The paper reviews and interprets capital structure theory in a stylized way and explains the conceptual issues, consequences, and implications for financial management. Firms face an uncertain world that does not co-operate with many of the assumptions of the theory. Specific attention is paid...

This paper examines determinants of the agrarian structure in transition economies with an emphasis on the role of rural households’ human capital. Farm restructuring has resulted in a broad range of farm types, such as co-operatives, partnerships, individual farms and combinations of them. In...

In the paper we analyze the changes in agricultural trade patterns in Slovakia influenced by the gradual trade liberalization that occurred prior to European Union enlargement in 2004. The results show a significant trade-diversion effect of the enlargement on Slovak agricultural trade. A...

This is the first paper to analyze the impact of biofuels on the price transmission along the food chain. We analyze the U.S. corn sector and its vertical links with food and ethanol (energy) markets. We find that biofuels affect the price transmission elasticity in the food chain compared to a...

We analyze university research and education in transition countries. University system differs from industry in the nature of product that it produces. University system is engaged in production of public goods rather than private goods. The sector also suffers from measurement problem. We...

The present study examines factor content of the CEE transition country agricultural trade. We examine the relative country abundance for labour, capital and land, and test the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) hypothesis. Our empirical findings suggest that the factor content of agricultural exports...

Societies in Western civilisation enforce their rules through formal institutions such as secularism (SES), whereas in less developed civilisations often rely on informal institutions such as religion (RES). The present paper attempts to explain the determinants of societies’ choice between...

In light of the recent financial and economic crisis the present paper analyzes the determinants of loan default. We employ a unique firm-level panel data of 700 bank loans given to small and medium sized enterprises in Slovakia between 2000 and 2005 to investigate three loan default hypothesis....

The paper analyzes the changes in agricultural trade patterns in Slovakia that occured during the gradual trade liberalization due to European Union enlargement in 2004. The results indicate that approximately 30% of the increase in agricultural imports from the EU15 and CEECs between 2000 and...

This paper provides a literature review of selected aspects of economics and political economy of regional trade agreements. From a static perspective regional trade agreements have ambiguous effects on the welfare. Assumption of welfare maximization cannot explain the proliferation of regional...