Lately, economists and policymakers have been paying even closer attention to the hidden economy. Indeed, it makes a difference to the economy how much money goes into the state coffers. In order to uncover the hidden economy however, it is necessary to be familiar with its nature and manifestations. In this paper, with the aid of previous research and literature we attempt to illustrate the characteristics of the hidden economy in Hungary before and after the regime change and to map out the steps that have been taken to uncover it. This publication was preceded by a systematic literature review on the definition, causes, and effects of the hidden economy, consisting of the collection of both data and literature related to the domestic hidden economy. The following summarize the results from the synthesis of literature: The Hungarian hidden economy existed even before the regime change and took a variety of different forms. These include tips, bribes, informal payments, unauthorized work and patchwork, moonlighting, unauthorized rental of real estate, use of social property for personal gain, gains from the infringement of customs and exchange law, tax fraud by craftsmen and retailers, theft of public property, and corruption. Since 1990, not only have the dynamics of the hidden economy strengthened, but its types of activities have changed significantly as well. These include, but are not limited to: omitting a portion of revenue from the register; recognizing non-incurred material production costs among expenditures; including an excessive portion of personal household maintenance costs among production costs; organizing business and study trips abroad; finder’s fee; end-of-year depreciation or 'transfer' of inventories; wages of registered employees paid out of pocket; employment of unreported employees; parallel company formation; economic activity of unincorporated individuals and the income generated thereby. The following are among the concrete steps taken in recent years to uncover the Hungarian hidden economy: the temporary employment booklet; the simplified entrepreneurial tax; the Electronic Trade and Transport Control System; online cash registers; the connection of vending machines to the tax office.

The objectives of this paper are to investigate the relevance of guidelines on good corporate governance (CG) to family public interest companies (PICs) within the small state of Malta and to recommend how existing guidelines may be improved and tailored for such companies. An explanatory mixed-methods empirical approach is adopted with a structured questionnaire being first administered to 17 respondents in 12 PICs owned by different families. This was then followed by semi-structured interviews with the representatives of 11 of these PICs. Findings indicate that there is a need for the existing guidelines to be improved for them to become more in line with the needs of PICs which are characterised by dominant family interests. In this respect, this paper recommends possible principles and guidelines that may be used by the relevant authorities either to improve the existing PIC guidelines or to issue a new set of guidelines aimed specifically for family PICs. Given the peculiarities of such companies, it is clear that the guidelines have to contain elements that address the CG structure, such as the need to formally document a family governance plan. Clearer guidance is needed on the appointment and composition of the Board of Directors, on the employment, conduct, compensation and performance evaluation of managers, as well as on the composition of the ownership of family PICs. Additionally, the paper concludes that a relevant factor for family PICs in carrying out improvements to their CG is that they continue to place more importance than other PICs to their continued existence.

This paper’s analysis was triggered by the outbreak of the new virus COVID-19. In December 2019, the Chinese officials alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) of the existence of an unknown deadly virus. Coronavirus has rapidly spread across the world - to Europe, Middle East and the USA, forcing the World Health Organization to declare COVID-19 a global pandemic. Its spread has generated major concerns for the health and economic sectors. Meanwhile, all countries hope for the development of a vaccine. Using as a research method the EGARCH model, this paper investigates if it can be applied to model the trend of volatility of the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology markets, especially during the health crisis. More specifically, this paper tries to identify whether different specifications of univariate GARCH models can usefully anticipate volatility in the stock indices market. The study uses estimates from both a symmetric and an asymmetric GARCH models, namely GARCH (1, 1) and EGARCH models, for the Dow Jones Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology index (DJUSPN). The dataset is extracted from “Investing.com” and covers the period September 2019 - August 2020, resulting in a total of approximately 252 daily closing prices. The data focuses on the response of the highest capitalized pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies from the US to combat the outbreak of the coronavirus. This study concludes that the EGARCH model is better than the unconditional volatility and the conditional GARCH (1, 1) volatility and it is best suited for modelling and forecasting the fluctuations of the stock indexes.

Starting from the research assumption that the Corporate Governance Code issued by Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) aims at building an internationally attractive capital market in Romania, based on best practices, transparency and trust that encourages companies to build a strong relationship with their shareholders and other stakeholders, communicate effectively and transparently and show openness towards all potential investors, in this paper we would like to present the degree of compliance of the companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange with the principles and provisions of the Corporate Governance Code. The aim of this paper is achieved by presenting and commenting on the principles issued by the BSE regarding the corporate governance and by analysing the Corporate Governance Reports of the companies, presenting at the same time the compliance of the listed companies with these principles and provisions, by using the data issued in 2018 by the entities included in our study, namely the listed companies on the main market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Our analysis reflects that, although the provisions and principles of the Corporate Governance Code are not mandatory for the listed companies, they are largely implemented in the activity of companies because an efficient corporate governance system can represent a competitive advantage for any economic entity in the context of globalisation.

The purpose of the study to reveal how interest rates on loans offered to consumers by banks in Turkey are affected by macroeconomic factors. For this purpose, the personal loan interest rate is considered as the consumer loan interest rate, mortgage loan interest rate and vehicle loan interest rate. Macroeconomic factors, inflation, gold, exchange rate and money supply are included in the analysis. Three models have been established using monthly data for the period January 2009-June 2020. Firstly, cointegration test was applied to the models and it was determined that there is at least one cointegration relationship in each model. Long-term estimation results for the models are obtained by using the FMOLS method. In general, it was observed that the increase in the exchange rate tended to increase the bank loan interest rates, while the increase in the money supply lowered the bank loan interest rates. As a result of the causality analysis, bidirectional causality relationship from consumer loan interest rate to money supply and inflation, unidirectional causality from interest rate to gold price, unidirectional causality relationship from exchange rate to interest rate was determined. Unidirectional causality relationship from mortgage loan interest rate to money supply, unidirectional causality from exchange rate to interest rate was found. While it was determined that there is a bidirectional causality relationship between vehicle loan interest rate and money supply, gold price and inflation. It is expected that these results may guide banks and policymakers to determine interest rate policies.