Tom 56 (2020): Zeszyt 2 (June 2020)

This article reviews several hypotheses that aim at explaining the development of German merchandise exports. Based on cointegration estimation techniques, we examine different determinants for their ability to explain German exports during the period 1992–2016. The estimation results indicate that, in addition to the traditional determinants (world demand and price competitiveness), other determinants, such as energy prices and the increasing fragmentation of production processes, are also crucial in explaining German exports.

This article concerns the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) outflow from India to Poland with some insights to other European countries. This topic strongly relates to globalization of foreign trade and especially new economic initiatives between European Union (EU) and India, which was one of the first countries to develop trade relations with EU. According to CEIC data – Financial Data and Economic Indicators, India’s FDI outflow increased slightly to 1.4 billion USD in September 2019 in comparison with 996.5 million USD in September 2018, but it is still below the average of 1.8 billion USD for a period of 2007–2019.

Available at: https://www.ceicdata.com/en/india/foreign-direct-investment-outflow/foreign-direct-investment-outflow (accessed October 19, 2019).

Competitive tension refers to pressure that is considered to exist among firms operating in a competitive market and that forces them to take competitive action against each other. An imaginary upper limit of competitive tension symbolizes the difference between whether to take competitive action or not. The antecedents of competitive tension are examined in this study. Within this scope, market commonality and resource similarity are the variables studied as components of competitor analysis; market concentration that provides clues for the competitive structure of competed markets; and finally, competitive asymmetry, presuming that the competition among the companies is not equal and rivals do not consider each other at the same level as competing firms, were taken as primary variables of competitive tension. In order to test whether these variables have an effect on competitive tension among airlines, airlines operating in the domestic air transport market in Turkey were examined in this study. The perceived competitive tension that was detected as a result of regression analyses was studied on three different dimensions, namely, internal tension, external tension, and total tension, and each dimension was analyzed as a different model. The findings of the study revealed that market commonality and market concentration have a significant effect on competitive tension. These effects were found to be positive for market commonality and negative for market concentration. Resource similarity and competitive asymmetry were found to have no significant effect.

This article analyzes the grounds and possibility to induce and develop reshoring activities in the luxury goods sector. The premise of this analysis is the contemporary redefinition of the luxury goods sector, which relates to the increasing volume of goods marketed as luxuries. In this paper, we examine whether reshoring can develop in a similar manner on the respective tiers of the luxury ladder in the luxury fashion, automotive, and jewelry industries. Both premises and examples of reshoring in the luxury goods sector are conceptually analyzed and empirically illustrated.

This article analyzes the institutional architecture and the level of similarity between the social protection system in 11 new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe and chosen Western European countries, representing four different models of capitalism identified by Amable. In the selected institutional area, a comparative analysis was performed, and based on it, similarity hexagons were created. They serve the purpose of comparing Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries with Western European countries of reference. The dynamic approach adopted in this study—two different time periods were compared—allows an analysis of path dependence and the evolution of institutional architecture over time. The analysis indicates that in 2014, in the area of social protection, almost all CEE countries, apart from Latvia and Romania, were most comparable to the Continental model of capitalism represented by Germany. Nevertheless, the variety of results for the individual variables (especially input and output variables) and substantial changes between 2005 and 2014 also show that the model of capitalism prevailing in Central and Eastern Europe in the area of the social protection system is evolving constantly at a very fast pace and thus currently may be called a hybrid or even patchwork capitalism.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) ranks as the second most unequal region globally (in terms of income distribution), harboring 10 of the 19 most unequal countries in the world. This paper explores the channels through which income inequality exerts its effects on economic growth in SSA. The study spans the period 1995–2015, focusing on 31 SSA countries. Findings from the two-step system generalized method of moments suggest that income inequality exerts a significant positive effect on economic growth via the saving transmission channel, while it has a statistically significant negative effect on economic growth in the region through the channels of fertility, credit market imperfection, and fiscal policy.