Many manufacturing make their products in few locations and ship them to many different locations. In this paper we use

Private consumption is considered one of the main drivers of economic growth in Western Balkan countries. The main aim of this study is to estimate the impact of private consumption on the economic growth of the Western Balkans, including the North Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. Housing wealth was even the main driver of total private consumption in the European Union (EU) countries as a whole (Barradas, 2017). Based on an extensive literature review for panel data, this study uses econometric models with fixed effect, random effect, and Hausman-Taylor test. The data are taken from the World Development Indicators by country (The World Bank, n.d.) and cover the period 2010–2019. Based on the Hausman-Taylor test, the model that fits a small sample as in our case is chosen as the fixed effect. The results of the estimator show that a 1% increase in final consumption leads to a 0.43% increase in gross domestic product (GDP) growth and that, on the other hand, a 1% increase in the employment rate increases GDP by 0.11%. The most important domestic factor continues to be private consumption, driven by record levels in the labour market and further strengthening of household purchasing power (Bank of Slovenia, 2020). The study concludes that private consumption is the main driver of economic growth and sustainability in the case of the Western Balkans.

The primary factors that were initially assumed to contribute to a decline in household income were job losses, which affect the decrease in consumption (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2020; Doerr & Gambacorta, 2020). Kosovo’s government has taken measures of social distancing, having a major impact on households such as the impact of dismissal due to the closure of businesses indefinitely. This regime is continuing from the different waves of COVID-19 variants and the family income as it goes and decreases. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to measure the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on household income including household consumption and savings for the years 2020–2021. The study uses a quantitative research method, thus, for primary data collection, the online questionnaire is used. The latent variable in this paper is the COVID-19 pandemic, while the factors that determine the latent variable are: savings, job loss, family income before the pandemic, and consumption expenditures. The study concludes that COVID-19 has a negative and significant impact on family income, saving, job loss, and consumption expenditures. The results from the structural equation modeling (SEM) are significant and the likelihood ratio (LR) test is 47.46. These findings and those of Martin, Hallegatte, and Walsh (2020), Dossche, Kolndrekaj, and Slacalek (2021), and Bundervoet, Davalos, and Garcia (2021) are consistent.

The Keynesian theory states that economic growth is positively affected by government spending, while Classical theory states that economic growth is negatively affected by government spending, as is stated by neoclassical public choice theorists (Nyasha & Odhiambo, 2019). Based on these theories, many authors have carried out research on the impact of economic freedom on economic growth by analyzing various empirical cases. Bergh and Karlsson (2010) with the findings from his paper confirmed that the countries with the highest government size have an elevated growth in the globalization index of KOF and the Fraser Institute’s economic freedom index. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the government size impact on the growth of the economy in the Western Balkan in the time period 2000–2017 according to Fraser Institute’s data, incorporating the following econometric models: fixed and random effects, pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), and Hausman-Taylor IV. With these models, this paper analyzes a government size and its components: government enterprises and investment, government consumption, transfers, and subsidies. The results illustrate a relationship between the size of the government and the growth of the economy in the Western Balkans that is positive. 1% increase in government size affects 0.29% gross domestic product (GDP) growth per capita. According to the Hausman-Taylor instrumental variable, 1% growth of government consumption is affected by 0.69% the decline in GDP per capita. The growth rate of transfers and subsidies affects 0.17% of GDP growth per capita and 1% of government enterprises and investment affects 0.54% GDP growth per capita.

In addition to being fatal to the lives of thousands of people, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was also fatal for corporations, businesses, and the entire global economy. COVID-19 is a pandemic with a contagious medical character, and it can even be fatal for the infected person who may have severe blockage of the respiratory system. From its origin, this virus spread across the globe, infecting hundreds of people of various ages and nationalities. For future occurrences to be understood, mathematical or statistical models with the fewest errors are required. This research is based on the studies of Sahai et al. (2020) and Ribeiro et al. (2020). In this study, the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model is used to forecast the monthly consumer price index (CPI) in Kosovo. Furthermore, ARIMA (3, 1, 2) projections revealed the potential values for monthly CPI are expected to be on the rise with related implications for Kosovo. The study suggested introducing health, political and economic policies, such as a secure political climate, incentives for indigenous industries, economic diversification, and development of healthcare facilities throughout the world. The relevance of this research lies in the mathematical treatment of this problem which has never been treated in the Kosovar environment.

This paper analyzes the relationship of macroeconomic factors to the level of non-performing loans (NPLs) using the econometric models GMM, the Fixed Effect model, and the Random Effect model. This study aims to identify macroeconomic factors at the level of non-performing loans in the Western Balkans, measure their impact on non-performing loans, and thus fill the gap that exists between macroeconomic factors (consisting of economic growth) and those with more impact on NPLs. The methodology used to carry out this research was desk research. We used World Bank data from 2000–2019, processed with STATA software. Results show that macroeconomic factors have an impact on non-performing loans. It also proves that even when interacting with other variables, the level of bad debt has not been completely eliminated, despite economic growth in many countries. Third, throughout the study period, fixed effects estimates show that variables are not significant in a static context. According to the findings, the annual rates of GDP growth, final government consumption, the real interest rate, gross domestic savings, and the unemployment rate all have a favorable impact on NPLs. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between macroeconomic factors and non-performing loans in the Western Balkans. Based on this, to help reduce loan risk and bad debt by the proper criteria, we propose a series of policy implications. These implications aim to improve the efficiency of banks in particular and the banking system as a whole. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2022-06-05-08 Full Text: PDF

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Studies to date show that taxes have a very high impact on company liquidity (Law & Yuen, 2019; Drogalas, Lazos, Koutoupis, & Pazarskis, 2019). The International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2022) shows the need to release tax procedures and their monitoring in the Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo law is such that it disables the timely liquidity of construction companies which has an impact on the reduction of construction companies’ projects. The main purpose of this paper is to describe the effects of changing the tax laws, namely the law on corporate income tax, personal income, and value-added tax (VAT) on the liquidity of construction companies in Kosovo. For this paper, we employ survey data collected from accountants and financial managers who through the questionnaire have reflected on the need to change the law on personal income, corporate income, and VAT. The models for measuring latent variables are structural equation models 1 and 2 (SEM1 and SEM2) and the ordinary least squares (OLS) models. The empirical results of the SEM1 and first OLS model (OLS1) reveal that the current law on corporate income tax and the law on personal income tax have negative effects on the liquidity of construction companies in the Republic of Kosovo and the empirical results from the SEM2 and second OLS model (OLS2) show that the current law on value-added tax has significant negative effects on the liquidity of construction companies in the Republic of Kosovo.