Business and Finance Articles (Sorted by date)

Bosnia-Herzegovina (heretofore "Bosnia") is an artificial polity with four, tangentially interacting, economies. Serbs, Croats and their nominal allies, the Bosniaks each maintain their own economy.

The most exciting event in Slovenia last week was when a group of young army recruits spat on the national flag and sang the anthem of the now defunct former Yugoslavia. They were sent to a military psychiatrist for observation.

Blessed with Chinese GDP growth rates (7-8% annually in each of the last 3 years) and German inflation (4%, down from 32% in 1997, mostly attributable to increases in energy and housing costs), it is easy to forget Albania's Somali recent past.

Close to 500,000 people - one in four - live under the poverty line in a country where the average monthly salary is less than 150 US dollars. More than one in three members of the workforce are chronically unemployed. With inflation up 5.5% in the...

I. OVERVIEW In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the USA, attention was drawn to the age-old, secretive, and globe-spanning banking system developed in Asia and known as "Hawala" (to change, in Arabic).

Every conflict has its economic moments and dimensions. The current conflict in Macedonia perhaps even more so. The USA and its Western allies regard Macedonia as a bridge between Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania.

In typical bureaucratese, the pensive EBRD analyst ventures with the appearance of compunction: "A number of projects have fallen short of acceptable standards (notice the passive, exculpating voice - SV) and have put the reputation of the bank...

Abstract A very slim minority of firms distribute dividends. This truism has revolutionary implications. In the absence of dividends, the foundation of most - if not all - of the financial theories we employ in order to determine the value of...

Q: What have been the most successful approaches to attracting direct foreign investments: offering prospective investors tax breaks and similar benefits, or improving the overall investment climate of the country?

The recent upheavals in the world financial markets were quelled by the immediate intervention of both international financial institutions such as the IMF and of domestic ones in the developed countries, such as the Federal Reserve in the USA.