Ermira H . Kalaj | University of Trento (original) (raw)

Papers by Ermira H . Kalaj

Contributions to management science, Dec 31, 2022

International journal of business & technology, May 1, 2015

This article focuses on survey data and qualitative evidence from Albanian manufacturing firms to... more This article focuses on survey data and qualitative evidence from Albanian manufacturing firms to examine the scale and consequences of corruption and tax evasion at the enterprise level. It discusses the costs and benefits from the entrepreneur's perspective. The vector of covariates includes information about; use of external finance, policy influence, experience of corruption, firms size and ownership structure. To control for differences in the availability of collateral, the proportion of the fixed assets is included. The models used in the paper are probit where the dependent variable is binary and ordered probit where the dependent variable is categorical and orderable. Empirical results show that manufacturing firms operating in an environment in which tax evasion is more prevalent are more likely to suffer demands for bribes from corrupt officials. The regression analysis shows that tax evasion is a matter of degree and that is not limited to small and medium-sized enterprises. Even quite large firms acknowledge concealing part of their sales from tax authorities. Enterprises that are evading taxes are less likely to obtain an external audit. In addition, the data predict that corruption and tax evasion is more likely to occur when the principal owner is male rather than female. Moreover, findings show that the main effect of the separation of ownership on the likelihood of bribery is insignificant.

Journal of Financial Crime, Jun 16, 2023

Purpose This paper aims to focus on analyzing the level of corruption of small- and medium-sized ... more Purpose This paper aims to focus on analyzing the level of corruption of small- and medium-sized enterprises and their economic performance impact in Western Balkan countries. This study uses survey data from Enterprise Surveys (ES) from 2019, a shared project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank Group. The selected countries are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. The questions included in the data set contribute to understanding what firms experience in the private sector. Collected data are based on firms’ experiences and enterprises’ perceptions of the environment in which they operate. Design/methodology/approach This paper measures enterprise performance in terms of sales, employees and fixed assets growth. The vector of independent variables comprises enterprise characteristics such as enterprise age, size, ownership structure, legal status, access to formal banking services, gender ownership and other composed variables. Moreover, to capture the level of perceived corruption by firms, we will focus on the following ES questions: “Is it common to have to pay some irregular additional payment or gifts to get things done with regard to customs, taxes, licenses, regulations, services,” and the “corruption payment” is defined in the form of a dummy equal to one if the enterprise replies “frequently,” “usually” or “always.” Findings Preliminary empirical research results shed light on the level and effects of corruption on enterprises’ performance. However, the magnitude and statistical significance are different among the countries included in the sample. Originality/value Instead of firm-level characteristics, research on corruption frequently focuses on effects dependent on national and institutional characteristics. To better identify the kinds of businesses that are most at risk of corruption, we have selected to focus on differences among firm characteristics in this research. Understanding factors at the firm level is preferred from a policy perspective because these findings assist policymakers to make recommendations.

SEER, 2016

The public health sector is affected by various factors that contribute to or inhibit its effecti... more The public health sector is affected by various factors that contribute to or inhibit its effectiveness. Successful public policy in health care must address such challenges as employment, income, facilities and equipment, as well as medical staff training and improvement. The research on which this article is based analyses the link between media, democracy, corruption, labour migration and the public health care system in Albania through analysis of data from the World Bank, Heritage Foundation and the IMF, as well as primary data, and using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Our conclusions show that the public health care system in Albania is negatively affected by corruption. The media and democracy both have a positive impact on public health care, while the export of professionals to other countries has a negative effect on the health care system. Albania is one of the poorest economies in Europe and the health care system needs major reform in order to eliminate corruption and reduce the outwards migration of professional workers.

