Institutions, corruption and transparency in effective healthcare public procurement: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

The benefits of good procurement practices in the healthcare sector are well known. Indeed, the importance of transparent, effective and efficient procurement of medical goods and services has gained momentum even more in light of the recent Covid-19 pandemic. However, there is little evidence of how traditional factors occurring on a procedure or contract level affect the effectiveness of public purchases when they take play in different institutional environments. This paper, therefore, contributes to this evidence using a large sample of public contracts in healthcare sectors awarded in 11 Central and East European Countries. The results support the previous evidence on the important role of transparency and open competitive bidding. Procedures with a prior call for competition and allowing for an unrestricted number of competitors lead to cost-effective contracts and higher direct savings. Effective government and lessening corruption have proven to facilitate better procurement outcomes, considering the financial aspects of awarded contracts. Moreover, the results on the effects of institutions contribute to the current academic debate by providing insight into the mechanism of obtaining cost-effectiveness and showing that strong institutions can play an important role in mitigating the adverse procurement outcomes related to less transparent and competition-restricting procedures.

Narratives on COVID-19 Effects on Coworking Spaces in France: A Winning Ticket for the Peripheries?

France, like other European countries, has not been spared the COVID-19 crisis, but this pandemic, unknown in the twenty-first century, has highlighted and served as a sounding board for many other issues, both in society and in the materiality of contemporary cities. A new territorial narrative has emerged around the following question: can coworking spaces, and more generally third workplaces, meet the needs of a French society that is looking for planning solutions in the face of successive emergencies, in favour of better territorial equality and individual well-being? To assess the growth of coworking in France and its territorial impact—real, potential, or symbolic—the authors refer to their own research in the Centre-Loire Valley region and to specialized literature on economics and regional planning. © 2023, The Author(s).

Evaluation of Vaccine Supply Chain Performance Activities of Health Systems in the COVID 19 Pandemic Period with DEA: European Countries

In this paper, the linkage of two different concepts;sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) and Supply Management (SM) are analyzed. SCA has been gaining attention in last decades. Companies have been trying to obtain SCA in order to be successful and keep their position in the future. As competition intensifies among enterprises, each enterprise seeks to research how to reduce costs and/or achieve excellence compared to competitors in the market. One of the areas that the enterprise can exploit to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage is the supply chain. Supply chain management (SCM) philosophy is based on collaboration of suppliers, manufacturers and distributers. SM is a vital part of SCM and SM has been gaining importance in the last decades according to several factors. Sustainable SM activities may provide supply chain SCA from many aspects. It is argued that Supply Management (SM) is linked with performance and effects on SCA directly or indirectly. In this chapter, the health systems vaccine supply chain performance activities were evaluated with DEA during the COVID 19 pandemic period, using the health indicators of European countries for January 2022 in Trading Economics and WHO databases. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Introduction to the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Coworking

The current chapter introduces in detail the aims and structure of the book ‘European Narratives on Remote Working and Coworking during the COVID-19 Pandemic'. This introductory chapter depicts the importance of studying the phenomenon of coworking spaces (CSs) affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The literature on new working spaces, particularly CSs, is growing fast in various disciplines. During the past three years of the pandemic, some scholars have attempted to explore the short- and long-term effects on ways and spaces of working. This book is the first attempt to collect country-specific empirical studies from 12 European countries. © 2023, The Author(s).

The Link between Bitcoin Price Changes and the Exchange Rates in European Countries with Non-Euro Currencies

This paper contributes to the literature dedicated to the interlinkages between cryptocurrencies and currencies by investigating whether Bitcoin price movements affect the exchange rates of a sample of nine European countries with non-euro currencies. By resorting to the novel unconditional quantile regression, we show that there is a statistically significant link between Bitcoin price movements and changes in nominal exchange rates. In normal market conditions, an increase in the price of Bitcoin can be associated with an appreciation of the currencies from our sample, while during the COVID-19 pandemic, the relationship inversed. In addition, we find heterogeneities in this relationship, depending on the level of change in the nominal exchange rate. The results emphasize the relevance of Bitcoin price movements to the conduct of monetary policy through the exchange rate channel and that investors in cryptocurrencies and various financial assets denominated in the currencies from our sample can benefit from diversification by including both types of assets in their portfolios.

