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This paper investigates the role of European firms' location in their access to capital from 2014 to 2018. Spatial variation in a firm's access to finance triggers differences between the development of rural and urban areas. The study draw on the geography of finance, which explores the phenomenon of the spatial distribution of financial markets, and aim to answer the question of to what extent the location of a firm affects its access to capital. The authors focus on both credit and equity markets and pursue an econometric approach. The paper explore the drivers of the capital structures of European firms with the main control variables connected to the spatial distribution of economic actors. The authors adds to the regional finance literature by examining hard data on the real capital structure patterns of firms. The findings lead to different conclusions: While for the credit market, the location of a firm still matters, financial center bias regarding the primary equity market is fading due to the growing computerization of communication. Highlights: * Companies from financial centers have better access to bank credit. * The concentration of the banking system increases the disparities between the core and periphery. * There is financial center bias in the equity markets in most European countries. * Financial center bias is negatively linked to the computerization of financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current rise of new right-wing groups with a particular combination of intransigent economic liberalism and conservative nationalist fascism, a kind of liberfascism, advocates for both a strict apology for the capitalist market and the exclusion of anything that challenges its model in the political and cultural spheres. Based on the populist discourse that exploits the discontent caused by neoliberal democracy, they gain followers for nationalist, cultural, and racist reasons that in the end are nothing more than right-wing deception to protect the rule of capital. Faced with the restoration of an already exhausted neoliberal model, an intersectionality appears between the Left and the Right which, far from confirming the diagnosis of the end of ideologies and the deactivation of the class struggle, rekindles conflicts over capital. This article deals with such a situation. It argues how intersectionality is not a privilege of the Left, but is also used by the extreme populist Right to channel discontent and propagate its particular brand of oppression. It is concluded, based on examples of struggles in Latin America and Europe, that an intersectional and transversal politics must be developed in the face of the hegemony of the new populist and nationalist Right; the political tactic must not be local, but must pursue a new international strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to migration, but also of globalization, all European states face, from year to year, big problems related to urbanism that are not actually limited only to matters related to the architecture of cities, but also to traffic, the layout of parks and of green areas, as well as parking lots. This article will try to present distinctive legal issues related to how urban planning problems are solved in some of the main European states that are, among others, touristically developed, and how their local administrations try to solve all the important aspects mentioned above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: The innovation in Sharī'ah-compliant banking products has resulted in the rapidly increasing size of assets in Islamic banks worldwide. The assets of such banks have been growing twice as fast as those of conventional banks. Islamic banks do not depend on con ventional interest, speculation, or complex derivatives stemming from banking operations. Instead, their actions in respect of profit/risk sharing, and the clarity of the contract are consistent with Islamic Sharī'ah principles, which seek to promote a more equal society. Purpose of the article: This research aims to identify and compare factors influencing the liquidity of Islamic and conventional banks in Europe. Candidate factors are sought amongst profitability, credit quality, credit expansion and capital adequacy indicators. Methodology: First, relevant financial ratios for 249 observations on Islamic banks and 2,306 observations on conventional banks are selected and compared for the period 2013-2017. Second, liquidity is explained separately for each type of banks by panel data regression to identify its determinants in a comparative context. Findings & value added: The results indicate that the impact of the net interest margin on the liquidity ratio of Islamic banks is insignificant, which is obviously due to the prohibition of the use of interest (riba). To the contrary, in conventional banking a higher net interest margin results in a reduction in liquidity. Capital adequacy has a positive influence upon liquidity in both types of banks, but in Islamic banking, the influence is 5.4 times greater. The findings strongly suggest that the liquidity of Islamic and conventional banks is affected by different factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the emigration of tertiary-educated EU citizens with North African heritage to Dubai. Longitudinal ethnographic data suggests that leaving Europe was a mobility strategy for dealing with a sense of 'racial stuckedness' at home, a status concern undergirding their stagnant socio-economic position. By 'transnationalizing' Bourdieu's seminal conceptual tool kit of the 'forms of capital', it contrasts the conversion yields of timely achieved educational credentials, marked by racial friction at home but significantly higher returns after transgressing into more favorable status zones overseas. This differently structured outcome suggests the analytical productivity of an altogether distinct value form, 'racial capital.