... International Riga Technical University Conference "Scientific Conference on Economics and Entrepreneurship" SCEE'... proceedings, Feb 17, 2022

This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impac... more This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impact in Albania. Using data from 2019 Enterprise Surveys (ES) we try to give answer questions related to digitalization that characterize Albanian enterprises. The survey was a shared project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the World Bank Group (WBG). The data are collected in Albania between January and May 2019. The objective of the survey is to better understand firms` experience in the private sector. Collected data are based on firms' experiences and perceptions of the environment in which they operate. The paper uses these specific questions to study Internet adoption. ES questionnaires focus on the following questions: (1) Does the firm have a highspeed Internet connection on its premises? (2) Does the establishment have its website? The dependent variable is the performance of the firms measured in terms of sales growth and labor productivity, while the vector of independent variables is composed of enterprise characteristics such as firm size, ownership structure, legal status, region, etc. Moreover, dummy variables are used to capture access to formal banking services and gender ownership.

Lecture notes in networks and systems, Nov 3, 2019

This paper presents an effort to empirically analyze the factors affecting the real exchange rate... more This paper presents an effort to empirically analyze the factors affecting the real exchange rate in Albania, using data for the period 1995–2015. Real exchange rate behavior is at the centre of policy debates because exchange rates play a fundamental role in global trading and portfolio investments. This study applies the VAR model. Johansen Cointegration technique is applied to find long run relationship among the variables.

This article focuses on survey data and qualitative evidence from Albanian manufacturing firms to... more This article focuses on survey data and qualitative evidence from Albanian manufacturing firms to examine the scale and consequences of corruption and tax evasion at the enterprise level. It discusses the costs and benefits from the entrepreneur's perspective. The vector of covariates includes information about; use of external finance, policy influence, experience of corruption, firms size and ownership structure. To control for differences in the availability of collateral, the proportion of the fixed assets is included. The models used in the paper are probit where the dependent variable is binary and ordered probit where the dependent variable is categorical and orderable. Empirical results show that manufacturing firms operating in an environment in which tax evasion is more prevalent are more likely to suffer demands for bribes from corrupt officials. The regression analysis shows that tax evasion is a matter of degree and that is not limited to small and medium-sized enterprises. Even quite large firms acknowledge concealing part of their sales from tax authorities. Enterprises that are evading taxes are less likely to obtain an external audit. In addition, the data predict that corruption and tax evasion is more likely to occur when the principal owner is male rather than female. Moreover, findings show that the main effect of the separation of ownership on the likelihood of bribery is insignificant.

Scientific Conference on Economics and Entrepreneurship Proceedings, 2022

This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impac... more This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impact in Albania. Using data from 2019 Enterprise Surveys (ES) we try to give answer questions related to digitalization that characterize Albanian enterprises. The survey was a shared project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the World Bank Group (WBG). The data are collected in Albania between January and May 2019. The objective of the survey is to better understand firms` experience in the private sector. Collected data are based on firms’ experiences and perceptions of the environment in which they operate. The paper uses these specific questions to study Internet adoption. ES questionnaires focus on the following questions: (1) Does the firm have a high-speed Internet connection on its premises? (2) Does the establishment have its website? The dependent variable is the performance of the firms measured in terms of sal...

Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, 2021

Virtual communities’ emergence and innovative technologies bring up new types of accounting and t... more Virtual communities’ emergence and innovative technologies bring up new types of accounting and transaction methods. These methods go beyond the existing economics knowledge and current legal solutions. Virtual societies develop and share their payment medium for goods and services exchange. The use of cryptocurrency has been enhanced during the COVID -19 era due to the health guidelines to minimize the virus’s spread. Cryptocurrencies bridge the loopholes left by the traditional currency in sorting crises like the Corona Virus pandemic. However, cryptocurrency brings up legal controversies that users are exposed to economic and legal risks.