Implications of COVID-19 policies on the sustainable corporate practices of European firms

Purpose: This study aims to analyze how mixes of COVID-19 policy responses are shaping the context in which companies will compete in the following years, defining how the crisis might impact firms' ability to keep their commitments to sustainable practices. Design/methodology/approach: European country-performance data for the years 2019 and 2020 were grouped into indicators of macro sustainability, then cross-analyzed against the policies adopted during the period (also grouped based on their impacts on sustainability pillars), using correlations, factor analysis and clustering. Findings: The influence of traditional sustainability determinants was reframed according to the novel context shaped by the policy responses to the pandemic crisis. The social and digitalization aspects gained the most relevance and appeared interconnected, with digitalization of employment attaining overall more traction. Moreover, changes in the leadership within sustainability domains were observed for each identified country-cluster, due to newly implemented emergency policies. In fact, environmental innovation, digitalization and social support policies appeared to be the main variables to be impacted by the intensity of the policy efforts. Practical implications: Businesses monitoring the developments of sustainability policies closely, will observe novel trends in technological applications. Social implications: Policymakers and researchers may gauge the efficacy of policies against the COVID-19 crisis in the domain of sustainable development and resilience. Originality/value: This paper provides a cross-analysis of quantitative macroeconomic and quantified policy responses to the 2020 pandemic crisis, linking each indicator to the pillars of sustainability that were relevant for companies between the crucial pandemic outbreak years 2019 and 2020. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Coproduction and satisfaction with online schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from European countries

This paper investigates the effect of parents' coproduction in online schooling on satisfaction with educational services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using European cross country microdata from the 2020 Eurofound survey, we reveal that parents' involvement in home schooling is strongly correlated with their satisfaction with educational services. Our results contribute to the on-going debate regarding the importance of citizens' involvement in service delivery during the pandemic, and, in particular, on the related effects in terms of subjective satisfaction.

What Will Be the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Human Capital and Economic Growth? Evidence from Eurozone

This study provides new empirical evidence concerning the relationship between human capital and economic growth for 17 European countries over the periods 2015–2019 and 2019–2022. The results show that both education and health have a positive and significant impact on economic growth, and thus support higher growth. Also, our empirical results before COVID-19 show that there is bidirectional causality between economic growth and health, as well as education and economic growth, and there is unidirectional causal relationship running from education to health. After COVID-19, there is no significant causality between economic growth education and health. The results of this study may be of great importance for policy and decision makers in developing policies to foster human capital for European countries. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Forecasting Omicron Variant of Covid-19 with ANN Model in European Countries – Number of Cases, Deaths, and ICU Patients

Accurate predictions of time series are increasingly required to support judgments in a variety of decisions. Several predictive models are available to support these predictions, depending on how each field offers a data variety with varied behavior. The use of artificial neural networks (ANN) at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was significant since the tool may offer forecasting data for various conditions and hence assist in governing critical choices. In this context, this paper describes a system for predicting the daily number of cases, fatalities, and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients for the next 28 days in five European countries: Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. The database selection is based on comparable mitigation processes to analyze the impact of safety procedure flexibilization with the most recent numbers of COVID-19. Additionally, it is intended to check the algorithm's adaptability to different variants throughout time. The network's input data has been normalized to account for the size of the countries in the study and smoothed by seven days. The mean absolute error (MAE) was employed as a comparing criterion of two datasets, one with data from the beginning of the pandemic and another with data from the last year, since all variables (cases, deaths, and ICU patients) may be tendentious in percentage analysis. The best architecture produced a general MAE prediction for the 28 days ahead of 256,53 daily cases, 0,59 daily deaths, and 1,63 ICU patients, all numbers normalized by million people. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Retrospective Characterization of the COVID-19 Epidemic in Four Selected European Countries Via Change Point Analysis

The focus of this contribution is to show how the course of the pandemic can be retrospectively investigated in terms of change points detection. At this aim, an automatic method based on recursive partitioning is employed, considering the time series of the 14-day notification rate of newly reported COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population collected by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The application shows that the pandemic, at the individual country level, can be broken into different periods that do not correspond to the common notion of wave as a natural pattern of peaks and valleys implying predictable rises and falls. This retrospective analysis can be useful either to evaluate the implemented measures or to define adequate policies for the future. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Multiversal Methods in Observational Studies: The Case of COVID-19

