The African Continental Free Trade Area and Its Employment-Generation Potentials in Nigeria’s Industrial Sector

The study empirically examines the employment generation potentials of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in Nigeria’s industrial sector. The ARDL approach to cointegration and error correction modeling is employed for analysis of annual time series data covering the period 19912020. The study finds inter alia that the short run effect of expansion of intra-African trade (expected to result from the AfCFTA) on industrial sector employment is positive and statistically significant. The long run effect is also positive, but not statistically significant. It also finds that trade openness integration of the economy with the global market – significantly enhances employment generation in the nation’s industrial sector in the long run; though the short run effect is negative and significant. These suggest that the country’s membership of the AfCFTA and implementation of policies aimed at (cautiously) deepening the integration of the economy with the global market should be considered as supplementary avenues to achieving (sustainable) employment generation in the nation’s industrial sector in the short-and long-run. Other evidence-based policy recommendations are discussed.

Оrganizational Change as “Push Factor” of Employees’ Turnover Intention: Statistical Analysis of the Employees in the Republic of North Macedonia

The process of globalization and intensive technological development imposes the need to constantly introduce different types of organizational changes. Human resource managers in organizations are becoming increasingly aware that hiring and retaining talents are the most important determinants of success in the complex global world and that they must work more intensively on modernizing the process of change management to help employees, not only for acceptance, but also for their involvement in the change implementation process. This paper analyzes the impact of four different types of organizational change on employee turnover intention, according to the Cummings and Worley (2014) organizational change classification. The statistical method of simple linear regression was applied to predict and evaluate the turnover intention of the employees in the Republic of North Macedonia (as a dependent variable “Y”) based on the value of each of the types of organizational changes (as independent variables “X”). A multiple regression method was also applied in order to analyze the associations between the independent variables and the dependent variable and identify the type of organizational changes that most significantly affects the employee turnover intention. The analysis was conducted based on the findings obtained from the respondents who completely answered the survey questionnaire (282 employees in the Republic of North Macedonia, different according to their demographic characteristics). The correlation analysis shows there are positive correlation as well as causal relationship between all four types of organizational changes and the employee turnover intention, where techno-structural interventions have the most significant impact.

Efficiency Analysis of Macedonian and Croatian Banking Sectors with DEA

The aim of this paper is to measure the relative efficiency of commercial banks in two developing countries, the Republic of North Macedonia and the Republic of Croatia under the operating (incomebased) approach by using the leading non-parametric methodology data envelopment analysis (DEA). We follow Banker et al. (2010) in the selection of the approach, variables (two inputs: interest expense and other operating expense, and two outputs: interest revenue and other operating revenue) and the model (output-oriented BCC DEA model) as in their first stage. The observed period is five years (2015-2019) and we use a balanced panel data for both samples (total of 65 Macedonian and 100 Croatian bank-year observations). Outliers are identified and excluded by using the Banker and Gifford (1988) super-efficiency procedure, and the BCC output-oriented model is rerun for both samples (total 55 Macedonian and 95 Croatian bank-year observations). We provide relative efficiency scores for each bank in both sectors, as well as an average score for the banking sectors. In addition, we analyse few banks for both sectors that have decreased or increased the efficiency, or show variable results over time. Besides, we explain how inefficient banks can improve the efficiency in future by setting targets for improvement. Our study provides valuable information for banking management and regulatory bodies.

A DSGE model with partial euroization: the case of the Macedonian economy

This paper describes the theoretical structure and estimation results for a DSGE model for the Macedonian economy. Having as benchmark the model of Copaciu et al. (2015), modified to allow for a fixed exchange rate, we are able to match relatively well the volatility observed in the data. Given the monetary policy regime in place, the debt deflation channel is more important relative to the financial accelerator one when compared to the flexible exchange rate case. The lack of balance sheet effects results in no significant differences in terms of net worth evolution across the two types of entrepreneurs when impulse response functions are evaluated. However, the shocks related to the financial sector appear to be especially important for investment, for the domestic interest rate and interest rate spreads, illustrating the relevance of including financial frictions in the model. With the exchange rate not acting as a shock absorber, the external shocks are more relevant for the CPI inflation and the domestic interest rate. The drop in GDP associated with the pandemic mainly reflects the negative innovations to the consumption preference shock and to the permanent technology shock.

Comparative analysis of the explanatory power of the CAPM and the Fama-French three-factor model on cross-sectional variation of returns on stocks trading on the Official market of the Macedonian Stock exchange

The amount of literature on factors that explain the cross-sectional variation in average returns is vast, however, the majority of these papers attempt to explain the variation of returns in developed and emerging markets. In that sense, the literature lacks sufficient evidence regarding the variation of returns of frontier markets. The Republic of North Macedonia is considered to be a frontier market and in this paper we aim to empirically test the ability of the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Fama-French Three Factor Model in explaining the cross-sectional variations of stock returns of securities trading on the Macedonian Stock Exchange. The empirical study is based on monthly returns from January 2011 to April 2021. Additionally, we use annual data obtained from the financial statements of the analysed companies included in this study. Using OLS time series regression we find that both models have limited explanatory power of the cross-sectional variation in expected returns on the Macedonian Stock Exchange. The study shows that only the size factor exhibits some limited explanatory power regarding stock returns. Based on the comparative analysis the Fama-French Three-Factor Model describes the variation of returns on the MSE much better than the Capital Asset Pricing Model.