SEER, 2013

During the last two decades of open economy era for Albania there has been a paradox in the relat... more During the last two decades of open economy era for Albania there has been a paradox in the relationship between growth rate and unemployment rate. Increasing trends of economic growth were not accompanied with the decrease in the labor market. This can be considered a consequence of remittances. These capital flows discourage the participation in the labor market without decreasing the unemployment rate bur in the other side encourages consumption of goods and services. My paper focuses on the impact of remittances on the labor market participation using propensity score matching. Using household survey data for Albania, this paper relies on the matching approach for the identification. The nearest neighbor and kernel estimators are used to obtain the matching results. The vector of covariates includes information related to individual and households characteristics such as; age, gender, schooling, area of residence etc. In the model, household incomes are considered separately from remittances in order to identify whether income from remittances have the same effect as other types of household non-labor income in the decision of participating in the labor market. Empirical results show that remittances have a statistically negative impact in the labor market participation for female both in terms of the probability of working and the hours of work. No evidence is found in the impact of these capital flows in the behavior of male in the labor market activities.

SEER, 2022

This article focuses on an analysis of the digitalisation of enterprises in Albania and its impac... more This article focuses on an analysis of the digitalisation of enterprises in Albania and its impact on their performance with a view to understanding better the role of digitalisation and the experience of private sector firms in this area. The research draws on an econometric analysis of World Bank data examining firms’ experiences and their perceptions of their operating environment. After setting the scene with an overview of the types and size of enterprises in Albania, the article focuses on digitalisation, the level of which is generally low, and seeks answers to a number of research questions. The authors conclude that, while the impact of digitalisation on performance is positive and statistically significant, achieved chiefly via increased business activity online, there is a need to understand better what this means in practice as well as to explore the lack of statistical significance, despite the presence of a positive relationship, of other variables examined in the course of the analysis. Further work is also needed to understand how firms will approach digitalisation in the future after the economic shocks of Covid-19.

Journal of Governance and Regulation

The research investigates the effect of various macroeconomic factors on health care spending usi... more The research investigates the effect of various macroeconomic factors on health care spending using time series data for Albania for the period from 2000 to 2020. Health care expenditure is measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), out-of-pocket expenses, domestic private health expenditure, and external health expenditure per capita. Understanding what influences health spending is the main goal of the following study. In the study, explanatory variables are divided into two groups: demographic and socioeconomic determinants. These determinants include factors, such as GDP per capita, deposit interest rate, remittances, life expectancy, population rate growth, number of physicians, etc. Findings indicate that health expenditure expressed as a percentage of GDP is negatively affected by deposit interest rate and positively influenced by population aged 65 years old and over, life expectancy, mortality rate, and number of physicians for 1,000 people. On the other hand...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013

Using household survey data for Albania, the paper investigates the effect of remittances on heal... more Using household survey data for Albania, the paper investigates the effect of remittances on health capital accumulation. Total expenditure is divided into two categories: expenditure on medicines and expenditure on visits and laboratory services. The estimation is presented for two separate sub groups, rural and urban area. In the paper both instrumental variable and propensity score matching are used to give answer to the research question about the impact of remittances in the health capital investment. The findings indicate that households increase their expenditure for medicines and other health services in the presence of remittance income. The positive relationship is statistically significant in the case of remittance receiving households living in the rural area. The magnitude is lower in the case of total expenditure for visits and laboratory. However, total expenditure for visits and laboratory are likely to have significant impact on the health outcome given their prevention nature. These findings show that remittance flows pay a heterogeneous role in the decision making process of remittancereceiving household members. However, these non-labor income flows may play an important role in supporting expenditures, especially for those living in rural areas.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

During the last two decades, SouthEast European countries have experienced a large increase in th... more During the last two decades, SouthEast European countries have experienced a large increase in the number of people migrating to more developed countries. With a large portion of their population abroad, these countries are highly dependent on remittances, which in the case of Albania far exceed Foreign Direct Investments. Using household survey data for Albania, this study compare decision-making about human capital investment in remittance-receiving households and non-remittance-receiving households. The Cox proportional hazard model is used to capture the effects of remittances. The crucial assumption in the proportional hazard model is that the effect of the covariates is proportional over the entire base line. The vector of covariates includes information such as; children's demographic characteristics, parental schooling, household income and the presence of remittances. In the model, household incomes are considered separately from remittances in order to identify whether income from remittances have the same effect as other types of household non-labour income in the decision to invest in more years of schooling for household members.