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides estimations of the effects of different financial channels on physical investment in Europe using the balance sheets of publicly listed non-financial corporations (NFCs) for the period 1995–2015. The evidence suggests that both financial payments and financial income have an adverse effect on investment in fixed assets. The negative impacts of increasing financial income are non-linear with respect to company size: they crowd out investment in large companies, and have a positive effect on the investment of relatively smaller companies. Similar to the recent literature on finance-growth nexus, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between financial development and companies' investment. However, in contrast to the existing literature, we also find that a higher degree of financial development in the country is associated with a stronger negative effect of financial income on investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms should use their assets efficiently to increase their profit. There are many methods to evaluated the productivity of firms' activities. Ratio analysis is widely used to analyze productivity for financial performance. This study is used activity ratios to evaluate the financial productivity of airlines. Activity ratios are used the productivity of firms' assets, receivables, payables, inventories and fixed assets. As firms use their assets productively, their profit increases. Firms' high performance can raise their stock value, which in turn, increases their value. In this study, it is aimed in productivity in terms of activity ratios for Airlines. In addition, it is investigated the effect of activity ratios on firm value in this study. The 7-years (2010-2016) data of the top 10 airlines operating in Europe are used in the implementation. Asset turnover, inventory turnover, accounts receivables turnover, financial leverage ratio and stock price variables are analyzed using the method of panel data. According to analysis of results, firm value is positively affected by accounts receivables turnover and asset turnover, and negatively affected by inventory turnover and financial leverage ratio. As the financial productivity increases, the value of the firm increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, cities across Europe have served as 'European Green Capital' (EGC), an initiative celebrating the contribution of environmental action to urban life. Drawing together the experiences of initial EGC winners, for the first time this paper considers what EGC means to city managers as a way of celebrating and driving forward environmental performance, as well as promoting their own cities. Through a discussion of the experiences of the initial host cities, the paper outlines a typology of EGCs. In doing so the paper notes a shift to a harder-edged economic outlook, which increasingly incorporates themes of entrepreneurial economic growth and competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One consequence of the internationalization of R&D may be the transfer of foreign technology from the multinational to other firms in its home country. This phenomenon, which can be termed inter-firm reverse technology transfer and which has not been directly analyzed by either the international management or foreign direct investment literature, may have significant implications for policy—particularly in Europe. This article is a first attempt in this direction. Patent citation analysis on a database of EPO patents granted to 17 European chemical and pharmaceutical multinationals over the period 1985–2005 shows that they act as a channel for the transmission of knowledge developed in the United States, to other home country firms; these results are robust to the exclusion of examiner citations. We find that this technology transfer process is explained by the degree of home country embeddedness of the multinational firm, the US subsidiaries’ engagement in asset-augmenting activities, and the presence of a technology gap between the United States and the home country. These results point to an alternative understanding of foreign direct R&D investment and its implications for the home country's technological activity and general competitive performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Chinese economic presence in Europe is primarily discussed as a security threat with its impact on sustainability remaining a rather marginal issue. This article investigates the repercussions of Chinese capital's surge in Europe for environmental protection and analyses the reasons behind its poor performance. We examine five key Chinese projects in Southeast Europe, a sub-region that includes countries with different forms of association with European institutions and with varying levels of development and state capacity. We find that the negative environmental impact of these projects cannot be attributed to the commonly held perception of the Chinese as inherently "bad" investors and of host states as "weak" and dependent. Rather, we identify a synergy of failures between investors, host states and regional institutions that results in poor regulation and compliance. This finding calls for the inclusion of sustainability in foreign investment screening mechanisms and the abandonment of contradictory developmental priorities in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The volume of literature on the credit-creating powers of the Euro-dollar market, although small, is growing. This paper contends that the stock of net Euro-dollar deposits (E[sub n]) can be expressed as the product of a Euro-dollar base (B) and a Euro-dollar multiplier (k). As in domestic models, the terms of the multiplier reflect asset choices of the sectors reflected by them. A parallel between the flow of funds within