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The objective of this paper is to present a method to measure and quantitatively assess the prevalence of state capture. This phenomenon refers to the emergence of private interests which, in the course of modernization and growth tend to become dominant (in a sector, in the economy or globally). The assessment of this phenomenon is controversial a...
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Context 1
... primary (level three) indicators are percentages and the combined level-two indicators (e.g. Table 2 below) are a simple average of the percentages of their corresponding sub indicators. All data from external sources were normalized to match the 0-100 range with once again the most favourable value being 0 and the most unfavourable -100. ...Context 2
... two main outputs of the state capture measurement methodology provide a rough overall estimate of the situation in each country. As becomes evident in Table 2, the lowest summary assessment of state capture enablers is that of the Czech Republic (27), followed by Spain (28) and Italy (30). The difference between these three countries with respect to enablers of state capture is very small and the conclusion that they have a similar state capture vulnerability level is relatively straightforward. ...Similar publications
The article discusses the capabilities of the Vladivostok fortress as a center for recreation and tourism of residents and guests. The proposals on the formation of a comprehensive model of renovation, reconstruction and modernization of the Fortress for cultural and recreational purposes are considered. In the forts, it is planned to create leisur...
The ongoing efforts in grid modernization, which is accompanied by upgrading distribution grids through employment of advanced distribution grid technologies, further provide the necessary tools to employ Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR) and Volt-VAR Optimization (VVO) programs and ensure that the system is operating continuously at an optimize...
Citations
... Авторът прави методологическа бележка, че социалното пространство и социалното време в съвременната социологическа научна мисъл битуват като отделни понятия, които хронотопът може да обедини в единна концепция. 214 При преноса на понятието в социологическия анализ, би било по-коректно да мислим не за хронотоп в литературоведски смисъл, а за социален хронотоп като синтез на социално време, социално пространство 215 , като прибавяме към него и аксиологическата му координата. ...
Какво е да си интелектуалец?
Социологията свързва интелектуалеца с идея, истина, Слово, ценност, общество. Следователно, интелектуалец е някой, при който е дошла идея как чрез Словото да достигне до ценността на истината. Интелектуалец е бил Ганди. Не само, защото сам той е достигнал до истината, но и защото е увлякъл по нея и други хиляди. А и нещо повече – осмислил е и ни е разказал как се извървява пътя към истината – „самата същност на душата“, както той я определя.
Стигне ли до истината, интелектуалецът се изправя пред отговорността да я предаде на обществото си. Истината е дар. Който получава дар, следва да го върне. Задържи ли го за себе си, сам той го губи или дарът него погубва.
Образованите и умни хора често стигат до истина и бързо я забравят, отдалечават се от нея, не приемат дара. Човешко, твърде човешко. Сред тях интелектуалци няма. Хората с висок интелект, следвайки логичната нишка на мисълта или още известна като нишката на Ариадна, излизат от лабиринта на незнанието, фейка и постистината и стигат до истина. Приемат я в мислите, чувствата и действията си. Благодарение на нея постигат по-високо ниво в стълбицата на собственото си израстване. Но дали съумяват да я предадат обратно на хората и обществото си – това не е съвсем сигурно. Само мъдрите и разумни успяват до истината да се качат и благото й да свалят обратно при хората, за да съзрява, да се движи напред обществото човешко. Тези са интелектуалците. Усамотени по стъпалата на лествицата, дълбоко гмурнали се в дълбините на познанието, алиенирани от света докато достигнат дара. Достигнат ли го – харизматично интервениращи колективното съзнание, вдъхващи вяра, танцуващи валс с общностната енергия за промяна. За промяна, а не за подмяна!
... Finally, state capture refers to illegal and non-transparent private payments made by different representatives of population to public officials (Hellman et al., 2000). In the capture economy, i.e. the economy captured by oligarchs and lobbyists who are indirectly involved in legislative processes, the political and legal environment of a country is favourable for bribery to ensure huge benefits to captor enterprises (Stoyanov & Greganov, 2019). Keeper's (2010) definition combines such characteristics of corruption as the perversion of integrity of a state by improper performance of duties (breach of public interest) and moral wickedness or moral depravity (low public morale). ...
The phenomenon of cigarette smuggling and corruption has become a very sensitive topic for responsible law enforcement authorities and reporting entities. The issue needs to be addressed effectively and systematically regardless of the overall economic, financial and fiscal situation in the country. Preventing and mitigating the constant threat posed by criminal activities is of particular importance. In this context, financial institutions and non-financial professions are required to comply with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. The article deals with the extent of corruption prevalence and reasons for prosperity in Albania, as a Western Balkans country, which has been little studied in the scientific literature. Albania is characterized by very high levels of perceived corruption, which manifests itself at all levels of government. Both petty and grand forms of corruption are prevalent in the country, while political corruption affects the quality of the democratic processes. The health sector, customs and tax officials are often referred to as the most corrupt institutions, followed by the police and the judiciary. Other problem faced by Albania is the illegal trade of tobacco considered as one of the major issues for Albanian law enforcement; it poses a multitude of challenges and issues beyond the ones discussed for legal tobacco consumption. The method of a representative quantitative survey was chosen for the empirical research, interviewing 1000 respondents from the age of 18 and more. The main findings and results of the research have been found: the scales of cigarette smuggling as well as the links between cigarette smuggling and corruption, money laundering and organized crime have not been evaluated, but macroeconomical analysis has shown that these phenomena are closely linked and feed each other. In Albania the public are beginning to realize that namely they tolerate the illegal phenomenon and, as a result, suffer from poorer economic well-being of their families.