In the present study, 13 covariates have been selected as potentially associated with 3 metrics of the spread of COVID-19 in 20 European countries. Robustness of the linear correlations between 10 of the 13 covariates as main regressors and the 3 COVID-19 metrics as dependent variables have been tested through a methodology for sensitivity analysis that falls under the name of "Multiverse”. Under this methodology, thousands of alternative estimates are generated by a single hypothesis of regression. The capacity of identification of a robust causal claim for the 10 variables has been measured through 3 indicators over a Janus Confusion Matrix, which is a confusion matrix that assumes the likelihood to observe a True claim as the ratio between the absolute difference of estimates with a different sign and the total of estimates. This methodology provides the opportunity to evaluate the outcomes of a shift from the common level of significance to the alternative. According to the results of the study, in the dataset the benefits of the shifts come at a very high cost in terms of false negatives. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The relationship between destination image and destination safety during technological and social changes COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aimed to assess the relationship between safety perceptions and destination image in the Central European region during the technological and social environment change brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study sample consisted of respondents from three Central European countries, namely, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. The quantile regression analysis was used to analyze the relationship between the image of the destination and its perceived safety. The results showed that concerns about the safety of the tourism environment could be negatively associated with the image of the infrastructure in Hungary and Slovakia, with value for money in the three countries, and with images of enjoyment in Slovakia. Higher levels of destination safety may be associated with a more positive destination image, with health, facilities and services being the most important dimensions of perceived safety, because of the pandemic. This study contributes to the knowledge of the concept of destination images and the development of tourism.

Predicting COVID-19 Pandemic Endpoint in Some Sub-Saharan African and European Countries

In this study, a novel modified SIR model is presented with two control measures to predict the endpoint of COVID-19, in top three sub-Saharan African countries (South Africa, Ethiopia, and Kenya) including Ghana and top four European countries (France, Germany, UK, and Italy). The reproduction number's sensitivity indices with regard to the model parameters were explicitly derived and then numerically evaluated. Numerical simulations of the suggested optimal control schemes in general showed a continuous result of decline at different anticipated extinction timelines. Another interesting observation was that in the simulation of sub-Saharan African dynamics, it was observed that the use of personal protective equipment was more effective than the use of vaccination, whereas in Europe, the use of vaccination was more effective than personal protective equipment. From the simulations, the conclusion is that COVID-19 will end before the 3rd year in Ghana, before the 6th year in Kenya, and before the 9th year in both Ethiopia and South Africa. © 2023 Saviour Worlanyo Akuamoah et al.

The impact of Digitalized Communication on the effectiveness of Local Administrative Authorities – Findings from Central European Countries in the COVID-19 Crisis

This paper analyses the impact of the use of digital communication tools in administrative procedures on the effectiveness of local administrative authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. It considers COVID-19-driven changes in the legal competence of the institutional unit and administrative authorities' orientation to good governance as mediators of this relationship. By applying partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to survey data (N = 610) from five central European countries, we show that the accelerated use of digitalized communication tools driven by the COVID-19 situation has a positive effect on the effectiveness of local administrative authorities. Our data also indicate that the new laws, instructions and good governance driven by the COVID-19 situation – based on mostly convergent administrative traditions and European trends – partially mediate the relationship between the use of digital communication tools and administrative effectiveness. These findings do not significantly differ between participating countries and bureaucratic traditions. Consequently, the COVID-19 crisis proved to be a joint facilitator of responsive public governance that remained compliant with the rule of law, regardless of whether the national administrative systems were traditionally more legalistically or managerially oriented.

Big Data-Enabled Solutions for Covid-19

In the time of the pandemic like CORONA, Covid-19, everyone is ftghting against this deadly virus. Besides, governments are looking for a barrier that stops spread of virus until the vaccine is made. In modern era, technology plays an important role. This paper brings the way by using a powerful technology called Big data. Big data know for handling a large amount of data and provide powerful insights into the data. Big data integrated with Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool to ftght against this pandemic. Many countries like Taiwan, China with the use of Big Data stop this pandemic up to some extent. But the collection of data itself comes up with the big challenge of PRIVACY AND SECURITY. In the recent times, the world has seen the effect of data leaking whether by Facebook or by Google. Many European countries due to this big challenge will not be able to use this technology. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