This study examines the efficiency and distributional effects of selected labor market institutio... more This study examines the efficiency and distributional effects of selected labor market institutions in Albania, a rather underresearched country. An initial overview of the postcommunist developments articulates why Albania has the poorest labor market performance among other South East European countries. Using a set of mixed qualitative and descriptive quantitative methods we find evidence of inefficient segmental effects and a predatory structure of labor market institutions which noticeably diverge from the efficient institutions’ point of reference. The institutional/welfare regime at the cross-national level points out at a relationship between the labor market institutional framework and labor market performance, as measured by unemployment. At the country level, a disproportional relationship between the “de jure” labor market regulation and unemployment is identified, which is also moderated by the interaction between labor market and economic institutions.

Legal-Economic Institutions, Entrepreneurship, and Management - Perspectives on the Dynamics of Institutional Change from Emerging Markets, 2020

This study examines the efficiency and distributional effects of selected labour market instituti... more This study examines the efficiency and distributional effects of selected labour market institutions in Albania, a rather under-researched country. An initial overview of the post-communist developments articulates why Albania has the poorest labour market performance among other South East European countries. Using a set of mixed qualitative and descriptive quantitative methods we find evidence of inefficient segmental effects and a predatory structure of labour market institutions which noticeably diverge from the efficient institutions point of reference. The institutional/welfare regime at the cross-national level points out at a relationship between the labour market institutional framework and labour market performance, as measured by unemployment. At the country level, a disproportional relationship between the ‘de jure’ labour market regulation and unemployment is identified, which is also moderated by the interaction between labour market and economic institutions.

Contributions to management science, Dec 31, 2022

International journal of business & technology, May 1, 2015

This article focuses on survey data and qualitative evidence from Albanian manufacturing firms to... more This article focuses on survey data and qualitative evidence from Albanian manufacturing firms to examine the scale and consequences of corruption and tax evasion at the enterprise level. It discusses the costs and benefits from the entrepreneur's perspective. The vector of covariates includes information about; use of external finance, policy influence, experience of corruption, firms size and ownership structure. To control for differences in the availability of collateral, the proportion of the fixed assets is included. The models used in the paper are probit where the dependent variable is binary and ordered probit where the dependent variable is categorical and orderable. Empirical results show that manufacturing firms operating in an environment in which tax evasion is more prevalent are more likely to suffer demands for bribes from corrupt officials. The regression analysis shows that tax evasion is a matter of degree and that is not limited to small and medium-sized enterprises. Even quite large firms acknowledge concealing part of their sales from tax authorities. Enterprises that are evading taxes are less likely to obtain an external audit. In addition, the data predict that corruption and tax evasion is more likely to occur when the principal owner is male rather than female. Moreover, findings show that the main effect of the separation of ownership on the likelihood of bribery is insignificant.