the Euro-dollar market and most domestic banking systems exists. Except that no single institution serves as a Euro-dollar central bank, the two systems are highly comparable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines differences in the ability to obtain capital—bank loans and trade credit—between firms, industries, and countries using survey data on European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 2009 to 2014. The results show that firm age and firm size are positively linked to SMEs’ access to bank loans, but only firm size is positively related to the provision of trade credit. The results also provide empirical support for a complementary rather than a substitutive effect between bank loans and trade credit. Manufacturing SMEs have a significantly higher likelihood of receiving bank loans and trade credit than non-manufacturing SMEs. We find differences across countries in terms of the relevance of firm age and firm size for obtaining capital. In addition, we point at specific country-level variables that explain why obtaining credit is easier in some countries. We perform additional analyses to confirm our baseline results and provide directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although active markets for corporate control have proliferated beyond liberal market economies, marketization has not become universal and indeed takes different forms. Although there is a growing body of literature that analyses marketization, systemic underlying dynamics shaping the specific trajectory of marketization have been scarcely addressed. Drawing on a critical institutionalist perspective, this article analyzes the marketization of corporate control against the backdrop of the structural problem of overaccumulation and locates the variegated trajectory of marketization in the specific interplay between the state and different capital fractions. This article focuses on Serbia and Turkey. Serbia has witnessed a substantial marketization of corporate control which comprises the adoption of (foreign) investor friendly market-enabling regulations and a growing number of majority acquisitions which were often followed by efficiency-oriented restructurings. By contrast, in Turkey, state capital alliances hampered the marketization of corporate control, and advocated for regulations which still allow for the selective prioritization of certain capital fractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of rural decline, many farms have to find more sustainable ways of surviving. For many of them, the way to stabilize and increase income is to diversify the farm. The decision to diversify depends largely on the characteristics of the farm and the farmers themselves. The purpose of this article is to determine the factors influencing the probability of diversification of agricultural holdings. Data were collected in the Central Pomerania region using a questionnaire survey. Identification of factors influencing the probability of diversification of farms was made using the logistic regression model. The analysis covers the diversification of production and the diversification of income sources. The conducted study shows that the decision to use diversification in farms depends on the demographic characteristics of farm owners and on their stocks. The likelihood of diversification of production increases with the number of fixed assets. It decreases, however, with the rising level of education. In turn, the likelihood of diversification of income sources increases with the reduction of the area of the farm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: While in Western Europe occupational plans dominate private pension provision, coverage of such plans is marginal in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Previous literature has shown the World Bank's instrumental role in persuading CEE countries to divert part of their social security contributions towards mandatory personal pensions. The dominance of the Bank's model of pension privatization from the mid‐1990s largely explains the marginalization of occupational plans. However, as this model has been challenged since the late 2000s, occupational pensions (OPs) have re‐appeared on the agenda. To shed light on the changing politics of OPs, this article focuses on the role of organized interests—namely employers' associations, trade unions, and financial groups—that are key players in Western Europe, but whose role has been understudied in CEE. The article follows these actors' activities in the last three decades of pension politics in Poland, i.e., one of the few CEE countries to have promoted occupational provision. It shows that, although organized interests had limited policy expertise and mainly mobilized social consent for—or opposition to—reform in the early phases of post‐communist pension reform, the growing organizational resources of business groups—in contrast with unions—make them increasingly influential actors in reshaping the contours of CEE private pension provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effects of capital account liberalization on firm capital allocation and aggregate productivity in 10 Eastern European countries. Using a large firm-level data set, we show that capital account liberalization decreases the dispersion in the return to capital across firms, particularly in sectors more dependent on external finance. We provide evidence that capital account liberalization improves capital allocation by allowing financially constrained firms to demand more capital and produce at a more efficient level. Finally, using a model of misallocation we document that capital account liberalization increases aggregate productivity through more efficient capital allocation by 10% to 16%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I will analyze the current trend in many European Countries of lowering the minimum legal capital