Two Major Economic Crises in the Early Twenty-First Century and their Impact on Central Bank Independence

Two major economic crises in the early twenty-first century have had a serious impact on monetary policy and CB independence. Disruption in financial intermediation and associated deflationary pressures caused by the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 and European financial crisis of 2010–2015 pushed central banks (CBs) in major currency areas towards adoption of unconventional monetary policy measures, including large-scale purchase of government bonds (quantitative easing). The same approach has been taken by CBs in response to the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 even if the characteristics of this crisis differ from the previous one. As a result of both crises, CBs have become major holders of government bonds and de facto – main creditors of governments. Against rapidly deteriorating fiscal balances, CBs have become hostages of fiscal policies, which compromises their independence. Risks to the CB independence also come from their additional mandates (beyond price stability) and populist political pressures.

The impact of ethical climate and the LMX relationship on nurses' burnout in hospitals in Serbia *

Burnout contributes to the emergence of numerous negative organisational phenomena. Nurses are exposed to high stress working conditions every day, making it important to study burnout among nurses in health care systems. The aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of ethical climate and the LMX relationship on burnout among nurses, as well as to examine the effects of the three moderators (gender, self-awareness and social skills among nurses) on the observed relationships. The sample consists of 326 nurses from 23 hospitals in Serbia. Standardised questionnaires were used, while correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were employed for statistical processing. The dimensions of the ethical climate and LMX relationship have statistically significant impacts and predictive effects on the burnout dimensions. Raising the level of the ethical climate and LMX relationship positively affects burnout: it reduces emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation, and increases personal accomplishment and involvement. An adverse ethical climate and unfavourable LMX relationships among men cause greater emotional exhaustion. For nurses with high self-awareness and high social skills, a favourable ethical climate and positive LMX relationships reduce emotional exhaustion, and increase personal accomplishment. For nurses with low self-awareness and low social skills, a favourable ethical climate and positive LMX relationships reduce depersonalisation. Recommendations are made for improving the ethical climate and LMX relationships in hospitals in Serbia.

Slovenia ∙ FDI Screening Overview: More Clarity on the Horizon

[...]the present contribution addresses the current decisional practice with regard to FDI screening in Slovenia. Obligation to Notify According to the COVID-19 Act, (i) the foreign investor, (ii) the target company, or (iii) the transferor company are obliged to notify the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (Ministry) of the FDI within 15 days from (i) the conclusion of the merger agreement, (ii) from the publication of the takeover offer, (iii) from the establishment of company, or (iv) from the conclusion of the contract by which the foreign investor or its subsidiary in Slovenia acquired the right to dispose of land and real estate, whichever applicable in an individual case. Essentially, the subject of the notification obligation is an FDI that meets the two following criteria, namely:6 It relates to certain risk factors, such as: performance of critical economic activities and critical infrastructure, supply of critical resources, access to sensitive information, freedom and plurality of the media, and projects or programs in the interest of the EU as defined in Annex I of the FDI Screening Regulation;7 and It represents either (i) the gaining of participation or permanent influence through voting rights in a commercial legal entity, whereby a 10% participation in capital or a share of voting rights is considered a permanent influence, or (ii) the acquisition of the right to dispose of land and real estate essential for critical infrastructure, or for land and real estate located in the vicinity of such critical infrastructure. The Ministry approves an FDI by decision, if the latter is not considered to threaten the security or public order of Slovenia.14 However, if the Ministry determines that an FDI threatens the security or public order of Slovenia, the former may issue a decision, which (i) sets special conditions for the foreign investor to fulfil in relation to the FDI, (ii) prohibits, or cancels the investment.15 Prohibition or cancellation results in the nullity of the transaction,16 and hence the nullity of any eventual pertaining decisions on entry in the court register or entry in the land register.

Editorial

Pharmaceutical producers got the (non-binding and conditional) assurance that their cooperation aimed at avoiding shortages of vital medicines did not raise competition concerns.2 Information exchanges in matchmaking meetings in which undertakings operating at different levels of the value chain sought partners to ramp up the production and supply of vaccines, were also considered non-problematic.3 The Temporary Framework has now been withdrawn in favour of the all-purpose revised Informal Guidance Notice. [...]subsequently, this runs the risk that we will see informal guidance only in areas where the Commission and national competition authorities are already developing a rich body of decision-making practice. Because it is precisely in non-priority areas where questions unanswered by existing forms of guidance – on, for instance, the application of Article 101(3) TFEU - are most likely to persist. In this final issue of CoRe in 2022, Paul Gorecki discusses price signalling as a form of information exchange, a longstanding concern under EU competition law but one that has attracted only a limited number of infringement decisions.