Journal of Financial Crime, Jun 16, 2023

Purpose This paper aims to focus on analyzing the level of corruption of small- and medium-sized ... more Purpose This paper aims to focus on analyzing the level of corruption of small- and medium-sized enterprises and their economic performance impact in Western Balkan countries. This study uses survey data from Enterprise Surveys (ES) from 2019, a shared project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank Group. The selected countries are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. The questions included in the data set contribute to understanding what firms experience in the private sector. Collected data are based on firms’ experiences and enterprises’ perceptions of the environment in which they operate. Design/methodology/approach This paper measures enterprise performance in terms of sales, employees and fixed assets growth. The vector of independent variables comprises enterprise characteristics such as enterprise age, size, ownership structure, legal status, access to formal banking services, gender ownership and other composed variables. Moreover, to capture the level of perceived corruption by firms, we will focus on the following ES questions: “Is it common to have to pay some irregular additional payment or gifts to get things done with regard to customs, taxes, licenses, regulations, services,” and the “corruption payment” is defined in the form of a dummy equal to one if the enterprise replies “frequently,” “usually” or “always.” Findings Preliminary empirical research results shed light on the level and effects of corruption on enterprises’ performance. However, the magnitude and statistical significance are different among the countries included in the sample. Originality/value Instead of firm-level characteristics, research on corruption frequently focuses on effects dependent on national and institutional characteristics. To better identify the kinds of businesses that are most at risk of corruption, we have selected to focus on differences among firm characteristics in this research. Understanding factors at the firm level is preferred from a policy perspective because these findings assist policymakers to make recommendations.

SEER, 2016

The public health sector is affected by various factors that contribute to or inhibit its effecti... more The public health sector is affected by various factors that contribute to or inhibit its effectiveness. Successful public policy in health care must address such challenges as employment, income, facilities and equipment, as well as medical staff training and improvement. The research on which this article is based analyses the link between media, democracy, corruption, labour migration and the public health care system in Albania through analysis of data from the World Bank, Heritage Foundation and the IMF, as well as primary data, and using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Our conclusions show that the public health care system in Albania is negatively affected by corruption. The media and democracy both have a positive impact on public health care, while the export of professionals to other countries has a negative effect on the health care system. Albania is one of the poorest economies in Europe and the health care system needs major reform in order to eliminate corruption and reduce the outwards migration of professional workers.

... International Riga Technical University Conference "Scientific Conference on Economics and Entrepreneurship" SCEE'... proceedings, Feb 17, 2022

This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impac... more This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impact in Albania. Using data from 2019 Enterprise Surveys (ES) we try to give answer questions related to digitalization that characterize Albanian enterprises. The survey was a shared project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the World Bank Group (WBG). The data are collected in Albania between January and May 2019. The objective of the survey is to better understand firms` experience in the private sector. Collected data are based on firms' experiences and perceptions of the environment in which they operate. The paper uses these specific questions to study Internet adoption. ES questionnaires focus on the following questions: (1) Does the firm have a highspeed Internet connection on its premises? (2) Does the establishment have its website? The dependent variable is the performance of the firms measured in terms of sales growth and labor productivity, while the vector of independent variables is composed of enterprise characteristics such as firm size, ownership structure, legal status, region, etc. Moreover, dummy variables are used to capture access to formal banking services and gender ownership.

Lecture notes in networks and systems, Nov 3, 2019

This paper presents an effort to empirically analyze the factors affecting the real exchange rate... more This paper presents an effort to empirically analyze the factors affecting the real exchange rate in Albania, using data for the period 1995–2015. Real exchange rate behavior is at the centre of policy debates because exchange rates play a fundamental role in global trading and portfolio investments. This study applies the VAR model. Johansen Cointegration technique is applied to find long run relationship among the variables.

This article focuses on survey data and qualitative evidence from Albanian manufacturing firms to... more This article focuses on survey data and qualitative evidence from Albanian manufacturing firms to examine the scale and consequences of corruption and tax evasion at the enterprise level. It discusses the costs and benefits from the entrepreneur's perspective. The vector of covariates includes information about; use of external finance, policy influence, experience of corruption, firms size and ownership structure. To control for differences in the availability of collateral, the proportion of the fixed assets is included. The models used in the paper are probit where the dependent variable is binary and ordered probit where the dependent variable is categorical and orderable. Empirical results show that manufacturing firms operating in an environment in which tax evasion is more prevalent are more likely to suffer demands for bribes from corrupt officials. The regression analysis shows that tax evasion is a matter of degree and that is not limited to small and medium-sized enterprises. Even quite large firms acknowledge concealing part of their sales from tax authorities. Enterprises that are evading taxes are less likely to obtain an external audit. In addition, the data predict that corruption and tax evasion is more likely to occur when the principal owner is male rather than female. Moreover, findings show that the main effect of the separation of ownership on the likelihood of bribery is insignificant.