required to create a private company, as well as the most relevant experiences in the field of the simplified constitution process of private companies. In the final remarks, some key points of these issues are going to be compared, also adding references to the recently introduced Italian almost capital-less companies, by concluding, among other things, that a legal capital's decrease does not necessarily imply a race to the bottom in opposition to the interests of the company's creditors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Problems of Economy is the property of Research Centre for Industrial Developmen Problems of Nas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There has been a great deal of interest in the data on income and wealth inequality collected by Thomas Piketty. This paper does not question that data; rather, it questions the framework of Piketty's analysis, both theoretically and empirically—namely the alleged upward tendency of the ratio of wealth to national income and the rise of wealth inequality. First, in the mechanism put forward, wealth can only grow as a result of savings, thus ruling out any form of price effect (as in urban land). Second, Piketty’s second law defines an asymptotical trajectory, in which variables grow in parallel, something incompatible with the rise of the ratio between two variables. In addition, Piketty’s model does not match data for the USA. The historical profile of the ratio of wealth/national income is actually the inverted image of the productivity of capital (the ratio of output/firms’ fixed capital). Doubts are also expressed concerning the dramatic fall of the ratio of wealth/national income in Europe around World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose: The goal of the paper is to analyse the determinants of the level of ROE (return on equity) for two groups of banks, interrelated by capital links, and their banking sectors. Methodology: For the case study, we chose companies that, in 2011-2013, were designated by the Financial Stability Board as global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) and their subsidiaries operating in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) as well as their banking sectors. We sought to identify differences in the performance drivers, taking into account bank-specific and country- (or sector-) specific factors. Findings: We found no significant differences in the level of ROE among the analysed groups; however, we identified a different set of determinants and their impact on ROE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulation and corporate governance are able to influence the banks' capital optimization problem, therefore impacting changes in capital ratios and risk exposure. Capitalization of banks has become a hot issue during the latest financial crisis that had its peak in 2008, and a key component in the review of the regulatory framework. This study aims at evaluating the influence of regulatory constraints and corporate governance in determining changes in capital ratios and risk levels in banking institutions. To test the hypotheses a panel of European banks from 2006 to 2010 is analyzed. 3SLS is used as estimation technique to account for possible endogeneity problems. Results overall suggest that regulatory pressure and corporate governance act as complementary forces on capital and risk adjustments, although the strength and sign of the governance variables remain unclear. This is one of the first studies to analyze capital and risk decisions taking into consideration both corporate governance and regulation in a unified framework for a sample of European banks operating across the latest financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under Basel III, banks are required to build up countercyclical capital buffers during periods of excessive credit growth to cover future credit losses. Based on a review of the credit boom episodes in sixteen Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European countries during 2000s, two measures of excessive credit are calculated: one based on the Hodrick-Prescott filter, as suggested by the Basel Committee for the activation of the countercyclical buffer, and the other based on an estimate of equilibrium credit. While the filtering-based measure signals future credit losses quite well, using the measure based on equilibrium credit improves the forecast of future deleveraging and its impact on GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that labor and social movements should repoliticize the transnationalization of capital in production and finance. The neoliberal era has demonstrated the power asymmetry between global capital and national labor. It seems that academics, trade unions, and progressive politicians have accepted this upscaling of capital to the global level as an irreversible fact that cannot be challenged. This article claims that progressive labor and social movements should, first, repoliticize the power of global capital and, second, try to scale down capital. The article studies three cases from the European Union to examine whether trade unions are trying to repoliticize, and succeeding in repoliticizing, global capital's power. It is concluded that repoliticizing and challenging the power of transnational capital is not impossible, but not easy either, and that trade unions need to focus more on these struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the relationship between loan-loss provisions (LLPs) and earnings management in the context of the capital adequacy of Euro Area (EA) banks versus non-EA credit institutions. This paper also examines whether LLPs signal managements’ expectations concerning future bank profits to investors. Additionally, this paper traces the role of bank regulations and creditor protection systems in explaining income smoothing. Evidence drawn from the 1996 to 2006 