Marija Džunić

Multi-criteria approach in evaluating contribution of social entrepreneurship to the employment of socially-excluded groups

The paper explores the potential impact of social enterprises on social exclusion. In particular, the role of social enterprises in labour market integration of socially excluded individuals is analysed within the existing theoretical and policy discourses of exclusion. Taking into account the difficulties in measuring the social impact of social enterprises, our study contributes to the quantitative literature on the performance of social enterprises, taking the number of integrated people as a measure of the impact on social exclusion. The research is based on data on the employment of marginalized groups, derived from a unique dataset collected by a recently conducted survey of social enterprises in Serbia. The original methodological framework combines statistical methods and multi-criteria decision making model, in order to evaluate the contribution of different types of enterprises to the employment of excluded individuals. Weights determination for the MCDM model is performed using entropy while TOPSIS method is applied for the ranking of the types of social enterprises according to the employment of socially excluded categories. The results indicate that enterprises for employment of persons with disabilities, citizens’ associations and cooperatives in Serbia contribute the most in integrating the socially excluded.

Exchange Rate and Export Performance: Evidence from Serbia

This chapter contributes to the empirical literature on the role of exchange rate in a country’s trade performance. In particular, we investigate the effects of exchange rate misalignment on long-term export performance of the Serbian economy, by using monthly data for the last decade. International trade theories suggest that a deterioration of export performance should be expected in the conditions of real currency appreciation, while depreciated currency tends to benefit the exporters. However, statistical data on real effective exchange rate and aggregated data of Serbian exports indicate that the ambience of overvalued national currency did not harm export performance. Employing the Engle-Granger test of cointegration, we find no stable long-run relation between the time series data of exchange rate and export, while Granger causality test indicates a unidirectional causality that runs from exchange rate to export. These findings suggest that export dynamics is likely to be affected by a combination of various determinants, both demand- and supply-side variables. By estimating a multiple regression model, we test the potential influence of industrial production index, unit labor costs, fiscal balance, and world demand on aggregate export data. The findings confirm the insignificance of real exchange rate as a determinant of Serbian exports, disregarding the normative theory assumptions, while world demand and industrial achievement significantly impact the export performance. Our study offers potential explanations of export growth in the ambience of real currency appreciation and advocates for a flexible exchange rate policy that would take into account long-term effects on trade performance.

Social Capital and Corruption: Evidence from Western Balkan Countries

Throughout the last decade, empirical evidence from transition countries has confirmed low levels of social capital, a resource often regarded as a determinant of the speed of reforms, economic growth and social development in these countries. On the other hand, corruption is considered to be closely related to social capital, whereas high levels of corruption reflect institutional weakness, which impedes contract enforcement. Such environment prevents building trust relations between economic actors. There are opinions that certain types of social capital are likely to increase corruption, which brings into question the causal direction of their relationship. The aim of the paper is to measure and compare the levels of social capital and corruption in Western Balkan countries. In addition, relations between social capital, corruption and GDP per capita levels will be explored in order to establish whether higher corrupt countries report lower levels of trust and civic participation and therefore lower GDP per capita.