Coronavirus crisis challenges and HR responses - Hungary 2020 - framework of domestic research

According to Budhwar and Gumming (2020), the COVID-19 crisis brought attention to the importance of having an international perspective. [...]studies from certain regions - such as the Hungarian example in this article - may provide an essential local perspective, in addition to the Human Resource Management (HRM) of the pandemic and may help us find global solutions. 2Theoretical background Many scholars have analysed the situation that has evolved as a result of the pandemic from different aspects. According to McLean and Jiantreerangkoo (2020), the following steps are necessary in HRD: planning, leading, changing of working conditions, systemic thinking even on an employee level, network analysis, ending racial discrimination, career planning and innovation. Since the beginning of the pandemic, HR has also focused on health and safety tasks (Caligiuri/De Cieri/Minbaeva/Verbeke/Zimmermann 2020;Adams/Walls 2020). [...]it is worth referring to the recently rather popular theory of societalization, which occurs when "strains suddenly burst their sphere-specific boundaries and become explosive scandals in society at large" (Alexander 2018:1049). According to ILO estimates, global hours worked dropped by 6.7 % in the second quarter of 2020, roughly equals to 195 million full-time job

The Covid-19 crisis and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Serbia: responsive strategies and significance of the government measures

This paper investigates SMEs' responses to the COVID-19 crisis and the significance of specific government support measures for overcoming the crisis effects. The results show that SMEs have mostly implemented retrenchment and persevering strategies, whereas innovation and exit strategies were less used, as well as that the strategy selection depends on both the severity of the COVID-19 impact on individual business segments and SME specificities. Additionally, the analysis reveals that, from the SMEs' perspective, not all the future government measures are equally significant for recovery. Therefore, in creating an optimum measure package to support SMEs, governments must consider multiple criteria. The SMEs' responses, as well as the significance of specific government measures, vary depending on the characteristics of SMEs and the magnitude of CO VID-19 effects on specific business aspects.

Bulgaria ∙ The Annual Priorities List and Activities of the Bulgarian Competition Protection Commission in the First Half of 2022

According to the CPC this requires an examination of the rules and principles of the internal energy market in the context of sustainable development, in particular with regard to the environment. [...]the CPC considers it necessary to continue the close observation of the food sector for anticompetitive practices. According to the CPC, these agreements should not take the form of cartels or other anticompetitive practices. According to the CPC, these events provided it with a good reason to review whether some of the main market players (ie, Lukoil Bulgaria, NIS Bulgaria, Shell Bulgaria, Eco Bulgaria, OMV Bulgaria and Petrol), which were subject to a cartel investigation in 2016 – 2017, fulfil the commitments they undertook at the end of that investigation.

Antitrust Decisions as a Sledgehammer?: A Descriptive Study on the Impact of Cartel Investigations on Stock Prices

Companies under investigation for anticompetitive behaviour in breach of the competition rules face heavy fines, high legal costs, loss of future profits and reputational damage. In addition, listed companies also seem to (temporarily) experience negative shocks in their stock market value. This article provides a descriptive analysis of the impact of the European Commission’s press release, announcing an antitrust investigation, on the stock market performance of the companies involved. Furthermore, we discuss the influence of the press release covering the Commission’s decision and accompanying fine. Reviewing four cases for each of these two moments, we conclude that an antitrust investigation or fine can be linked to a substantial negative shock to the stock market value of the companies concerned. While the drop is sizeable and thus clearly visible for almost all companies, the effect also seems to be relatively short-lived. Interestingly, the effects mostly seem more pronounced for the announcement of the investigation than for the fine, with some cases barely showing an effect of the latter. This could indicate that the stock market already accounts for the full effects around the time of the initial announcement. Keywords: antitrust;cartel investigation;impact assessment;stock market performance

Sustainable Finance and Fintech: Can Technology Contribute to Achieving Environmental Goals? A Preliminary Assessment of ‘Green Fintech’ and ‘Sustainable Digital Finance’

