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The existence of complementarity relationships between different types of innovations is important for developing synergistic effects and economies of scale. This, in turn, should yield increased firm productivity. Here, we explore the potential impact of complementarity and/or substitutability relationships between different innovation activities on the firms' performance by utilizing cross-sectional data taken from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS2014) for two groups of countries: Central and Eastern Europe and Western European countries. The results indicate that all types of innovation have a statistically significant and positive impact on the productivity of the companies operating in both markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper makes an indetail overview of the structure of the trade exchange of goods of Macedonia and explores the determinants of its bilateral trade flows using the gravity model. The analysis includes data on 40 trade partners of Macedonia in the period from 2005-2019. The used variables in the model are: GDP per capita difference, population, distance and relative endowments of factors of production (capital, land and labour). In most of the analyzed regressions the coefficients on determinants such as GDP per capita difference and population are positive and their impact upon the bilateral trade (as dependent variable) is statistically significant. Intensity of Macedonian trade decreases in regard of the distance from a trade partner and increases in partner's size - the country tends to trade more with lager countries. In our analysis we included three dummy variables such as: membership in the EU and in CEFTA-2006 and common language. The impact of the possible membership in the EU is clearly positive and statistically significant. Being a candidate country for full EU membership, Macedonia trades more with EU trade partners rather than with the neibouring countries, members of CEFTA-2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides empirical evidence on the innovation performance in the European countries in the years of recovery from the global economic and financial crisis by using the CDM model of simultaneous equations. The model directly links R&D engagement and intensity to innovation outcomes measured either as process or as product innovation, and then estimates the effectiveness of the innovative efforts leading to productivity gains. The difference between the drivers of innovation systems and its influence over the productivity growth is analyzed between two different institutional settings in Europe. For that purpose a company-level dataset is used from the 2012 round of the Comunity Innovation Survey. Тhe results indicated that the recent financial crisis had negative influence on the companies' willingness to innovate. The effect of the crisis led to further divergence in the innovation systems of these two institutional settings. Identifying the characteristics of the innovation systems and drivers of innovation during the turmoil shows that policy instruments on EU level should be oriented towards creation of competitive business environment, encouragement to adopt the best management techniques and organizational structures and improvement of well-functioning capital, product and labor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides empirical evidence on the innovation performance in European countries in the period 2012-2014 based on a micro level analysis. We provide a comparative perspective among three different institutional settings in Europe: Central and Eastern European countries (CEE), Southern European countries and Northern European countries. We estimate the CDM model of simultaneous equations while using data from the Eurostat Community Innovation Survey 2014 (CIS2014). This model directly links R&D engagement and intensity to innovation outcomes measured either as process or as product innovation and then estimates the effectiveness of the innovative efforts in terms of productivity gains. In general, during our observation period, which fell in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the links between innovation inputs, innovation outputs and productivity were found to be rather weak. Another remarkable finding from our study is that, notwithstanding a higher participation in innovation by larger firms, among those firms that innovate, innovation output is relatively higher for small firms (compared to large firms) in Northern Europe. This relatively important role for small firms in innovation was not found for the other two country groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The goal of this paper is to explore the possible influence of certain economic factors over the FDI inflow in South-East European (SEE) countries and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. We compare the situation in 7 countries from the region of South-East Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia and 7 countries from the region of Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia. Research method - We apply a holistic approach based on panel data for a twenty-two-year period from 1995 till 2018. The analysis was effectuated through a panel unit-root test. The dependent variable is FDI net inflow (as % of GDP). The study takes into account the following economic variables: annual percentage growth of GDP; labor productivity as GDP per person employed; government consumption as percentage of GDP; inflation rate as annual percentage of GDP deflator; labor force with advanced education (% of the total working-age population with advanced education) and labor taxes and contributions (% of commercial profits). Results - The results indicate that there are differences between the factors that influence the FDI inflow in these two groups of countries. For the South-East European countries government spending, labor force with advanced education, inflation and labor taxes and contributions were the factors that have significant influence over the FDI inflow. For the Central and Eastern European countries all of the included independent variables appear to be significant factors in attracting FDI inflow. Originality / value - In the literature we can rarely find analyses of economic determinants for FDI inflow in the selected groups of countries. Also, the period of twenty-two years from 1995 till 2018 provides novelty of the results and of the conducted analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]