Maksvytienė, Inga

The manifestations of fiscal federalism are analyzed at the subnational level in order to enhance the fiscal capability of municipalities. However, the municipalities usually lack the incentive to compete when providing packages of public services to the public as the revenue of municipalities is restricted by national level laws and remains highly dependent on government grants. The aim of this article is to determine the manifestations of the theory of fiscal federalism when assessing the fiscal capability of municipalities. The analysis of Lithuanian municipalities’ data for the five-year period reveals the municipal level situation. Research methods include the analysis of legislation and statistical data, content analysis, and cluster analysis. It has been found that there is no clear agreement at the interinstitutional level (from the highest to municipal level). Fiscal competition among the municipalities leads to a more efficient distribution of funds which can also have a positive impact on regional economic growth in the long term. Insufficient data at self-government level is a precondition for further separation among municipalities as rich municipalities keep getting richer while economically weak municipalities keep getting poorer.

Export competitiveness of European Union countries in the food and beverages sector is analyzed and assessed in the article. Research is carried out using the revealed comparative advantage index method for the period of 2012-2018. Research results showed that more than a half of European Union countries are competitive in the export of goods in the food and beverage sector. Food and beverage sector often does not require many or smart technologies, exceptional arrangements, geographic or economic opportunities thus making most of the European Union countries competitive in the food and beverage sector. Those countries also maintain their position in the long run and improve it. The most competitive of all European Union countries were found to be Latvia, Greece, Denmark, Spain and Lithuania, while having done the more comprehensive research of the export competitiveness of these countries it was noticed that the countries specialize most in the export of those food products and beverages, the production or procurement of which, they have, likely, the best possible conditions. On the other hand, research results showed that even those countries that are competitive in the export of goods in the food and beverage sector may not remain such in the export of particular food products and beverages.

The term of efficiency is widely used in economics and is important in the analysis of processes in order to achieve good results. Apparel and textile sector stand out from all manufacturing sectors. Companies of this sector are characterized by sophisticated technological processes, the use of a lot of complex and raw materials, a wide range of activities and a final production that satisfies the growing numbers of the different fields of demand. The research shows that Lithuanian company AB Linas is the most effective of all of the researched companies. Apranga Group is the least efficient while all of the researched USA companies stand in the middle of Lithuanian companies as their efficiency rating is less than one.

The paper analyses and evaluates the impact of tourism sector on economic growth in the world countries. FD model is used for research. This method evaluates which factors are statistically significant and have most influence on economic growth. Economic growth is identified as GDP in the country and independent variables are: labour force, export, HDI, number of arrivals, tourism receipts and tourism expenditures. Results of the research are presented in the article: a positive tourism sector impact on economic growth in three of the four analyzed groups of countries is identified. Such an impact exists in the groups of countries with high-income economies, upper middle-income economies and lower middle-income economies. An unidentified tourism sector impact on economic growth in the group of countries with the low-income economies has been determined.

This paper analyzes and evaluates the main causes of the shadow economy. MIMIC approach is used. This method evaluates which factors are statistically significant and mostly influence shadow economy. According to the research results shadow economy in Lithuania is mostly affected by unemployment, employment rate, taxes, consumer confidence, criminality, education and return on assets (ROA).

Time series models are increasingly widely used for predicting future stock prices. Advancing information technology and data analysis tools allow traders and investors to use these models easily for forecasting risk reduction and profits increase. The authors use classical decomposition, exponential smoothing and ARIMA models to forecast the OMXV index. Multivariate regression is also used to estimate the short-term impact of industrial production, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, oil price and unemployment on OMXV index. The study finds that exponential smoothing an ARIMA models have good accuracy using one-step ahead forecast. Only oil prices seem to have a small positive impact and inflation – a negative impact on the index.

The authors of this paper draw their approach on the key concept of the welfare state. According to Roosevelt (1910), “The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of the nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.” This target – moral and material welfare of all citizens – should be the essential thing when developing tax policy from the welfare approach. Therefore the present article has focused on the theoretical and practical aspects of both positive and negative roles of alcohol excise taxes in the context of the welfare state. In spite of the harmonization of excise taxes in the European Union (EU), the policy and actions of the national governments on alcohol excise taxes differ, because the need for regulation using this tax is based on factors of social and economic environment in the country. So, systematic framework is necessary to assess efficiency of EU countries governments’ alcohol excise tax policy in the context of the welfare state, to determine the role of alcohol excise tax in the structure of the welfare state tax system and to identify key factors influencing effectiveness of alcohol excise tax regulation.

Authors analyze the causes and effects of educational inequality, and summarize the results of education inequality in Lithuania by using direct Gini index method. It is important to know that this method is used to calculate education inequality for basic levels.

One of the methods of monopolies’ regulation is the price regulation. It comprises the price cap, the profit rate determination, control of production cost. The biggest problem of all regulators is the lack of information, which creates an agency dilemma. Monopolies’ operators keep the power over technologies’ knowledge and so over the technological cost. That’s why last mentioned price regulation methods, based on operators costs, integrate inefficiency’s root. This deficiency could be diminished by Price Benchmarking Method, which states about need of the orientation on the best practices effectuating monopolistic activity; so the pressure on monopolistic operator could be exercised through the price setting on the level of leading companies’ price (and especially on leading international companies’ price). In such way established prices for particular operator are economically based and so can be used to stimulate monopolists to improve their activity ignoring operators’ internal cost development (so bypassing the agency problem). Especially this method is useful for less developed countries, where the practice of price setting on the base of cost is habitual, and where the monopolistic pressure on society is big. In proposed research is treated the problem of efficient price setting using international price benchmarking method. The purpose of the study was to propose the method for benchmarking based price setting in Lithuanian monopolistic water supply sector and demonstrate its applicability.[...]

The main purpose of this article was to summarize the features of applying monopoly price regulatory measures, thus creating a basis for further development of those measures. The analysis of scientific literature on monopolies regulation applying pricing measures let the authors to formulate the following conclusions: Great number of authors analysing monopolies’ regulation advocate the position of non interventionism in the market formation. However, the authors of this theoretical research support the idea of limited regulation of monopolies and this regulation must be implemented on the basis of market forces. The question of monopolies’ regulation is especially important in less developed and small countries, where monopolies abuse their power regarding societal needs. The last one manifests itself diminishing effectiveness of monopolized business and finally by increased prices of supplied products and services. Classical-theoretical pricing of monopolies’ products is associated with the cost coverage, which is also associated with the situation of marginal costs and marginal income overlap. The agency problem between the monopolistic systems and the society hampers to establish economically efficient prices. An essential weak point of all monopolies’ regulations applying the pricing mechanism and based on own costs consideration is that it slows down the initiative to improve the activities of monopolies, encourages them either to lower the quality of the product in order to increase profits, or to carry out the investment of enlarging the costs, increasing the pressure on the state institutions to raise prices. In the authors’ view, the principles of methodology for the efficient development of natural monopolies in societal and private terms could lie in the benchmarking based pricing idea. [...]