Antecedents of Purchase Intention in the Online Context

The understanding of the determinant factors of customer purchase intention is necessary, and it is equally important to study the online purchase context, since this context is disseminated among customers. A theoretical model has been elaborated on and tested, considering the constructs of information quality, distrust, and perceived risk as antecedents of purchase intention, and aiming to analyze the relationship among these constructs in the online purchase context. A quantitative research study has been performed by means of the application of a survey. Multivariate statistics techniques have been applied for data analyses, including structural equation modeling. This study contributes to the evolution of the empirically tested concepts by providing a greater individual understanding of each construct presented in the theoretical model, as well as the relationship among them as determinants of purchase intention; the indication is that meaningful relationships were found which may impact greater profitability and, consequently, greater competition for online retailers.     

The effectiveness of fiscal spending in Croatia,Slovenia and Serbia: the role of trade openness and public debt level

Various structural characteristics of economies, directly or indirectly, affect the transmission from government stimuli to economic activity and determine the size of fiscal multipliers. In this article, we expand the standard Blanchard–Perotti fiscal SVAR model by incorporating the public debt and trade openness variables to assess the influence of these structural determinants on the effectiveness of fiscal spending in three selected former Yugoslav countries – Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. The results confirmed the main hypotheses, which state that public debt level and trade openness significantly affect the effectiveness of fiscal spending through the means of reduction in size of fiscal effects in all countries analysed. When comparing internationally, this reduction tends to be more evident in countries with a higher degree of average public debt level and trade openness.     

Antecedents of Perceived Value and Repurchase Intention of Organic Food

The rise of the natural and organic products market follows a global trend of increasing demand largely due to the growth of environmental awareness and the concern of having a healthier diet. Thus, the objective of this study is to propose and test a theoretical model based on antecedent constructs of perceived value and repurchase intention on the consumption of organic products. The results, based on 256 consumers of organic products, confirm the positive relationship between environmental awareness and perceived quality, healthy consumption, and perceived price fairness. Moreover, they underpin the influence of healthy consumption, perceived price fairness and perceived quality on perceived value, and lastly, the influence of perceived value on repurchase intention. Therefore, this study can help practitioners and consumers comprehend in a more systematic way the buying behaviour of this food category.     

Transition from cash benefits to work: The case of Slovenia

The paper investigates the working of the unemployment insurance and social assistance systems during Slovenia's transition, when both systems came under increased pressure. It describes unemployment insurance and social assistance programs, reviews trends in number of beneficiaries and expenditures, and identifies main issues in getting unemployed cash benefit recipients back to work: deficient targeting, too easy access to cash benefits to the better-off, adverse incentives created by cash benefit systems, and doubletrack provision of means-tested assistance to the unemployed.     

Employment and wage dynamics in Estonia, 1989-951

This study monitors the effects of economic transition on wages and employment in a former Soviet Republic. Estonia's case is of particular interest because of its early adoption of relatively free labour market policies. Relative wages for the highest educated groups rose for all age groups. There were also rapid increases in returns to job experience, particularly at young ages. Increasing wage dispersion across human capital groups was accompanied by narrowing wage dispersion within human capital groups. Relative wages rose in sectors which gained relative employment, while they fell in shrinking sectors. In addition, there were large flows of labour between shrinking and growing sectors, suggesting that labour market equilibrating mechanisms developed very rapidly in Estonia.     

Economic Sociology Reformulated

A bstract Previous theoretical and empirical research on economic sociology leaves much to be desired in terms of consistently defining the agenda and objectives of the discipline As a result, economic sociology often appears to lack a clearly defined mission and purpose This is epitomized by various failures to establish adequate epistemological relations of the proper realm of economic sociology with those of economics and sociology, and especially with the domain of rational choice theory This failure is compounded by a misplaced distinction between the subject matter of economic sociology and that of sociological economics, or socioeconomics And some recent works in the discipline (including the ambitious Handbook of Economic Sociology ) have not helped to remedy this situation In this paper, we try to address this situation by suggesting some reformulations of the subject matter of economic sociology in relation to those of related disciplines In addition, we attempt to redefine the field of the sociology of the market which is seen as the focal specialty of economic sociology     

A review of research on risk and safety modelling in civil aviation

Safety is considered as some of the most important operational characteristics of contemporary civil aviation. An extensive regulatory structure has been established to supplement the private airline, airport and air navigation systems, incentives to limit the risks of flying. This paper reviews the research on risk and safety modelling in civil aviation. In such a context, the basic concepts and definitions of risk, safety and their evaluation are described. The review focuses on four categories of models for safety assessment: causal for aircraft and air traffic control/management operations, collision risk, human factor error and third-party risk.     

Winners and losers after 25 years of transition: Decreasing wage inequality in Slovenia

Over the past twenty-five years, wage inequality has fallen in Slovenia, even as it has risen in most developed economies. The rates of return to education and work experience rose and remained high on average. However, rapid increases in the number of college graduates have outpaced the rising relative demand for skill among the youngest labor market entrants. As a result, the youngest cohorts of college graduates have experienced declining returns to education and a downward shift in their occupational distribution, which has not been experienced by older college graduates. These changes coincide with the implementation of the Bologna Reform, which reduced the length of time necessary to complete a bachelor’s degree and contributed to the incentives to attend college. Falling returns to tertiary education contributed to declining within-cohort wage inequality among the young, which was large enough to reduce overall wage inequality.     

Long-term dynamics of the VIX index and its tradable counterpart VXX

We study the relationship of the VIX index and the exchange-traded note VXX on various timescales. We find that changes of VIX and VXX are correlated only contemporaneously on timescales of days, but VIX leads VXX on timescales of months. Next, we construct a simple joint model for VXX and VIX which replicates all the key characteristics of these two time series, but in which VIX and VXX are related only via a correlated error term. Therefore, VIX cannot be used as a predictor of VXX and there is no apparent trading profit opportunity.