... Firstly, difference in access to rents can lead to clientelism, predation and exploitation in terms of those who have access to public funding and those who do not (Grzymala-Busse, 2019). Such cohabitation of public and private through political class can produce a form of a state capture, especially if it aims at providing long-term privileges to captors by exploiting the power of government for private benefit (Hellman et al., 2000;Stoyanov & Gerganov, 2019). State capture contributes to a violation of good governance rules and is detriment to equal treatment of citizens and interests, while the principle of meritocracy apply equally to all citizens and interests. ...
The literature connecting growing socio-economic inequality and populism as the main political consequence of it, is burgeoning. However, modern studies are often limited to one-directional models that are based on the available data and are often operationalized on a limited number of variables. This article provides an in-depth literature review of elements of socio-economic inequality and populism, as well as introduces a new conceptual framework to provide pointers for qualitative or qualitative applications. In terms of independent variables, the framework decomposes the multilayered concept of socio-economic inequality into inequality of income (insecurity, polarization and perception) and wealth (via its link to rent-seeking and state capture) as well as inequality of opportunity (circumstances and effort, perception of opportunity). The main dependent variables that define populism are attitudes and voting on the demand side of populism, as well as party strategy and policies on the supply side, with the latter having the potential for a reverse causality. The most important innovation of the theoretical model is the incorporation of the institutional filters as mediating variables and their influence on the impact of inequality on populism. When economic and political institutions do not function well or citizens do not evaluate them positively, it has a potential to further exacerbate the economic grievances and amplify the support of populism. The proposed theoretical framework is particularly useful for case study and large N research designs focusing on Central and Eastern Europe, as besides the role of institutions, it incorporates the literature on rents.
... Organized corruption can grow quite substantial in scale and scope. In some cases, we have an example of a captured state (Stoyanov & Gerganov, 2019;Nonchev, 2019), where the employees have gained control over the institutions and use them to charge extra fees in addition to the regulated taxes and fees. In some cases, corrupt officials in these institutions exclude those employees who do not wish to participate in illegal activities. ...
This trial aims to analyze the efficiency, in its weak form, between the exchange rates, US-RMB, US-EUR, US-JPY, US-MYR, US-PHP, US-SGD, US-THB, US-CHF, US-GBP, in the period from 1 July 2019 to 27 October 2020. To carry out this analysis different approaches were undertaken in order to assess whether: (i) the impact of the global pandemic has created long memories in international exchange markets? The results of the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) show that US-THB (0.60), US-MYR (0.59), US-SGD (0.59) exchange rates have long memories, while US-GBP (0.56), US-EUR (0.53) exchange rates have smaller dimensions. The US-RMB (0.47), US-JPY (0.43), US-CHF (0.46), US-PHP (0.38) exchange rates show anti persistence, while the Detrended cross-correlation coefficient (pDCCA) results show 19 average correlation coefficients (≌ 0.333 → ≌ 0.666), 10 weak correlation coefficients (≌ 0.000 → ≌ 0.333), 7 strong trend cross-correlation coefficients (0.666 → ≌ 1.000). As a conclusion, we can see that the exchange rate pairs analyzed show some predictability, that is, there are levels of arbitrage that can be explored by investors, we can also see that the exchange rates analyzed present characteristics of diversification, due to the low autocorrelation among markets. However, it was not the objective of this study to analyze anomalous returns by investors without incurring additional risk.
... Organized corruption can grow quite substantial in scale and scope. In some cases, we have an example of a captured state (Stoyanov & Gerganov, 2019;Nonchev, 2019), where the employees have gained control over the institutions and use them to charge extra fees in addition to the regulated taxes and fees. In some cases, corrupt officials in these institutions exclude those employees who do not wish to participate in illegal activities. ...
The Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), is one of the most important hypotheses in the financial economy, which argues that yields have no memory (correlation), which implies that agents cannot have abnormal returns in the financial markets, base arbitration operations. This essay intends to investigate the efficiency, in its weak form, in the stock and bond markets of Portugal and EDP, in the period from December 31, 2019 to August 10, 2020. With the purpose of achieving such an analysis, whether: (i) with the evolution of the global pandemic (Covid-19) the Portuguese and EDP stock and bond markets show signs of (in) efficiency? (ii) Does the increased integration between the Portuguese and EDP stock and bond markets result in risk transmission? The model shows the existence of long memories in these markets, suggesting that they are not efficient, which validates the first research question. This situation has implications for investors, since some returns can be expected, creating opportunities for arbitrage and abnormal earnings. However, to confirm the inefficiency of these markets, based on our results, we must prove the existence of anomalous returns. In order to answer the second investigation question, we carried out the integration test that shows that these markets are mostly integrated. To validate whether financial integration results in risk transmission between the analyzed markets, we estimate the trendless cross-correlation coefficients (), which show 4 pairs of markets showing risk transmission (4 out of 10 possible), that is, not there is a partial causal relationship between the financial integration of markets and the transmission of risk. In conclusion, the authors suggest that these results are of interest, among others, to international investors interested in expanding the geographical scope, regarding the implementation of portfolio diversification strategies .
... Organized corruption can grow quite substantial in scale and scope. In some cases, we have an example of a captured state (Stoyanov & Gerganov, 2019;Nonchev, 2019), where the employees have gained control over the institutions and use them to charge extra fees in addition to the regulated taxes and fees. In some cases, corrupt officials in these institutions exclude those employees who do not wish to participate in illegal activities. ...
his research aims to test the hypothesis of an efficient market, in its weak form, in the stock markets of BOTSWANA, EGYPT, KENYA, MOROCCO, NIGERIA and SOUTH AFRICA, from September 2, 2019 to September 2, 2020. The purpose of this analysis was to answer whether the global pandemic (Covid-19) has reduced the efficiency, in its weak form, of African stock markets? The results therefore support the evidence that the random walk hypothesis is not supported by the analyzed financial markets in this period of global pandemic. The values of the variance ratios are lower than the unit, which implies that returns are autocorrelated over time, and there is reversion to the average, and no differences were identified between the stock markets analyzed. The authors consider that the results achieved are of interest to investors seeking portfolio diversification opportunities in these regional stock markets.
... Organized corruption can grow quite substantial in scale and scope. In some cases, we have an example of a captured state (Stoyanov & Gerganov, 2019;Nonchev, 2019), where the employees have gained control over the institutions and use them to charge extra fees in addition to the regulated taxes and fees. In some cases, corrupt officials in these institutions exclude those employees who do not wish to participate in illegal activities. ...
The rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) has had negative impacts on financial markets around the world. It has created uncertainty and lack of confidence, causing unprecedented levels of risk, causing investors to take heavy losses in a very short period. In light of these events, this essay aims to investigate the relationship between Covid-19 (confirmed cases and deaths), and the stock market indices of Greece (ATG), France (CAC40), Germany (DAX 30), United Kingdom (FTSE 100), Italy (FTSE MID), Spain (IBEX 35), Ireland (ISEQ), and Portugal (PSI 20), in the period from December 31, 2019 to July 23, 2020. In order to achieve such an analysis, it is intended to verify whether: the increase in cases and deaths resulting from Covid-19 have any connection with the financial markets under analysis? The results suggest breaks in structure, mostly in March 2020. The Covid-19 data (confirmed cases) integrate with the Covid-19 data series (deaths), with the Spanish market (IBEX 35), Greece (ATG), and Italy (FTSE MID). However, the Covid-19 (deaths) data series is synchronized with the Covid-19 (confirmed cases) data, with the markets of Germany (DAX 30), France (CAC 40), Ireland (ISEQ), Italy (FTSE MID), United Kingdom (FTSE 100) and Portugal (PSI 20), only does not synchronize with the Greek market (ATG). We can easily see that the Covid-19 series of data (deaths) have a great impact on financial markets in Europe. The results of the VAR Granger Causality/Block Exogeneity Wald Tests model suggest 2 bidirectional causality relationships between the confirmed cases and the deaths from the Covid-19 virus. However, there were no shocks between the Covid-19 data (confirmed cases and deaths) and the financial markets under analysis. As a final discussion, we consider that investors should avoid stock market investments, at least while this pandemic lasts, and rebalance their portfolios in hedging and/or sovereign debt assets, in order to mitigate risk and improve portfolio efficiency.
The term "corrosive capital" has become a popular phrase in Serbia and across the Western Balkans used to describe opaque and scandalous foreign investments that are believed to enable state capture. Particularly in Serbia, existing approaches to corrosive capital have certainly identified which investments are problematic. However, there is still a lack of understanding about which key actors are culpable for corrosive investments and the practices that enable them. Responsibility is often binarily assigned, either to the Vučić regime or non-Western actors. This paper, however, more rigidly explores the networked structures and practices that bring about corrosive capital. Through the development of an analytical framework and an investigation of the Smederevo Železara privatization, this paper argues that corrosive capital is a multi-level phenomenon enabled by interactions between various domestic and foreign actors that leads to state capture. This paper particularly notes how the combined effect of actions taken by Serbia, the EU, and the Chinese firm HBIS has facilitated corrosiveness with respect to the Železara privatization.
