Are we right to care so much about economic growth as we clearly do? For citizens of all too many of the world’s countries, where poverty is still the norm, the answer is immediate and obvious. But the tangible improvements in the basics of life that make economic growth so important whenever living standards are low— greater life expectancy, fewer diseases, less infant mortality and malnutrition—have mostly been played out long before a country’s per capita income reaches the levels enjoyed in today’s advanced industrialized economies. Americans are no healthier than Koreans or Portuguese, for example, and we live no longer, despite an average income more than twice what they have. Yet whether our standard of living will continue to improve, and how fast, remain matters of acute concern for us nonetheless. Perhaps because we are never clear about just why we attach so much importance to economic growth in the first place, we are often at cross-purposes—at times we seem almost embarrassed—about what we want. Not only do we acknowledge other values; as a matter of principle we place them on a higher plane than our material well-being. Even in parts of the world where the need to improve nutrition and literacy and human life expectancy is urgent, there is often a grudging aspect to the recognition that achieving superior growth is a top priority. As a result, especially when faster growth would require sacrifice from entrenched constituencies with well-established interests, the political process often fails to muster the determination to press forward. The all-too-frequent outcome, in lowand high-income countries alike, is economic disappointment, and in some cases outright stagnation. The root of the problem, I believe, is that our conventional thinking about economic growth fails to reflect the breadth of what growth, or its absence, means for a society. We recognize, of course, the advantages of a higher material standard of living, and we appreciTHE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/ecaf_641_1.pdf?abstractid=904863&mirid=2

THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH by Benjamin M. Friedman

Techno-economic analysis reveals the untapped potential of wood biochar

Research background: The paper investigates the earnings management phenomenon in the context of Central European countries, attempting to identify the factors and incentives that can influence earnings management behavior on a sample of 8,156 enterprises from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland.
Purpose of the article: The main purpose of the manuscript is to prove that there are significant differences in earnings management practices (measured by discretionary accruals) across the countries and to find the firm-specific features that influence the way enterprises manage their earnings.
Methods: The modified Jones model was used to calculate the discretionary accruals, which are further analyzed across the countries. The statistically significant differences were confirmed across the countries. Thus, the impact of the economic sector, firm size, firm age, legal form, and ownership structure on earnings management behavior is studied by the Kruskal-Wallis test. The Dunn-Bonferroni post hoc tests then revealed the significant differences across the categories of the investigated earnings management determinants. To find the association between the particular earnings management practice (income-increasing or income-decreasing manipulation), correspondence analysis was used to visualize the mutual relations.
Findings & value added: The results of the realized investigation revealed that the economic sector is one of the most important earnings management determinants, as its statistical significance was confirmed in each analyzed country. The correspondence analysis determined specific sectors, where income-increasing manipulation with earnings is practiced (NACE codes F, J, K, M, N), and vice versa, income-decreasing earnings management is characteristic for enterprises in sectors A, C, D, G or L. In specific economic conditions, firm size is also a relevant indicator (Hungary), or firm age and legal form and ownership structure (Poland). The recognition of crucial earnings management incentives may be helpful for authorities, policymakers, analysts and auditors when identifying various techniques and practices of earnings manipulation which could vary across the sectors and taking necessary measures to mitigate potential financial risks.

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Quo Vadis, earnings management? Analysis of manipulation determinants in Central European environment

The experience of public finance management in the EU in the framework of tightly controlled coordination of medium-term fiscal policy and the single monetary policy of the European Monetary Union (EMU) indicates that Strategic Public Finance Governance (SPFG) should be distinguished from the strategy for reforming the public finance management system within the established approaches of Public Finance Management (PFM) as general from special. The Strategic Public Finance Governance Mission (SPFG) is seen as enhancing the government’s financial capacity to respond in a timely and adequate manner to global challenges and threats through coordinated and targeted participation in relevant international activities and programs that correlate with the solution of certain global problems. The mission also includes expanding the fiscal space for public financial support of national sustainable development priorities that meet national interests, the criteria of national security in general and economic, financial, fiscal in particular. This involves the use of both domestic and borrowed (from other countries, international organizations, etc.) financial resources. Nowadays, the PFM approach covers mainly the general government sector. Strategic Public Finance Governance (SPFG) should cover the public sector as a whole. In our opinion, this is the main direction of further European integration reform of the public finance management system in Ukraine.

/pdf/strategic-public-finance-governance-european-integration-u7yvlvid.pdf

Strategic public finance governance: European integration course, international trends, national peculiarities

The social and economic policy pursued by national and European authorities is supported by the redistribution of public funds. Choices made by European member states regarding the relevant scale of redistribution should promote the individual nation’s sustainable development and competitiveness. Increased capital and workforce flows strengthen so-called fiscal and spending competition, which weakens governments’ capacity for running an autonomous fiscal policy. In EU countries, however, there are still quite significant differences between the basic parameters of fiscal and spending systems, indicating that governments are not as powerless as is often claimed. Further, the fact that elements of fiscal policy have consequences for a country’s competitiveness should not be overlooked. Keeping this in mind, the main purpose of this article is to examine to what extent EU member states’ public spending can have a real impact on changing performance indicators for goals related to competitiveness and sustainable development. To this end, an approach based on panel models (individual vs. random effects) verified with a Hausman specification test was used. Our findings demonstrate the significant impact of an active spending policy on the indicators selected for analysis, i.e. indicators related to the stable development and competitiveness of EU member states within the period of 2008–2018. Our research results have also shown that to measure competitiveness there is a need to integrate a number of varied economic, social and innovative factors to analyze the growth potential of a particular country. In turn, our model studies demonstrate that countries where the fiscal deficit is below 3% of GDP can implement a sustainable development policy more effectively, thus promoting competitiveness, instead of the periodic shocks and budget cuts which accompany remedial processes and procedures to alleviate excessive deficits.

/pdf/the-impact-of-public-finance-management-on-sustainable-4ylo9e6ygz.pdf

Konrad Raczkowski

Papers

The Impact of Public Finance Management on Sustainable Development and Competitiveness in EU Member States