The scientific impacted periodical journal (indexed on Web of Science) published by the Tomas Bata University offers results of basic and applied economic research.

Research background: The nature of bankruptcy been the subject of interest for economic theories, both positive-identifying relationships between bankruptcy and other economic categories - and normative, shaping the rules for the proper regulation of bankruptcy. In turn, the functioning of an enterprise in conditions of risk, financial threat. and finally a crisis that could lead to bankruptcy, are of interest to management. The interpenetration of these two dimensions provided the motivation for this study, which assumes a bottom-up approach: from individual results to summarised multi-sectional comparisons. Purpose of the article: The purpose of the research was to evaluate the level, directions of change, and structure of the degree of financial threat in industrial enterprises. The period under analysis was 2007-2018 and the whole population of industrial enterprises in Poland (15,999 entities) was examined. The enterprises were small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as large enterprises (LEs). The financial analysis covered macro-, mesa-, and microeconomic levels. Methods: The analysis was conducted using a comparative approach and financial threat predictions obtained front the original multivariable logit model. Heat maps were used to evaluate the intensity of changes in financial threat. The displacement of objects in structures was studied. ordered, and classified. Four normative standards of threat scenarios were defined and then used to evaluate similarities in the profiles of the structures examined, using the similarity measure. The ranking and its variability were analysed in the assessment of profiles. Findings & value added: As the result of the research, properties were described and profiles were determined for the structures in terms of the degree of threat and its correlation with rate of bankruptcy and creating added value. The originality of the research comes from the use of novel dynamic logit models. The added value is a unique study on the entire population of industrial enterprises in the national economy and a methodology for identifying financial threat profiles and their similarity at subsequent aggregation levels (the micro-. meso-, and macro-levels). This made it possible to derive patterns and regularities for economic policy and guidelines for business management.

Objective: The objective of the article is to examine direct and indirect channels through which information and communication technology affects exports of services. Research Design & Methods: In this study a linear fixed effects panel regression model with country-specific fixed effects and with Driscoll and Kraay standard errors is fit to the data over the period 2000-2019. The samples cover the data sets for 80 countries, and separately for 44 high-income and 36 low and middle-income economies. Findings: The findings show that the access to traditional and broadband digital connectivity has a positive impact on services exports, revealing a slightly stronger influence of the latter for the advanced economies. Additionally, exports and imports of the ICT goods appear to be complementary to services exports. Implications & Recommendations: The detected dependencies indicate that in a digital era, connectivity infrastructure, as well as international flows of the ICT goods bring about significant effects for services exports. Both findings raise important implications for export-led growth policy that should account for new interdependencies between goods and services, and for further investments in digital infrastructure. Contribution & Value Added: This study contributes to the relevant literature by extending the traditional factor-endowment approach used to explain the impact of information and communication technology on the exports of services. Besides specifying the exports of services as a function of internet market penetration, both a traditional and a broadband one, we consider the exports and the imports of ICT goods as the potential determinants of services exports.

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether financial development and trade openness enhance economic growth in 11 new EU member states. While the overwhelming studies employ a simple measure of finance (credit to GDP ratio or stock market capitalization), we run growth regressions using a new IMF broad-based measure, which covers three dimensions of financial development: depth, access, and efficiency. We use a bootstrap panel-data approach based on seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) systems, which takes into account cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity among countries. Such an approach gives separate regression coefficients for each country. The main findings are as follows: (1) the statistically significant unidirectional Granger causality from finance to economic growth is evidenced in five countries under examination (Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia); (2) trade openness is statistically significant Granger-cause of growth in six new EU member states (Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia); (3) the reverse causalities, i.e. running from growth to finance were found in two countries (Hungary and Slovenia), and from growth to trade openness in Croatia. The policy-oriented recommendation is that new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe may gain pro-growth benefits from further finance and trade development, however, the policy-makers should be aware of possible nonlinearities and conditionality of these relationships.

Assessing the Robustness to an Unobserved Confounder of the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated Estimated by Propensity Score Matching

Objective: This article aims to examine whether the exports of information and communication technology (ICT) services are complementary to trade in ICT goods and overall merchandise exports. Research Design & Methods: We used panel regression models (log-log specification, Driscoll-Kraay robust standard errors accounting for cross-sectional dependence, heteroscedasticity, and serial correlation) to explore how the ICT service exports depend on trade in ICT goods (both exports and imports) and total merchandises exports. The research sample covered data for 37 developed economies over the 1998-2017 period. Findings: The results show that both the exports and the imports of ICT goods are complementary to the exports of ICT services. We also identified complementarity between total merchandise exports and ICT service exports. Moreover, global demand for services and broadband digital connectivity have been proven to be significant determinants of ICT service exports. Implications & Recommendations: The detected dependencies imply that in the digital era, export-promoting policies should not treat trade in goods and trade in ICT services separately. Moreover, policymakers should consider factors such as broadband digital connectivity and world demand as important drivers of ICT service exports. Contribution & Value Added: This study provides new evidence on determinants of one of the most rapidly growing export categories, i.e. the exports of ICT services. We identified three sources of potential complementarities arising in the digital era between trade in goods and services. Moreover, while most researchers examined the role of traditional internet, we tested our models for broadband connectivity as a determinant of ICT service exports.