Volume 25 (2015): Edition 4 (November 2015)

The paper deals with the retro-innovation and their importance to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Corporate social responsibility is a process with the aim to encourage a positive impact through activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, and all other stakeholders of the public sphere. The accelerated rate of technological and social change influences on the society. The main social problems are symptoms of future shock. Retro-innovation trend is emerging against an accelerating backdrop of “datafication”. New products are designed to connect customers with the past in ways that are nostalgic, interactive and environmental. CSR thanks to the retroinnovation encourages has a positive impact on the all stakeholders and eliminates the future shock.

The decision of the Swiss National Bank of giving up the fixed rate of 1,2 Euro/CHF on the 15^th of January 2015, a rate established at its admission to the Monetary Economic Union, had consequences on Central and Eastern European countries because a great part of the credits granted were in Swiss francs. In all these countries, the national currencies depreciated and the financial market rates were reduced. Regional banks started to face difficulties regarding the management of the situation and were under the necessity of finding solutions to avoid the risk of not recovering the granted credits. The issue of the Swiss franc appreciation was treated differently by the analysed countries and took into consideration the particularities characteristic to the credits granted in this currency. The present paper aims at emphasising the impact of the Swiss franc appreciation on the Romanian banking system but also the approach of other countries in Central and Eastern Europe in this respect.

This paper aims at presenting the determinants of private equity investments in Romania over the period 2000 - 2013. Additionally, this paper presents the main highlights in terms of evolution, source of funding and activities in which the private equity funds invested during the crisis. Starting from the existing literature, this paper extends the analysis of private equity drivers to Romanian market by including variables such as: economic growth, market capitalization, interest rate, unemployment rate and public R&D expenditure which were already tested in previous papers. In addition, this paper introduces new variables such us productivity and corruption index which we consider important factors in explaining the evolution of private equity investments in Romania.

The results of our empirical model confirmed existing hypothesis regarding the importance of some determinants such as: unemployment rate, economic growth, market capitalization and corruption. Based on our empirical results, we have pointed several strategic directions that are meant to support the development of the private equity market in Romania. Keywords: private equity; economic growth; market capitalization; unemployment rate; corruption; private equity determinants; Romania.

The article is based on a study of the structural funds used in Romania during 2007-2014. The analysis examines all the programs carried out in the mentioned period in Romania. The study focuses on several indicators personally elaborated, which are meant to reveal the major differences between the operational programs and in each operational program by itself by comparing the ratios resulted. This research can be considered as an objective summarized examination of the first stage of EU funding in Romania.

Central bank independence represents the core element of assessing the complex relationship between government and central bank, having at background the fundamental issue of a free monetary policy decision-making process from the hands of the political circle. However, central bank independence is a multilevel concept within some social, economic and behavioral implications both for the central banks and for the society at whole. Central bank independence is needed in order to establish an autonomous central bank with a high degree of freedom in choosing its’ instruments, objectives, techniques and tactics. Moreover, a high degree of transparency for the public disclosure and monitoring of central bank operation and transaction is needed for the social barometer of the central bank. Consequently the central bank must have a high degree of accountability and responsibility vis - á - vis of the most democratic institution, i.e. Parliament. In this article it is presented a comprehensive study regarding the complex relationship between central bank independence and inflation by modeling these two monetary policy panacea, in order to make a fine tuning regarding the causal relationship established in a heterodox manner.