Electrically assisted bicycles are anticipated to become an effective tool to limit not only the use of cars in cities but also their negative impact on health, the environment, and passenger transportation in cities. In this paper, we examine the effects of implementing the first fully electric bike (e-bike) sharing system in the Metropolitan Area of Gdańsk–Gdynia–Sopot in Northern Poland, where no other bike sharing system had been introduced before. The aims of this article were to determine the impact of the new e-bike sharing system on the modal choice of citizens, identify barriers to its usage, and find differences between the usage of the system in the core of the metropolitan area and in the suburbs. We used two primary data sets: the survey data collected using the computer-assisted personal interviewing technique (CAPI technique) and the data automatically acquired from the website that monitored the system activities. We performed the analysis by using nonparametric tests and correspondence analysis. We found no evidence suggesting that e-bike sharing can replace large number of private car trips, but we found it likely to be competitive to carsharing, moped, and taxi services. E-bike sharing competes also with public transportation services, but it is also used as the first/last mile of the transportation supplementing public transport system. The major barrier to using this system in central cities of the metropolitan area was the lack of available public bikes, and possession of private bicycles, whereas for residents of the suburbs, the obstacles were the need to transport children, the high price of the bicycle rental/subscription, and the long distance to the docking stations.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature by investigating the determinants of the profitability of Islamic and conventional banks in the Middle East region and revealing the most important factors for these two types of banks. Few papers have studied the performance of Islamic banks and compared their performance with conventional banks. The results from these limited research papers are also various, mainly because the sample sizes are small, or they have analysed data only from one country. Our research used a fixed effect panel data analysis on a sample of 270 banks (111 Islamic and 159 conventional banks) from 12 Middle East countries. We used an unbalanced annual panel of data covering the period 2012–2020. The results show that bank size, equity to assets, annual GDP growth, and annual average oil price have a significant positive effect on Islamic banks’ profitability, while non-performing loans to total gross loans and cost of running operations to operating income have a significant negative effect on both bank types. The results also show that non-performing loans to total gross loans and annual GDP growth contribute more to conventional banks profitability, while oil price contributes only to Islamic banks performance. Inflation and net loans to total assets have no effect on bank profitability for either Islamic or conventional banks. Furthermore, we also found that the Islamic banking industry had a more competitive structure. Our findings have important implications for managers, policy makers, investors and other stakeholders. They can help them to make decisions regarding investments, plans, budgeting, evaluation and the management of business operations.

PURPOSE: Along with demographic changes, it is increasingly frequent that many mature people resign from their full-time jobs and decide to start their own businesses at a later age. Entrepreneurial activity among this group of so-called silver entrepreneurs can be caused by many motives, but these factors usually remain unknown to current employers or do not constitute a valid reason for understanding and keeping a mature person in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to present new scientific results concerning entrepreneurial motivations, both internal and external, and the previous experiences of silver entrepreneurs from Eastern Europe based on an example from Poland. METHODOLOGY: We analyzed a unique sample of 1,003 owners of micro and small enterprises from Poland. The sample included only people over fifty. Our empirical study used a survey to explore the motivations and experiences of silver entrepreneurs that influenced their decision to start a business later in life. We linked attitude toward the behavior with motivation and utilized the “pull” and “push” factors. We utilized logistic regression to determine the factors related to starting a business above fifty. We also used the ordinary least square regression to determine the relationship between the explanatory variables and the age of starting a business by the respondents. FINDINGS: We found that the main “pull” factor positively influencing the start of business activity by silver entrepreneurs is the fulfillment of dreams as a broadly understood need for self-realization. However, the “push” factors (such as the occurrence of ageism in the workplace, as well as the loss of employment and lack of other opportunities on the labor market) significantly reduced the probability of starting a company at the age of over fifty. On the basis of the positive impact of a “pull” factor, it can be concluded that entrepreneurial activity at a later age is the result of opportunity-based entrepreneurship. Due to the negative impact of the job-loss factor, people made redundant started their business activity at an earlier age, before the age of fifty. Regarding external entrepreneurial motivations, the support received from family is the most important factor related to the individual’s environment affecting starting a business by silver entrepreneurs. However, the support from friends and the support from government bodies were not significant factors influencing starting a business at a later age.IMPLICATIONS: Findings from our study have implications for both employers and groups who support entrepreneurship. First, from the point of view of employers, the occurrence of ageism in the previous workplace could have resulted in resignation from full-time employment at an earlier age and a faster start of business activity. It is surprising that negative behavior towards older employees may also be associated with resignation from work by younger people. From the point of view of government bodies and other stakeholder groups related to the development of entrepreneurship, it is interesting that the support received from government bodies in conducting business activities was statistically insignificant for each group of respondents. This suggests the need to identify effective support and to design a comprehensive strategy for the development of silver entrepreneurship. ORIGINALITY AND VALUE: The vast majority of previous studies used secondary data or focused mainly on Western Europe, in particular the United Kingdom, Finland, and France. Our contribution is to provide empirical evidence about the silver entrepreneurs from Eastern Europe, especially Poland. Our research included individuals who actually run their own businesses, opposite to previous studies that take into account people who are just considering starting a business. This is particularly important in relation to research on the entrepreneurial intentions of mature people to undertake entrepreneurial activities at a later age, and the real motivations of silver entrepreneurs.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of climate-themed mutual funds, taking into consideration the structure of their asset allocation, especially their geographical focus of investment. Additionally, the influence of differences in the industry allocations on the funds’ investment results is evaluated. Our analyses are based on climate-friendly mutual funds registered in Scandinavian countries (i.e., Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) during 2010–2019. To classify the analyzed funds as climate-friendly, we use the relative carbon footprint measure, which is a novelty in studies on ESG funds (meeting the environmental, social, and corporate governance criteria). In our analyses, we use the absolute performance as well as the relative performance methods. The obtained results confirm that geographical and industrial asset allocations significantly affect the performance of Scandinavian climate-friendly funds. On the basis of our studies, we may state that analyzed mutual funds do not get abnormal returns, and their performance mostly depends on the market state. Additionally, the unconditional firm size factor did not influence the return of particular portfolios, while the conditional firm size factor was significant for European, global, and North American funds. Moreover, the firm value factor was significant. Finally, the momentum factor was only significant for the emerging markets portfolio when it reached positive values.

The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of reforms introduced in the operation of Polish open pension funds on management style, risk exposure and related investment performance. The article analyzes the impact of the reformed regulations on the herd behavior of fund managers. In particular, we examined whether the elimination of the internal benchmark for fund evaluation impacts the elimination or reduction of herd behavior. We proposed a multi-factor market model to evaluate the performance of funds investing in various types of instruments. Moreover, we used panel estimation to directly take into account the impact of the internal benchmark on herd behavior. Our results indicate that highly regulated funds may slightly outperform passive benchmarks and their unregulated competitors. In the case of Polish open pension funds, limiting investments in Treasury debt instruments clearly resulted in increased risk and volatility of returns. However, it also raised competition between funds and decreased the herd behavior. Additionally, the withdrawal of the mechanism evaluating funds based on the internal benchmark was also important in reducing herd behavior.