The Digital Finance/Fintech Action Plan and the Sustainable Finance Strategy both represent important pillars of the current EU policy agenda. Nonetheless, the two areas have been treated as separate for a long time, while they present certain common features and great potential when combined. In particular, Fintech appears able to respond to some shortcomings in the current sustainable finance framework (e. g. access to retail financing, ESG disclosure, verification and ratings, etc.). The relevance of the link between sustainability, finance and technology has also been evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, which has urged all countries to re-think the models traditionally deployed and rely more on technology and sustainability. However, Fintech/digital finance still raises per se relevant technical and legal issues that need to be addressed to fulfil its promises and potential in the sustainable finance sector. The present paper aims at starting a debate about “Green Fintech” in order to effectively connect the two worlds and spur the research in such a new and promising area. Special attention will be also reserved to the recent proposal for a European Single Access Point for corporate financial and non-financial disclosure.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Company Law. Shareholders’ Meetings and Resolutions

The world is currently facing a COVID-19 pandemic which exerts a considerable impact on all areas of society. The need to avoid personal contact with other people gives rise to major problems in personal life, education, labor market, services and many others. The public had to rapidly adjust to the new situation and national legislators have played a pivotal role by making amendments to national legal orders to facilitate everyday life. The difficulties affected the functioning of companies’ organs, in particular, the adoption of resolutions by shareholders’ meetings. Due to the obstacles in the functioning of these bodies, the legislators were forced to make amendments to company law that allow for the adoption of resolutions and the exercise of shareholders’ rights without the physical attendance at the meeting. The aim of this paper is to carry out a brief comparative analysis of the regulations concerning the use of electronic communication means at shareholders’ meetings in Poland and in some selected European legal orders and formulate de lege ferenda postulates for the legislators to introduce flexible instruments that will allow companies to operate using electronic means on a larger scale and simultaneously protect shareholders’ rights.

The Proposed Regulation on Foreign Subsidies Distorting the Internal Market: The Way Forward or Dead End?

The European Commission sees the control of foreign subsidies as a top priority set out in its 2021 Work Programme. According to the Commission, there are three general areas where such distortions manifest themselves – acquisitions of European undertakings;public procurement procedures;and the general market operation of economic operators active in the European Union. Consequently, on May 5, 2021 the Commission has adopted its legislative proposal for a Regulation on Foreign Subsidies Distorting the Internal Market aimed at ‘levelling the playing field’ in these three areas. This paper will focus on the third area. It seeks to answer the question whether the proposed solution is capable of solving the problem of an unfair advantage to foreign companies over their European competitors in the Internal Market, or whether it will remain a dead letter. The EU has its own ‘internal’ anti-subsidy system – the State aid law. Its vast acquis will serve as a conceptual lens in this paper. Firstly, because of the Commission's extensive experience in this area suggesting the likelihood that the new framework will be interpreted with a ‘State aid mindset’. Secondly, because many relevant subsidy-related problems were initially encountered there. And in this regard, thirdly, will provide a reference point for analysing challenges of international subsidy control in the absence of enforcement similar to that available in the EU.

How Companies Should Manage Their Human Resources to Respond to the Disruptive Innovation Brought About by the Sharing Economy*

In recent years, the sharing economy has become a new buzzword, providing various business opportunities and challenges to conventional businesses. It is characterized by the transformation of conventional business sectors and many companies are already facing the pressure of adapting their operations to the changing conditions. Human resource management, especially when it comes to experts and knowledge workers, is among the affected business activities. In particular, due to the apparent high demand, this type of workforce has the opportunity to share services among many businesses. Therefore, human resource managers should tackle the issue of cultivating employee organizational identification to increase employee retention and achieve the desired performance. In this regard, this paper proposes a model that binds human resource management practices to employee organizational identification, innovative behaviour, knowledge sharing, and finally, employee job performance. The model is estimated using the survey method and structural equation modelling technique for data analysis. The results imply that selective recruiting, participation in decision-making, and rewarding contribute to employees' organizational identification, while training does not directly affect it. The findings, therefore, indicate that adequate human resource management practices, mainly through the simultaneous impact of the critical capabilities examined by this model, can serve as a foundation for business success in the sharing economy.