The paper investigates the export performance of the CEFTA 2006 countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina – BiH, Montenegro, Kosovo* (UNMIK, according to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244), Moldova, North Macedonia and Serbia)), using the ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lag) model. By applying the F-Bound ARDL test for the period from 2000 to 2022, the existence of a long-term equilibrium relationship between the real exports of the CEFTA 2006 members and the selected variables was determined, the results indicating differences in the significance of certain variables in the long run. Export performance mainly depends on the degree of trade openness (for most members), then the real effective exchange rate (BiH, Kosovo*, Serbia), while the net inflow of FDI (except Serbia) and the domestic bank loans granted to the private sector are less important (with the exception of Kosovo*).
Joshua Adeyemi Afolabi
Technological advancement continues to revolutionize the labor market and has particularly intensified the debate on its employment effect across developing and developed economies. Employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework, this study provides insights into the employment-innovation nexus across the Nigerian economic sectors using the quarterly data from 2011Q1 to 2021Q4. The findings reveal that the employment-innovation nexus is a short-run phenomenon in Nigeria and that technological innovation enhances employment generation in the service sector and the agricultural sector, but it takes a quarter before the positive employment effect occurs. Overall, the results suggest that technological innovation improves employment and reallocates labor across the sectors, which suggests the need to fully operationalize technological innovation across the Nigerian economic sectors in order to tackle the prevailing unemployment conundrum in the country.