The World Bank (WB) has described the European Union (EU) as a convergence machine, and the real and institutional convergence has been achieved for a long period of time, and EU’s cohesion policy, alongside the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), remains crucial for driving reforms and fostering investments that promote growth. But, in the last two decades this convergence machine has stopped working, and the convergence process has turned in the divergence. The divergence process poses a great risk for the smooth functioning of the EU, and it increases vulnerability of the EU to negative economic shocks. Productivity and institutional convergence are a necessary precondition for the smooth functioning of the EU, reducing differences in standards of living, increasing resilience, and achieving environmental sustainability. In the present paper, we will apply log t-test over the period 2003–2023 to investigate the formation of productivity and institutional convergence clusters. Our goal is to identify which countries belong to the poor productivity/institutional clubs, and to provide the necessary policy implications. Results indicate the existence of multiple steady states, which means that EU is vulnerable to external economic shocks

Резиме: Још од Адама Смита (Adam Smith), научници улажу огромне напоре да истраже и докажу односе и законитости између спољне трговине и економског раста. Заједничко за сва досадашња истраживања јесте да не постоји потпуна сагласност о директној, позитивној условљености спољне трговине и економског раста, али највећи број истраживања доказује постојање статистички значајне, директне повезаности. Посебна пажња посвећена је анализи утицаја спољне трговине на земље у развоју, првенствено као канала за увоз нових технологија, чиме је доказивано да раст увоза не мора увијек да има негативан утицај на економски раст, већ може да утиче и на раст продуктивности, односно, посредно, и на укупан економски раст земље увознице.Истраживање утицаја спољне трговине на економски раст добија посебан значај након 2008. године, односно након утицаја свјетске економске кризе, јер мале, отворене привреде, као што је и привреда Републике Српске, свој “замајац” развоја виде у расту извоза, кроз опоравак развијених земаља и на тај начин додатног раста иностране тражње.Због тога смо у раду жељели да истражимо значај спољне трговине на економски раст Републике Српске, да извршимо анализу спољнотрговинске размјене Републике Српске како би утврдили слабости њене робне структуре и односе са водећим спољнотрговинским партнерима, те да истражимо међусобну, квантитативну повезаност спољне трговине и бруто домаћег производа Републике Српске.Сумирајући резултате истраживања, закључили смо да је спољна трговина веома значајна за привредна кретања у Републици Српској, односно да је значај спољне трговине за привредни развој Републике Српске веома висок. Међутим, потребно је радити на смањењу спољнотрговинског дефицита, првенствено кроз повећање извоза и побољшање његове робне структуре, те кроз селективно смањење увоза. Прије свега тога, неопходно је извршити промјену привредне структуре и значајно повећати конкурентност домаћих произвођача.Summary: Ever since Adam Smith the scientists have been investing enormous efforts to explore and prove relationships between the foreign exchange and economic growth. One thing in common to all researches so far is that there is no complete agreement on a direct, positive inter-relation between the foreign exchange and economic growth. However, the major number of researches confirm the existence of the statistically significant, direct relation. The special attention is paid to the analysis of the influence of the foreign trade to the developing countries, principally as a channel for the import of new technologies by which it has been proven that the growth of the import does not have to have necessarily a negative impact to the economic growth but it may also impact the productivity growth, i.e. indirectly the total economic growth of the country of import.The research of the influence of the foreign trade to the economic growth becomes even more relevant after year 2008, i.e. after the world economic crisis as small, open economies, such as the Republic of Srpska see its “development drive” in the growth of the export through the consolidation of the developed countries and thus additional growth of the foreign demand. That is why in our paper we have tried to explore the relevance of the foreign trade to the economic growth of the Republic of Srpska, to analyse the foreign trade exchange of Republic of Srpska in order to determine the weaknesses of its comoditiy structure and the relations with the leading foreign trade partners as well as to explore the interrelated, quantitative relation between the foreign trade and the GDP of Republic of Srpska. Summarizing the results of our research we have come to a conclusion that the foreign trade is very relevant for the economic movements in the Republic of Srpska, i.e. the relevance of the foreign trade for the economic development of Republic of Srpska is very high. However, it is necessary to work on the decreasing of the foreign trade deficit through the increase of the export and the improvement of its comodity structure as well as through the selective decreasing of the import. Before all this, it is necessary to undertake the change of econimic structure and considerably increase the competitiveness of the domestic producers.

The paper is mainly aimed at identifying the sources of total factor productivity (TFP) growth within the framework of convergence for the Republic of Srpska (RSRP). The main research question is what it is that drives technological progress for a small transition country. The current study focuses on the RSRP, as the follower, and the Republic of Serbia (RSRB), as the technological leader. The analysis carried out in this research study confirms the presence of convergence at the industry level, which means that the farther away from the technological frontier a country is, the higher the TFP growth rate. The research results enable policymakers to design and implement policies capable of enhancing domestic development and increase productivity growth.

This paper investigates the systemic macroeconomic determinants of Pillar 2 Requirements (P2R) imposed by the European Central Bank (ECB) under the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). While P2R is formally calibrated at the individual bank level through the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP), we explore the extent to which common macro-financial shocks influence supervisory capital expectations across banks. Using a panel dataset covering euro area banks between 2021 and 2025, we match bank-level P2R data with country-level macroeconomic indicators. Those variables include real GDP growth, HICP inflation and index levels, government fiscal balance, euro yield curve spreads, net turnover, FDI inflows, construction and industrial production indices, the price-to-income ratio in real estate, and trade balance measures. We apply Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to extract latent variables related to the macroeconomic factors from a broad set of variables, which are then introduced into a Bayesian Vector Autoregression (BVAR) model to assess their dynamic impact on P2R. Our results identify three principal components that capture general macroeconomic cycles, sector-specific real activity, and financial/external imbalances. The impulse response analysis shows that sectoral and external shocks have a more immediate and statistically significant influence on P2R adjustments than broader macroeconomic trends. These findings clearly support the use of systemic macro-financial conditions in supervisory decision-making and support the integration of anticipating macro-prudential analysis into capital requirement frameworks.

Lorencova kriva kao pokazatelj tržišne koncentracije u sektoru osiguranja Republike Srpske

Natural gas is a key source of energy and an important industrial input in electricity generation. The three gas directives from the beginning of the 21st century liberalised the European gas market. They incentivised a switch from Oil Price Indexing to a Gas-on-Gas price-setting mechanism, which made the deregulated market an interesting object of research. The drivers of natural gas prices in the European market are examinee. A VAR model with exogenous variable (VARX) is used to estimate the effects of chosen factors. The impulse-response function shows that in the short run, the European gas market is sensitive to imports of liquid natural gas and gas storage, whereas in the long run, it is highly dependent on coal, with air temperature and oil prices playing a negligible role. Forecast error variance decomposition results indicate the relationship between natural gas and coal prices in Europe. Cumulatively, approximately 64% of natural gas price variation is explained by variations in coal prices, gas storage and liquid natural gas imports, with coal prices being the single most important driver of natural gas prices, contributing to 35% of price variation.