Vlastimir Leković
Zita Bošnjak, Olivera Grlјević and Saša Bošnjak
Much of one’s online behavior, including browsing, shopping, posting, is recorded in databases on companies’ computers on a daily basis. Those data sets are referred to as web data. The patterns which are the indicators of one’s interests, habits, preferences or behaviors are stored within those data. More useful than an individual indicator is when a company records data on all its users and when it gains an insight into their habits and tendencies. Detecting and interpreting such patterns can help managers to make informed decisions and serve their customers better. Utilizing data mining with respect to web data is said to turn them into web knowledge. The research study conducted in this paper demonstrates how data mining methods and models can be applied to the web-based forms of data, on the one hand, and what the implications of uncovering patterns in web content, the structure and their usage are for management.
Vesna Martin
The aim of this paper is to present the costs and benefits of applying dollarization. The most common reason for accepting, in whole or in part, a foreign currency is the presence of a high and volatile inflation rate, which is followed by the significant volatility of the exchange rate, as well as a distorted confidence in its own currency. Likewise, highly dollarized countries most often characterized by a lower level of the development of the financial market. Dollarization contributes to lowering the costs of transactions in international trade and to achieving the price and financial stability, as import inflation is lower than domestic. On the other hand, the presence of full dollarization means a loss of seigniorage as the monetary authorities’ revenue from the printing of money, as well as the limitation of the implementation of the lender’s function in the last instance. The results of the analysis indicate that, in the dollarized countries, there was a decrease in the inflation rate, macroeconomic stability was established, and financial integration was present as well. The analysis also showed that the loss of income from seigniorage, measured as a share in the gross domestic product, is not negligible, while the lender’s function in the latter instance can be compensated through the formation of stabilization funds and the conclusion of contracts with financial institutions.
Joshua Solomon Adeyele1, Gbenga Michael Ogungbenle1 and Ogorchukwu Augustine Isimoya2
Access to quality healthcare is the primary purpose for which the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Nigeria was introduced. It is believed that the introduction of the NHIS for workers will reduce their engagement in health-risk behavior. Despite the existence of the NHIS, its enrollees (i.e. insured workers) are still complaining of the poor healthcare delivery by the service providers. As a result, some of them are still engaging themselves in a detrimental health-risk behavior due to public health workers’ moral hazard and a short supply of drugs in public hospitals. This study was undertaken in Jos metropolis so as to ascertain the extent to which moral hazard and the disclosure of partial information about the NHIS lead to a health-risk behavior among civil servants. The research has shown a moderate level of the moral hazard demonstrated by the NHIS service providers since, within the measurement range from 1 to 7, the overall average significantly falls to 4. Contrary to the moderate moral hazard demonstrated by the NHIS service providers, the majority of the NHIS enrollees were found to averagely demonstrate a low health-risk behavior.
Biljana Jovković
Without the existence of a internal control system in today’s conditions of business operations, managing a company would be unthinkable. The presence of control allows the performance of business activities according to a plan through the preventive suppression of the deviant phenomena that could jeopardize the realization of defined objectives. If the system were not established, the company would potentially be exposed to significant losses, whose final result could be the failure and disappearance of the company. This paper is aimed at indicating the ranking and significance of the individual objectives of the internal control system in our companies’ business operations practice and, in this regard, the need for the establishment of appropriate control activities as an additional measure for securing the achievement of the proclaimed business objectives of the company. The research has shown that the best-ranked objective of internal control is the improvement of the accuracy and reliability of bookkeeping and operational data, which indicates that companies see regulators’ external responsibility as a priority in their business operations. The lowest-ranked objective – the evaluation of business efficiency, speaks in favor of the secondary position of the needs of internal informing in relation to external report demands. In the paper, an attempt was made to comprehensively analyze the way in which internal control is implemented in a company’s most important functions, namely the functions of sales, supply, production, human resources, and the financial function.
Mustafa Kevser and Bilge Leyli Elitaş
The aim of this study is to analyze the effects of the ownership structures of banks on their financial performance. The quarterly data of the 13 banks listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) were used for the period from 2005 to 2017. In the study, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), Tobin’s Q ratio (TOBIN), earnings per share (EPS) and the price/earnings ratio (P/E) were used for the financial performance indicators. Family ownership, corporate ownership, managerial ownership, foreign ownership, the largest shareholder’s ownership, the ownership of the three largest shareholders, and the free-float rate were selected as the independent variables for the study. The leverage ratio, the total assets and the age of the banks were benefited from as the control variables. There are five models formed to analyze the relationship between the variables, and a regression analysis was carried out. The analyses point out the fact that the ownership structures of the banks have an effect on their financial performance. Besides, the results obtained by these analyses are suggested to be coherent for the agency theory as one of the fundamental theories of this subject.
Anh Thu Nguyen, Thanh Huong Vu, Thi Thanh Mai Nguyen, Thi Minh Phuong Nguyen and Thi Vu Ha Nguyen
The formation and development of border economic zones (BEZ) and cross-border economic zones (CBEZ) is not only an opportunity for the border regions, but also an engine for developing the supply chain and the production network as a result of border connectivity. The paper focuses on analyzing the conditions for the CBEZ in the border areas in the North of Vietnam, including Cao Bang, Lao Cai, Lang Son and Quang Ninh. There is a big difference in readiness for the establishment of the CBEZ among the four studied sites. However, connectivity needs the most improvement on all the sites, which includes both infrastructure connectivity and policy harmonization.
Vlastimir Leković
Issue 2 Volume 21 Year 2019 of the Economic Horizons scientific journal contains four original scientific and two review papers, and the Letter of Appreciation to the reviewers of the manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Board of the Journal to be published in 2018.