period indicates that LLPs do reflect changes in the expected quality of a bank's loan portfolio for both groups of banks, and that earnings management is an important determinant of LLPs for EA intermediaries, whereas non-EA credit institutions use LLPs to signal private information to outsiders. The paper also finds that higher protection of creditors’ rights significantly reduces the incentives to smooth earnings for EA banks. During the recent financial crisis, EA bank managers are much more concerned with their credit portfolio quality and do not use LLPs for discretionary purposes, whereas LLPs at non-EA banks are used to smooth income more than for the purposes of managing capital ratios or conveying private information about future performance to the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the analysis of a relationship between macroprudential and microprudential policy on a general level and on an example of regulatorily required structure and volume of bank capital. Regulatory requirements and supervisory methods are described in connection with the institutional structure of regulation and supervision within the European economic area. An attention is paid to the development of supervision on an individual basis through consolidated supervision to supplementary supervision of financial conglomerates, which corresponds with the activity and structure of the financial sector, high rate of integration and transboundary action of financial groups headed by a bank. The European System of Financial Supervision and Single Supervisory Mechanism are presented. Development of the regulation of bank capital is analysed. The original microprudential approach is mentioned that involved macroeconomic impacts from its introduction. Based on the analysis of capital structure as conceived from Basel I to Basel III approaches of regulation to this important indicator are discussed. Instability sources and indicative instruments of macroprudential policy are analysed on an example of the excessive growth of credits and leverage as an instability source and countercyclical capital buffer, sectoral capital requirements and leverage ratio in the role of indicative instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sylla and Wright's statistics of new US special incorporations in 1790–1860 show that they exceeded those in France, Prussia and the UK, but the aggregate paid-up share capitals of extant companies were not so far apart in 1860. The UK continued to lead corporatisation, as measured by the ratio of corporate share capital to GDP. The distinctive features of US corporations were that they were small, diverse and numerous, while UK corporations were larger, more capital-intensive, less prone to disappear and had more dispersed ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Labour market shortages, structural problems and unfavourable demographics have all prompted governments to act, often by focusing on high-skilled immigration. However, policy responses have been very different. Some countries were able to adopt quite open high-skilled immigration policies, while others did not. This article provides a political economy explanation for this. It argues that, despite similar pressures, high-skilled immigration policy outputs vary due to shifting coalitions between disaggregated sectors of native high-skilled, low-skilled labour and capital. To probe this argument, the article examines coalitions in four countries (France, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom) from the late 1990s to present, and draws on original interviews with policy-makers, unions and employers' associations; official documents and the literature on immigration, political economy and public policy. The varying labour market organization of actors informs differences in coalitions which in turn has resulted in different high-skilled immigration policy outputs, cross-nationally and over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent of demographic changes in Europe is much more drastic than in the United States. This paper studies the effects of population aging on the interactions between economic growth and living standards in Europe with labor market and pension reform, behavioral adaptations, and international capital flows. Our analysis is based on an overlapping generations model with behavioral reactions to reform which is extended to the multi-country situation typical for Europe. While the negative effects of population aging on growth in Europe can in principle be compensated by reforms and economic adaptation mechanisms, they may be partially offset by behavioral reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the sources of economic growth and relative backwardness in 10 Central Eastern European (CEE) post-socialist countries between 1995 and 2007. It executes both growth accounting and development accounting for the CEE countries. The results show the primary source of economic growth was the accumulation of physical capital in the period investigated, followed by the growth of multifactor productivity. The contribution of labour was marginal in most cases. These growth accounting results are consistent with those of development accounting, which show that substantial backwardness (compared with Germany) prevailed only in capital intensity and multifactor productivity in the 10 CEE countries. Beyond the empirics of the growth path of the CEE countries, this study also contributes from a methodological standpoint by providing a thorough overview of the possible techniques of initial capital stock estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fifteen countries from CEE region are analyzed in the paper within the period from 2005 till 2010 with the aim of determining the relation between capital availability and economic growth. Moreover, the analysis uses the correlation and panel regression as main tools for confirming