Issue 8, 2022

The paper discusses whether the electricity trade in South East Europe in 1990-2019 is driven by fundamentals or, like other commodities, one could argue for a speculative movement of electricity flows motivated by factors such as prices. We employ a panel structural gravity model on the example of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Republic of North Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, and Hungary to study the dependence between net exports, generation, and consumption of electricity, as well as the regulations in the field of exporting electricity. We find that domestic consumption of electricity is a much stronger factor than the generation when considering foreign trade in electricity. The construction of power capacity in the countries considered is much more oriented towards the domestic market, which results in an underdeveloped interconnection between them. This is a serious obstacle to the liberalization on the electricity market in the region and its integration into pan-European market structures. It also creates conditions for maintaining higher and volatile electricity prices and, consequently, negatively affects economic development.
Keywords: foreign trade in electricity; panel structural gravity model; electricity market regionalization
JEL: Q43; F14; R11

An ecosystem model of effective solution of the customer management quality issue based on the platforms’ (internal and external) interaction is proposed, which indicates that digital platforms are the main tool of digital corporate transformation and regeneration. The key elements of the digital leadership strategy based on the “business model-ecosystem” interaction were identified, allowing determining the main features of the digital leadership strategy and forming the deployment direction within the corporate structure. The “road map” model of digital leadership strategy formation is introduced, the stages’ sequence of digital strategy formation is systematised, and its key elements are outlined.
Keywords: company strategy; strategic vision; digital leadership; digital solutions; digital platform; the business model of a company
JEL: L19; F23

The main goal of the paper is to assess the relationship between inflation, inflation instability and nominal uncertainty in the Bulgarian economy in January 2000 – May 2022. Employing the ARCH model, GARCH-M model, EGARCH model and Granger Causality Test we find a two-way causal relationship between inflation and inflation instability. Initially, inflation provokes inflation instability, and inflation instability provokes inflation consequently. Nominal uncertainty is measured by wavelet analysis, which establishes the presence of nominal uncertainty in the Bulgarian economy. Therefore, at certain lags, the inflation instability is transformed into nominal uncertainty. The empirical evidence raises the question of the effectiveness of the Currency Board Arrangements in Bulgaria.
Keywords: inflation; inflation instability; nominal uncertainty
JEL: E31; C22; C52

The article explores theoretical and methodological issues of defining the essence, functions and role of civilisational principles in the assurance of centripetal processes of restoring key forms of human civilisation activities, highlighting allowable limits of constructive transformation of values of economic and social development. The article pays great attention to economic and philosophic comprehension of principles and forms of the origination of a brand-new reality in the system of social and economic relations under the influence and pressure of the modern technological revolution. It reveals the particularities of methodological approaches to the essence analysis, trends in the development of new forms of human functioning in the context of Revolution 4.0, the digital economy and the active deployment of artificial intelligence.
Keywords: digital economy; artificial intelligence; nanotechnological revolution; human-centred development paradigm; transhumanistic paradigm; development benchmarks; humanitarian constant; framework for ethics principles; identity transformation, labour.
JEL: B40; I3; J08; O1; O3; P10

The efficient market hypothesis dominates in the studies on the effectiveness of stock market performance, one illustration of which is the presence of calendar anomalies of different nature. The advent of the Adaptive Market Hypothesis calls into question both the presence of such anomalies and the effectiveness of the stock market. To confirm the effective market hypothesis, the time series behaviour of the rates of return of the most significant global stock indices and a local Ukrainian PFTS Stock Index has been investigated in the work. According to the study results, the efficient market hypothesis has not been confirmed; the results partially confirm the adaptive market hypothesis. To confirm the hypothesis that global stock markets have an impact on local stock exchanges, a pre-selected sample of time series of stock index rates of return was used. The Granger causality test was used for this purpose. To determine whether the time series of the dynamics of the stock index rates of return are stationary, the advanced Dickie-Fuller test was used since it takes into account the possible autocorrelation in residuals. The Phillips-Perron test was used as well.
Keywords: S&P; NIKKEI; DAX; FTSE; PFTS; day-of-the-week; calendar; anomalies; effect
JEL: G10; G15

