection for the receiving households. However, findings suggest that the potential for diaspora engagement in North Macedonia's development remains significantly underutilized, particularly in terms of diaspora investment. The insufficiently systematic approach in dealing with the issue, government inefficiency and the perception of political uncertainty and the (deficiency in) rule of law are identified key stumbling blocks.

The objective of this paper is to assess if inflation targeting post-communist economies performed better, in terms of output growth, during the crisis than their non-inflation targeting counterparts. The paper also puts the issue in the context of the preconditions of inflation targeters to adopt this regime. 26 post-communist economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States are analyzed during the ongoing economic crisis. Results suggest that inflation targeters of those countries performed worse than non-inflation targeters. The growth decline in inflation targeters postcommunist economies has been estimated to be deeper by about four percentage points than that in non-inflation targeters. The study finds very limited role of the preconditions for growth decline. Only the lower amount of monetary financing of the budget may have contributed in inflation-targeting countries to have gone through the crisis better.