Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions as measured by perceived feasibility and perceived desirability, and to explore gender differences in perceptions of entrepreneurship education needs – in terms of programmes, activities or projects – to succeed in an entrepreneurial career from the university student's point of view.Design/methodology/approach: Using data gathered from 3,420 university students in more than ten countries, and applying the Mann‐Whitney non‐parametric test, differences between genders and different intention groups were examined. To reduce the items regarding educational needs, factor analysis was used. Gender differences in educational needs were also examined via Mann‐Whitney Test.Findings: The results confirm that compared to males, female students are less willing to start their own businesses. There are significant gender differences in terms of perceived feasibility and perceived desirability such that although they feel more supported by their families, females are less self‐confident, more tense, reluctant and concerned about entrepreneurship. In terms of entrepreneurial intention, there are fewer gender differences among students; however, differences relating to self‐confidence and family support still exist. Furthermore, students cited establishing entrepreneurial mentoring and an appropriate tutoring structure as the most needed entrepreneurial educational activity/program/project at an academic institution; this was rated higher by females compared to males.Practical implications: The findings of this paper could help guide educators and policy makers in designing effective entrepreneurship programmes that are customized to respond to gender specific needs to increase entrepreneurial participation.Originality/value: This study reveals the gender differences in perceived desirability and perceived feasibility which impact entrepreneurial intentions. Gender differences in the entrepreneurial programmes/activities/projects required at an academic institution to promote entrepreneurial participation among university students is also explored.

Different manifestations of infrastructure diplomacy have been used as a prime example of how major powers dissatisfied with their position in the international system have been using economic tools to pursue their national objectives. On the other hand, the status quo powers have attempted to counter these moves by implementing their own versions of infrastructure diplomacy. This article explores the said dynamics within the context of the Three Seas Initiative (TSI). Merging insights from international relations, international economics and strategic project management, this article interrogates how the heightened geopolitical competition spills over to regional economies through infrastructure diplomacy and major infrastructure projects and whether and how policymakers deploy economic tools in major infrastructure projects to promote geopolitical interests within the TSI. Our findings imply that while informal state-to-state signalling is a predecessor to corporate-to-corporate signalling, formal state-to-state signals also support corporate-to-corporate actions.

This paper provides a detailed empirical study of trade creation and trade diversion effects arising from Croatia's two regional trade agreements, the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) and the European Union (the EU). It offers a foundation for discussion about future trade policies in terms of benefits and drawbacks from those regional trade agreements. Croatia’s imports, exports and total trade flows with 180 trading partner countries were examined for the period of 2000 – 2016. Cross-country panel regression using gravity model of international trade assessed pooled OLS, fixed and random effects, as well as more robust Tobit and PPML estimator models. The random effects model found positive effects of Croatia-CEFTA integration evident in trade creation in imports, exports and total trade flows. Croatia-EU integration exhibits no significant effect of trade creation in neither imports, exports nor total trade flows. Nonetheless, there is a trade diversion effect in cases of imports and total trade flows. In the Tobit model CEFTA created trade in imports, exports and total trade flows, while the EU diverted trade in imports and total trade flows. Finally, the robust PPML estimator found that: (1) CEFTA membership created trade in imports, exports and total trade flows, and (2) the EU membership diverted trade in imports and exports, and created trade in total trade flows.

Zipf’s law is a striking regularity in the field of urban economics that states that the sizes of cities should follow the rank-size distribution. Rank-size distribution, or the rank-size rule, is a commonly observed statistical relationship between the population size and population rank of a nations’ cities. The goal of this paper is to test Zipf’s law as applied to data for settlements and cities in Croatia using the Census of Population Survey for the year 2011. The results of the analysis have shown that Zipf’s law for settlements in Croatia holds true for the majority of the settlement sizes. However, the rank-size distribution does not hold true for extremely small and extremely large settlement sizes. When city proper and urban agglomeration of 127 Croatian cities were examined, Zipf’s law was found to hold true only for urban agglomerations. The results of the study are discussed in terms of regional development.

Ovaj rad ispituje utjecaj diverzifikacije izvoza na rast ukupne produktivnosti faktora proizvodnje tristo najvećih izvoznika u Republici Hrvatskoj grupiranih u 13 industrijskih sektora. U radu se koriste godišnji financijski podaci poduzeća za razdob...