the hypotheses. Furthermore, within the paper financial inclusion and availability of financial services as one of the most important topics within EU are being analyzed. The main focus is on empirically investigated correlation between financial development and faster current and future rates of economic growth, with special focus on physical capital accumulation, and economic efficiency improvements. Finally, there is a link established between the growth of the citizens' wealth and economic development of the country and the availability of bank services and foreign capital inflow as well. Consequently, the obtained results indicate that the effects of world economic crisis influenced the citizen's welfare starting from 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard economic growth models generally consider different factors of production such as land, capital, labour, technology and human capital. These are common in theoretical models and empirical applications but more evidence is still needed for their long-term regional evolution. Therefore, this paper traces the evolution of specific aspects of these factors in the European regions and cities by means of different proxies. The data have been collected and calculated from a wide range of diverse historical and spatial data bases. A particular feature is the definition of the European regions according to the NUTS classification by the European Union. Thus, the paper gives a rough outline of some of the most important long-term regional tendencies that should be taken into account in research directed to past and recent time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent financial crisis challenged long held perceptions of money market funds (MMF) as stable and highly liquid instruments. Regulators in the United States and in Europe now seek to impose additional rules on MMFs to buttress the funds' ability to sustain runs. In the United States, the debate is drawing even more media attention as the question of which regulatory body should lead the way-the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, or the Financial Stability Oversight Council-has taken interesting twists and turns. This article examines primary reform options being proposed in the United States, and concludes that additional rules that were implemented by the SEC in 2010 have adequately strengthened the perceived weaknesses of the MMF industry, which has for the most part proven itself reliable. If after further in depth study and analysis, regulators conclude that additional regulations are advisable, the proposal of a capital buffer is the most promising reform option. The paper's ultimate conclusion is informed by the experiences of the European fund industry which, provide invaluable lessons for US. regulators on what reform options are viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European insurance industry is among the largest institutional investors in Europe. Therefore, major reallocations in their investment portfolios due to the new risk-based economic capital requirements introduced by Solvency II would cause significant disruptions in European capital markets and corporate financing. This paper studies whether the new regulatory capital requirements for market risk are a binding constraint for European insurers by comparing the required market risk capital of the Solvency II standard model with the Standard & Poor's rating model for a fictitious, but representative, European-based life insurer. The results show that for a comparable level of confidence, the rating model requires 68 per cent more capital than the standard model for the same market risks. Hence, Solvency II seems not to be a binding capital constraint for market risk and thus would not significantly influence the insurance companies' investment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the reinsurance model system, which provides liquidity and requisite capacity to create insurability of risks, by building up mutualities in time for high risks. It informs that with the help of the European directive on solvency, reinsurance underwriting strategies will be altered and ceding companies will be able to ameliorate their economic capital use. It discusses the future of reinsurance as bright if at all the risk universe is expanding.

The EU agriculture, in spite of the market integration process, shows important differences in terms of productivity and efficiency. It is thus important to determine whether there is a convergence process in agricultural productivity and what factors would explain the observed disparities. To respond to these two questions, the dynamic of the agricultural labour productivity of 125 EU regions was analysed. The methodology was an estimation of the convergence equation with cross-section data for the period 1985-2004. The results showed that there is a very slow process of absolute convergence in productivity among the EU agricultures. Besides, productivity growth is related to agricultural out-migration and higher levels of physical capital. On the contrary, Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) support to the agricultural sector does not seem to have contributed to the productivity growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to further pursue a previous research which focused on testing the mathematical model regarding the recovery term's contribution to the identification of the value losses from using the fixed assets in the Romanian accounting area. We will treat here the realities encountered in the implementation of the mathematical model recovery term of the economic asset within the European area. There have also been covered the existent differences between the techniques and tools employed in the two areas, the Romanian and the European one, with regard to the testing of the suggested mathematical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]