THE IMPORTANCE OF NEO-WEBERIANISM IN THE CONTEXT OF COVID-19 GLOBAL PANDEMIC MANAGEMENT

Neo-Weberianism is a modern direction of public administration reform, the expression of which, to varying degrees, is increasingly being observed in various states. This direction is particularly relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of the administration of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that coherence between vertically integrated management, a professional civil service, and the influence of civil society and communities on public decision-making is at the heart of neo-Weberianism, and becomes particularly important in the event of an emergency of this nature. Many countries choose similar or identical anti-crisis measures to combat the threat of a pandemic. However, differences in applying the principles of neo-Weberian governance can also be observed between countries. The authors of this article selected three Central European countries (EU member states) – Poland (large), Hungary (medium), and Lithuania (small) – for a more detailed analysis of pandemic management. In Poland, in order to manage the pandemic and its financial consequences in perspective, redundancies or pay cuts to some civil servants and other public sector employees in public sector organizations were modeled. Hungary had the strictest anti-pandemic quarantine of the three countries selected for analysis, and at first glance it seems that the country opted for a strict traditional hierarchical governance model for the COVID-19 crisis, but on closer inspection we see that the Hungarian government used population surveys and tried to take into account citizens’ views on the deadlines for overcoming the pandemic. In Lithuania, by coordinating strict pandemic quarantine, the aim was to ensure the provision of high-quality information to the population. © 2022 Mykolas Riomeris University. All rights reserved.

Measuring COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: Consistency of Social Media with Surveys

We validate whether social media data can be used to complement social surveys to monitor the public’s COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Taking advantage of recent artificial intelligence advances, we propose a framework to estimate individuals’ vaccine hesitancy from their social media posts. With 745,661 vaccine-related tweets originating from three Western European countries, we compare vaccine hesitancy levels measured with our framework against that collected from multiple consecutive waves of surveys. We successfully validate that Twitter, one popular social media platform, can be used as a data source to calculate consistent public acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines with surveys at both country and region levels. In addition, this consistency persists over time although it varies among socio-demographic sub-populations. Our findings establish the power of social media in complementing social surveys to capture the continuously changing vaccine hesitancy in a global health crisis similar to the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Double invisibility: the effects of hidden unemployment on vulnerable populations in southern European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 crisis has been characterised by an increased fragility of the labour market, especially in the Southern European countries. Nevertheless, official data do not accurately capture the real upheavals of their labour markets. In this context, this paper compares the labour market performance of vulnerable populations (youth, women and migrants) in three Southern European countries with a cross-analysis of data over time. To this end, we have developed an alternative hidden unemployment indicator that recovers and includes unemployed persons from the categories of involuntary underemployment and inactivity. Our analyses include data from Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and take the European Union-Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) as their basis. Our results show that the impact of unemployment in the South of Europe is best measured when using an extended indicator, particularly when analysing the cases of vulnerable collectives. This tool shows great analytical potential for unveiling hidden unemployment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dynamic Effects of CO2 Emissions on Anticipated Financial Development of European Countries

This study investigates the motives behind the degrees of molecular pollution during the COVID-19 pandemic, which persisted from first walk 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. A spatial Durbin file model is used linked to an edge backslide model in this article to find the widely inclusive and nearby consequences of present-day plan and urbanization on nonrenewable energy source by things. The outcomes are discussed next: both were available in modern-day plan and urbanization from a generally inclusive standpoint. The geological consequences of CO2 emissions were concentrated on utilizing information from 22 European countries somewhere in the range of 1990-2020, and all through the examination cycle, the Durbin spatial model was discovered. Although factors such as gross domestic product per capita, urbanization, and energy power impact CO2 emissions, exchange receptivity stays unaltered. The findings will fill in as critical repercussions for state-run administrations, wellbeing experts, and regulators in the war against the return of COVID-19 in Europe. The great number of suggestions were worthless since the concept integrated six money-connected creation assessments into a coordinated arrangement. There is information to indicate that CO2 emissions are associated with money-related events in neighboring nations.

Location Impact on Particulate Matter (PM) Concentration Reduction Dduring COVID-19 Pandemic

Significant topic of interest in many European countries is monitoring the air pollution, especially particulate matter (PM) concentrations, mostly because of its harmful effects on the human health. Measurement of the particulate matter concentrations can be done in a different ways, one of the possible solutions is by using low-cost and energy-efficient monitoring system using sensor network. The main goal of this paper is to analyze the influence of the green areas on particulate matter mitigation, analyzing the period of pandemic COVID-19 restrictions. The paper analyze the connection among the impact of the location of the sensor nodes and green areas and other objects to the particulate matter concentrations using various statistical tools and hypothesis testing. The tests are based on the data collected during summer 2020 at the technical campus of the Ss Cyril and Methodius University. This is the period when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 pandemic, and the universities were closed. In this research it can be confirmed that green areas at the Faculty pacio, reduced traffic vehicles and not having presence of the faculty staff in this period have a high impact in the reduction of particulate matter. © 2022 IEEE.