The European Green Deal policy will significantly affect the resilience and development of agriculture, which will be determined by the 2021–2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms, entering into force in 2023. Therefore, the European Commission determines that at least 25% of the direct payments should be earmarked for eco-schemes, while 35% of the funding for rural development should be allocated to climate and environmental support measures. Support payments constitute a significant part of farmers’ income and guide their decision-making for production development. Therefore, the goal of the research was set by analysing the existing CAP support payment system in 2019 to determine the possible impact of the reform envisaged for 2023 on farms of various specialisations and sizes in Latvia. The analysis revealed that in Latvia in 2019, 83% of the total number of farms received support, the amount of the support was EUR 5616 per year per farm on average, and within the Single Area Payment Scheme (SAPS), the support was higher by 24%. Among the funding recipient farms, the support accounted for 28% of the farms’ income, calculated per 1 hectare. The detailed calculations carried out indicate that the possible base support payments as a result of the CAP 2023 reform are expected to be higher specifically in cattle breeding and dairy farming, which may contribute to even greater greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the future and thus reduce the likelihood of achieving the goals of the European Green Deal policy.

The capability of large food retail chains to respond quickly to changes in consumer behaviour and their dominant market position affects all food market players and often conflicts with the interests of national food producers, which can reduce the presence of locally sourced products in the food product mix in the country. Accordingly, the present research aims to identify the impacts of the diversification of opening hours of food supermarkets on consumer shopping habits and the implications for creating an advantage for small and medium agri-food producers in selling their products. The research applied a quantitative approach to identify the main trends in society (n = 2738), with a survey including 31 variables to quantify consumer behaviour, values, and opinions and seven socio-demographic variables. If a decision was made in Latvia to close grocery shops on Sundays or reduce their opening hours on weekends, 85% of consumers indicated that they would be unlikely to change their usual shopping location and would plan to shop at a supermarket on other days. The choice between farmers’ markets and local food shops on Sundays would be made by 45% of consumers, with more than half (53%) of them shopping at local food shops at least a few times a month. The research uniquely investigated the impact of reducing supermarket opening hours on the competitive advantage of small and medium-sized agri-food producers. The findings revealed that reducing supermarket opening hours does not confer a competitive advantage to the producers or significantly shift consumer preferences towards their products.

The European Union’s (EU) climate neutrality agenda prioritises sustainable agriculture, and within that, the dairy sector is central to food security, rural life, and trade competitiveness. Latvia’s contribution to EU milk production is comparatively small; yet, dairy farming constitutes a structurally important sector that must reconcile economic sustainability with environmental concerns, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and resource use. Therefore, the research aim is to identify key environmental hotspots and explore the relationship between productivity, economic performance, and sustainability using the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach in different sizes of farms in Latvia. This study applies an LCA methodology to evaluate environmental hotspots and investigate the relationships between productivity, farm size, and economic performance of Latvian dairy farms. GHG emissions from Latvian dairy farms were analysed. Small farms dominate by number in Latvia, but the largest ones have the highest yields and milk quality, and are more economically sensitive due to their high production costs. LCA results show that large farms have the highest absolute environmental impacts—particularly milking and feed production—though the emission intensity per kilogram of milk is lower compared to in small farms. These findings present productivity-profit-trade-offs for environmental impacts, with milking and feed emerging as the key areas for enhancing sustainability.

The capability of large food retail chains to respond quickly to changes in consumer behaviour and their dominant market position affects all food market players and often conflicts with the interests of national food producers, which can reduce the presence of locally sourced products in the food product mix in the country. In Latvia, there have been several proposals to limit retailers' opening hours on weekends and public holidays to increase the viability of small local food producers, retailers, and catering enterprises; however, limiting retailers' opening hours without research-based arguments is unacceptable. The research studies conducted in Europe also do not give a unified conclusion. Household consumer behaviour in the food market is viewed as an essential argument for increasing domestic demand and economic stability. Accordingly, the present research aims to identify the impacts of diversification of opening hours of food supermarkets on consumer shopping habits and the implications for creating an advantage for small and medium agri-food producers in selling their products. The research applied a quantitative approach to identify the main trends in society (n=2738), with a survey including 31 variables to quantify consumer behaviour, values, and opinions and seven socio-demographic variables. If a decision were made in Latvia to close grocery shops on Sundays or reduce their opening hours on weekends, 85% of consumers indicated that they would be unlikely to change their usual shopping location and would plan to shop at a supermarket on other days. The choice between farmers' markets and local food shops on Sundays would be made by 45% of consumers, with more than half (53%) of them shopping at local food shops at least a few times a month. It could, therefore, be argued that reducing the opening hours of supermarkets and closing them on Sundays and public holidays do not provide a competitive advantage and do not divert consumers to small and medium agri-food producers.

Aija Pilvere. PhD Thesis “Stock Market Enhancement Opportunities for the Development of the Baltic States”, Jelgava, 2022. The assessment of the situation and international research created the basis for the hypothesis of the PhD Thesis: stock market listed companies’ financial indicators and capital structure are essential for the enhancement of the stock market for the Baltic States development. Based on the defined hypothesis, the aim of the PhD Thesis was defined to assess the economies and stock market of the Baltic States by analysing the financial performance and capital structure of listed companies in order to develop proposals for the development of the stock market in Latvia. To achieve the aim of the research, the following tasks have been formulated: 1. to examine the key theoretical and historical aspects of a stock market and their role in the development of the stock market and the economy; 2. to assess the institutional system and the legal framework governing the stock market, as well as to give the characteristics of the stock market of the Baltic States; 3. to analyse the external environment affecting the stock market and the main macroeconomic and banking sector indicators for the Baltic States; 4. to assess and compare the financial performance indicators of the companies listed on the stock exchanges of the Baltic States and the EU Nordic countries; 5. to develop scenarios for possible enhancement of the stock market in Latvia, in order to promote Baltic States development. The content of the work is created and structured according to the work tasks; it has five chapters with subsections. Chapter 1 analyzes the theoretical and historical aspects of the stock market, factors influencing the external and internal environment. Theoretical conditions for the development of listed companies and their role in the financial and economic system are explained, the exogenous environment for stock market development and its connection with macroeconomic and banking indicators is analyzed, endogenous environment for stock market development were studied – company financial and capital structure, company development indicators. Chapter 2 evaluates the institutional system and regulatory framework of the stock market and provides a description of the stock market in the Baltic States. Chapter 3 examines the indicators of banking industry, the macroeconomic and investment environment in the Baltic States and the EU Nordic countries. Chapter 4 assesses the absolute and relative financial indicators of 50 companies listed on the Baltic States stock market and compares to 510 listed companies on the EU Nordic countries exchanges, using factor and clusted analysis. Chapter 5 develops three scenarios for the enhacement of the stock market in Latvia using companies registered in Latvia, financial indicators for 93324 companies evaluated, and indicators for 510 large and medium-sized companies were used for scenarious. The results of the developed scenarios were also evaluated – whether these scenarios would allow Latvia to reach market capitalization to gross domestic product level in 2019 of Estonia and Lithuania in the next 3 - 5 years. Main conclusions, the main results of the research are formulated as well as problems are described and proposals for their solution are put forward. The volume of the PhD thesis for obtaining a doctor's degree is 170 pages. The work contains 65 tables, 35 figures, 14 annexes, 221 information sources are used, incl. 206 sources in English.