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly affected tourism in the last two years. The tourism industry forms a big part of the world’s GDP and is an important industry in terms of employment. The great leakage of qualified, experienced and motivated tourism workers is severe for the future recovery and development perspectives of the tourism business. Tourism-dependent destinations, such as Bulgaria, are the most affected. Almost 11% of the Bulgarian economy is formed by the tourism industry. Some regions, such as the Black sea coast, are one of the tourism most dependent regions in the country as many people see their livelihood in tourism employment. Moreover, as a tourist destination with traditions, Bulgaria’s tourism foundation is contained in the experienced and qualified workers in the industry. The main purpose of the present article is to investigate the Covid-19 impact on the Bulgarian tourism labour market due to reveal the future perspectives for its development.
Keywords: Tourism; Covid-19 pandemic; labour market; resilience; Bulgaria
JEL: J60; J81; L83; Z32

The importance of vegetable production for the agricultural sector of Bulgaria is determined by the year-round presence of vegetable crops in household consumption and the strong traditions in vegetable production. The problems in the sector are significant and timely intervention is needed to solve them in order to ensure the country’s food security. The purpose of the report is to outline the place of vegetable production in Bulgarian agriculture and the trends observed in the sector for the period 2013-2020. Data from the agrarian reports of the Ministry of Agriculture were used, FAO, Eurostat.
Keywords: agriculture; vegetable production; trends
JEL: Q10; O13; Q18

Bulgaria is one of the leading exporters of agricultural crops in Southeast Europe. Though smaller than their neighbours, Bulgarian farmers have a long tradition of growing all main cereals and oil crops, including wheat, maize, sunflower (in 2020 Bulgaria was the seventh largest exporter in the world), rape seed, barley and others. The main objective of the current study is to determine the nature of the considered processes for the production and export of main cereals and oil crops from Bulgaria and to study their sustainability. This is achieved by calculating the coefficients of sustainability of the specific indicators characterizing the processes. Determined is also whether the distribution of the main countries – trading partners is specific. Based on the obtained results, conclusions are drawn about the sustainability of the production and the export of main cereals and oil crops from Bulgaria.
Keywords: cereals; oil crops; agriculture; sustainability; export
JEL: F14; Q10; Q17; Q18

The article is devoted to the current problems occurring in the grain industry as a result of Russia’s armed aggression and active hostilities in a large area of Ukraine. The purpose of the article is operational monitoring of the current state of the grain market in Ukraine and the calculation of forecast parameters of its stabilization and further development in the conditions of military aggression.
The research used the information database of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, and the information and analytical materials of the NSC Institute of Agrarian Economics regarding the forecast indicators of the production of agricultural products in Ukraine in 2022 year. The production forecast is made taking into account losses of cultivated areas, damage to crops, violations of production technologies and a decrease in the yield of grain crops.
The total production of grain crops in 2022 is forecast to be 53.6 million tons, which is almost 40% lower than in 2021. The area under harvest is expected to decrease by 4.7 million hectares (from 15.9 to 12.3 million hectares). The actual losses of products of the grain market of Ukraine in the current 2022 are estimated at 204 billion UAH, or almost 7 billion EUR. The biggest losses will be experienced by the production of corn – EUR 3 billion, wheat – EUR 2.7 billion, barley – EUR 0.9 billion.
To determine the extent of destructive shifts occurring in the grain market of Ukraine, the actual (for 2020 and 2021) and forecast for 2022 balances of grain products were made. The main factors that will affect the functioning and further stabilization of the grain market in Ukraine have been established.
Keywords: grain market; production forecast; losses of sown areas; crop losses; production balance; domestic consumption; total demand; total supply
JEL: Q11; Q18; C53