Scientific Conference on Economics and Entrepreneurship Proceedings, 2022

This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impac... more This paper focuses on the analyses of the digitalization of enterprises and its performance impact in Albania. Using data from 2019 Enterprise Surveys (ES) we try to give answer questions related to digitalization that characterize Albanian enterprises. The survey was a shared project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the World Bank Group (WBG). The data are collected in Albania between January and May 2019. The objective of the survey is to better understand firms` experience in the private sector. Collected data are based on firms’ experiences and perceptions of the environment in which they operate. The paper uses these specific questions to study Internet adoption. ES questionnaires focus on the following questions: (1) Does the firm have a high-speed Internet connection on its premises? (2) Does the establishment have its website? The dependent variable is the performance of the firms measured in terms of sal...

Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, 2021

Virtual communities’ emergence and innovative technologies bring up new types of accounting and t... more Virtual communities’ emergence and innovative technologies bring up new types of accounting and transaction methods. These methods go beyond the existing economics knowledge and current legal solutions. Virtual societies develop and share their payment medium for goods and services exchange. The use of cryptocurrency has been enhanced during the COVID -19 era due to the health guidelines to minimize the virus’s spread. Cryptocurrencies bridge the loopholes left by the traditional currency in sorting crises like the Corona Virus pandemic. However, cryptocurrency brings up legal controversies that users are exposed to economic and legal risks.

SEER, 2013

During the last two decades of open economy era for Albania there has been a paradox in the relat... more During the last two decades of open economy era for Albania there has been a paradox in the relationship between growth rate and unemployment rate. Increasing trends of economic growth were not accompanied with the decrease in the labor market. This can be considered a consequence of remittances. These capital flows discourage the participation in the labor market without decreasing the unemployment rate bur in the other side encourages consumption of goods and services. My paper focuses on the impact of remittances on the labor market participation using propensity score matching. Using household survey data for Albania, this paper relies on the matching approach for the identification. The nearest neighbor and kernel estimators are used to obtain the matching results. The vector of covariates includes information related to individual and households characteristics such as; age, gender, schooling, area of residence etc. In the model, household incomes are considered separately from remittances in order to identify whether income from remittances have the same effect as other types of household non-labor income in the decision of participating in the labor market. Empirical results show that remittances have a statistically negative impact in the labor market participation for female both in terms of the probability of working and the hours of work. No evidence is found in the impact of these capital flows in the behavior of male in the labor market activities.

SEER, 2022

This article focuses on an analysis of the digitalisation of enterprises in Albania and its impac... more This article focuses on an analysis of the digitalisation of enterprises in Albania and its impact on their performance with a view to understanding better the role of digitalisation and the experience of private sector firms in this area. The research draws on an econometric analysis of World Bank data examining firms’ experiences and their perceptions of their operating environment. After setting the scene with an overview of the types and size of enterprises in Albania, the article focuses on digitalisation, the level of which is generally low, and seeks answers to a number of research questions. The authors conclude that, while the impact of digitalisation on performance is positive and statistically significant, achieved chiefly via increased business activity online, there is a need to understand better what this means in practice as well as to explore the lack of statistical significance, despite the presence of a positive relationship, of other variables examined in the course of the analysis. Further work is also needed to understand how firms will approach digitalisation in the future after the economic shocks of Covid-19.

