Nowadays, there is competition in attracting film producers to screen their productions in specific locations, but at the same time, there is also a lack of data‐driven academic research that measures the effects of film industry on local tourism. This study evaluates the effects of film industry on tourism outcomes in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Using the synthetic control approach, we estimate the causal effect of a highly broadcasted TV series, Game of Thrones, on tourist arrivals. The use of such a data‐driven procedure is an important step towards identification‐based empirical work in tourism research as it enables us to build a credible synthetic counterfactual and to answer the “what if” type of questions. We find a robust and positive effect of filming the TV series in Dubrovnik on the number of tourist arrivals. Additionally, we show that there are positive spillover effects on other counties and the whole country. Placebo tests show that the estimated effects are relatively large when compared to other counties implying our results are not driven simply by chance.

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Summary The paper analyses health consequences of forced civilian displacement that occurred during the war in Croatia 1991–1995 which accompanied the demise of Yugoslavia. During the Serbo‐Croatian conflict a quarter of Croatian territory was ceded, 22000 people were killed and more than 500000 individuals were displaced. Using the Croatian Adult Health Survey 2003 we identify the causal effect of forced migration on various dimensions of measured and self‐assessed health. To circumvent the self‐selection into displacement, we adopt an instrumental variable approach where civilian casualties per county are used as an instrument for displacement. We find robust adverse effects on probability of suffering hypertension and tachycardia as well as on self‐assessed health and ‘Short form health survey’ health dimensions. Comparing ordinary least squares with instrumental variable estimates yields a conclusion of a positive selection into displacement with respect to latent health. Given the likely violation of the exclusion restriction, we use a method which allows the instrument to affect health outcomes directly and conclude that, even with substantial departures from the exclusion restriction, displacement still adversely affects health.

This paper evaluates the effects of an active labor market policy (ALMP) reform, the so‐called SOR measure (vocational training for work without commencing employment), on youth labor market outcomes in the newest EU member state—Croatia. In 2012, SOR was redesigned to ease the first labor market entry and promote on‐the‐job training, enabling a young person without relevant work experience to get a one‐year contract and a net monthly remuneration of 210 euro, while after 2014, the measure also became a part of the European Youth Guarantee. Pooling Croatian Labor Force Surveys from 2007 to 2016 and using the difference‐in‐difference strategy, we estimate the causal intent‐to‐treat effect of the program reform on labor market outcomes. The main results indicate that the reform has had, at best, neutral effects on employment and unemployment, while there is evidence that a portion of young individuals was propelled into inactivity. Though expected, adverse effect on wages—both at the mean and at higher percentiles of the wage distribution—is driven mostly by wages received by women and university graduates.

Is there an economic premium from state independence? We shed light on this question by analysing the unique historical case of the peaceful separation of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006-the last fully recognised internationally state-disintegration on European soil. Using the synthetic control approach, we find that independence for the seceding country (Montenegro) had a sizeable but transitory positive effect, boosting GDP per capita in the period immediately following independence, but with gains slowly evaporating in the longer periodwhich we attribute to increased vulnerability of the newly independent state to fluctuations in the international economic environment. In contrast, for Serbia, we find no evidence of an independence dividend. While these results are context-specific, the resemblance of Serbia and Montenegro's case with the contemporaneous independence movements in Europe, namely in the realm of policy autonomy pre-separation, provide insights on possible economic outcomes of secessions on the national and supra-national level in Europe.

This paper evaluates the effect of a self-employment grant scheme for unemployed individuals—designed to ease the first 12 months of business operation—on firm growth, survival, and labor market reintegration in Croatia in the 2010–2017 period. Grants offered a moderate amount of finances (up to 50% of average annual gross salary) and absorbed only 5% of funds allocated to active labor market policies (ALMPs), but accounted for 10% of new firms opened throughout the years. We contribute to the literature on self-employment grants with several novel findings. Exploiting the longitudinal structure of the unemployment episodes dataset, we find that individuals who finish their spell with a grant have a significantly lower probability of returning to unemployment. The policy is particularly effective for individuals who would have otherwise had labor market opportunities (men, more educated, prime-age workers, previously employed), individuals who became unemployed after inactivity and lost their job due to a firm's closure—which demonstrates that self-employment subsidies can be effective in ameliorating unemployment. However, the policy was not effective for longer unemployed individuals. At the firm level, we find descriptive evidence that limited liability firms opened via a grant have lower growth potential and worse survival profile, while unlimited liability firms—even though a sizable portion of them closes after a required 12-month grant period—have a more favorable survival profile. Finally, we also find that the effectiveness of these grants has increased throughout the years, indicating toward the direction of institutional learning.

The academic picture of a globalized European countryside, and particularly of rural areas in postsocialist, new member states of the European Union, is one of huge and increasing complexity, diversity, and uncertainties about the future. The aim of this research is to construct alternative scenarios for rural Croatia in 2030, acknowledging its postsocialist transition as an important framework. Future development scenarios were constructed by integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches. The main methods used

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