This paper examines the degree of trade integration and business cycle synchronisation between eight Balkan countries and the Euro area over the period 2000:1-2011:4. The main findings are that Slovenia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia exhibit a high level of openness relative to...

Little is known about how the introduction of a common currency and a single monetary policy has affected the labour cost dynamics in the Euro area. The literature has focused mainly on business cycle synchronisation. This paper analyses labour costs convergence in the Euro area since 1995,...

This paper examines synchronization in the euro area and the role of intra-EMU trade from 1981 to 2011, focusing in particular on southern European countries. The results indicate that the intensification of synchronisation that occurred in the nineties across almost all countries could...

In recent years the importance of corporate governance (CG) has rising new attention, as the 2008 financial crisis illustrates. Co-operative members, staff, regulators and others stakeholders involved in the co-operative banking business became aware of the need to strengthen co-operatives...

In the agro-food system, the vertical co-ordination in the form of co-operatives has considerable importance. In this paper, we present a function that synthesises the specific economic role of agricultural co-operatives. In the empirical research, we link the performance of Portuguese Wine...

In the last decades the world has seen some acceleration in the process of internationalization, affecting virtually all industries. The wine sector is no exception, witnessing increased exports and imports and a movement of mergers and acquisitions. Among European wines, Port Wine can be seen...

The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of education on personal earnings during the reform of state‐owned enterprises, comparing 1995 with 1998 in Hunan, China, using the Mincerian earnings equation method. The results show that the rates of return to education increased,...

Purpose – The paper aims to identify “problematic” agricultural credit co-operatives (CCAM) and to evaluate their risk of insolvency as a function of financial indicators, providing regulators and other stakeholders with a set of tools that would be predictive of future insolvency and...

The crisis in the mortgage credit market along with its repercussions in the financial system and in the real economy led us to question how credit institutions are able to analyze the issue of mortgage default. This paper aims to assess the influence of default on mortgage in Portugal as well...