Journal of Governance and Regulation

The research investigates the effect of various macroeconomic factors on health care spending usi... more The research investigates the effect of various macroeconomic factors on health care spending using time series data for Albania for the period from 2000 to 2020. Health care expenditure is measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), out-of-pocket expenses, domestic private health expenditure, and external health expenditure per capita. Understanding what influences health spending is the main goal of the following study. In the study, explanatory variables are divided into two groups: demographic and socioeconomic determinants. These determinants include factors, such as GDP per capita, deposit interest rate, remittances, life expectancy, population rate growth, number of physicians, etc. Findings indicate that health expenditure expressed as a percentage of GDP is negatively affected by deposit interest rate and positively influenced by population aged 65 years old and over, life expectancy, mortality rate, and number of physicians for 1,000 people. On the other hand...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013

Using household survey data for Albania, the paper investigates the effect of remittances on heal... more Using household survey data for Albania, the paper investigates the effect of remittances on health capital accumulation. Total expenditure is divided into two categories: expenditure on medicines and expenditure on visits and laboratory services. The estimation is presented for two separate sub groups, rural and urban area. In the paper both instrumental variable and propensity score matching are used to give answer to the research question about the impact of remittances in the health capital investment. The findings indicate that households increase their expenditure for medicines and other health services in the presence of remittance income. The positive relationship is statistically significant in the case of remittance receiving households living in the rural area. The magnitude is lower in the case of total expenditure for visits and laboratory. However, total expenditure for visits and laboratory are likely to have significant impact on the health outcome given their prevention nature. These findings show that remittance flows pay a heterogeneous role in the decision making process of remittancereceiving household members. However, these non-labor income flows may play an important role in supporting expenditures, especially for those living in rural areas.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

During the last two decades, SouthEast European countries have experienced a large increase in th... more During the last two decades, SouthEast European countries have experienced a large increase in the number of people migrating to more developed countries. With a large portion of their population abroad, these countries are highly dependent on remittances, which in the case of Albania far exceed Foreign Direct Investments. Using household survey data for Albania, this study compare decision-making about human capital investment in remittance-receiving households and non-remittance-receiving households. The Cox proportional hazard model is used to capture the effects of remittances. The crucial assumption in the proportional hazard model is that the effect of the covariates is proportional over the entire base line. The vector of covariates includes information such as; children's demographic characteristics, parental schooling, household income and the presence of remittances. In the model, household incomes are considered separately from remittances in order to identify whether income from remittances have the same effect as other types of household non-labour income in the decision to invest in more years of schooling for household members.

This study examines the efficiency and distributional effects of selected labor market institutio... more This study examines the efficiency and distributional effects of selected labor market institutions in Albania, a rather underresearched country. An initial overview of the postcommunist developments articulates why Albania has the poorest labor market performance among other South East European countries. Using a set of mixed qualitative and descriptive quantitative methods we find evidence of inefficient segmental effects and a predatory structure of labor market institutions which noticeably diverge from the efficient institutions’ point of reference. The institutional/welfare regime at the cross-national level points out at a relationship between the labor market institutional framework and labor market performance, as measured by unemployment. At the country level, a disproportional relationship between the “de jure” labor market regulation and unemployment is identified, which is also moderated by the interaction between labor market and economic institutions.

Legal-Economic Institutions, Entrepreneurship, and Management - Perspectives on the Dynamics of Institutional Change from Emerging Markets, 2020

This study examines the efficiency and distributional effects of selected labour market instituti... more This study examines the efficiency and distributional effects of selected labour market institutions in Albania, a rather under-researched country. An initial overview of the post-communist developments articulates why Albania has the poorest labour market performance among other South East European countries. Using a set of mixed qualitative and descriptive quantitative methods we find evidence of inefficient segmental effects and a predatory structure of labour market institutions which noticeably diverge from the efficient institutions point of reference. The institutional/welfare regime at the cross-national level points out at a relationship between the labour market institutional framework and labour market performance, as measured by unemployment. At the country level, a disproportional relationship between the ‘de jure’ labour market regulation and unemployment is identified, which is also moderated by the interaction between labour market and economic institutions.