Challenges to national defence in contemporary geopolitical situation

The Russian Federation, with its plans to regain influence over former Soviet bloc countries, currently constitutes the main military danger for the EU and NATO. Because the war is so close to the EU’s borders, European allies have every reason to increase army financing instead of fuelling a transatlantic disagreement about burden sharing. This article deals with the question of whether the high strategic threat posed by Russia has increased military spending among European allies and decreased free-riding practices after 2014. To analyse this problem, we applied Spearman’s Rank Correlation test and then made a comparative analysis of 21 countries that are both EU and NATO members. Our results confirmed that European allies did not react in the same way to the Russian threat. We proved that strategic factors played a key role in the majority of Eastern European members of NATO, but not across Western European allies.

The prime objective of the current study is to examine the influence of infrastructure of transportation on economic growth for various countries in ASEAN. This influence differs in terms of administrative status and quality of infrastructure across the counties. GDP has been used as an economic growth measure in terms of per worker along with various kinds of infrastructure of transportation for years 2002–2017. Therefore, a short model has been incorporated with capital stock of railways and roads. Two variables have been incorporated to differentiate rods with different covering and quality. In the next step, the administrative status of roads has been distinguished. The results have revealed difficulty in interpretation because of the problem of endogeneity and reverse causality. Therefore, the research model was modified by including the lag values of variables of infrastructure of transportation for getting robust estimates. The unit root test has been performed and first differences in model ere used to obtain stationary time series. It was found that GRP per worker is greatly influenced by overall roads stock. This is because of the use of such roads for large traffic load. The regional growth of economy is greatly influenced by the light covering roads rather than national roads of similar quality/covering. The influence of local government’s quality was controlled on development of economy. The turnout of voters was used as proxy variable for the local government’s quality. It was found that the influence of infrastructure of transportation stock in the areas (where government is of better quality) has not much influence on GRP per worker. Different kinds of infrastructure of transportation have been shown by this research being the drivers of growth of economy in. The administrative status and quality of covering roads creates an influence on the growth of economy. Based on the findings of study, the following recommendations have been made. There is need to develop national roads to improve the economic performance. Further, there is need to improve the quality of countries. However, the influence of infrastructure transportation is high where the government has low quality and overall capital stock influence is high where the government is of good quality (Crescenzi, Cataldo, & Rodríguez, 2016). In future, researches can be conducted by focusing on the influences of other variables of infrastructure including electricity lines, supply of water and for long time periods. The future studies can work on investigating the network effect of transportation infrastructure in ASEAN.

The prime aim of the study was to investigate the impact of the financial inflows on the economic growth of ASEAN economies. Meanwhile, the study has examined the moderating role of currency crisis in the relationship between financial inflows and the economic growth of ASEAN countries. The study has employed the panel data methodology to achieve the research objectives. Theoretically and empirically it seems that foreign capital inflows have different possible effects on growth and development performance of an economy. If foreign capital inflows are used in an efficient and productive manner then, they will promote country ‘s growth performance. If foreign capital inflows are used in unproductive manner then they will not contribute in a long run, their impact on economic development will only for a short run. Furthermore, the financial crisis (currency crisis) also have a significant influence in the attraction of foreign capital inflows. These financial crises effect the flow of foreign capital inflows among the countries. The results suggest that the flow of workers ‘remittances in the country has significant positive impact on economic growth. Moreover, the banking and systemic crisis hurt the relationship between REM and EG. Worker remittances are considered as a boon to the countries. It has a positive association with the economic growth and acts a stabilizer during the financial crisis. To ensure the effective inflows of the remittance the government should encourage that remittance should be transferred through formal channels, this can be done by giving cost effective financial services to the remitter, linking the remittance transfer with mobile networks and banks that charge low prices.

The general objective of this study is to estimate the relationship between electricity consumption, economic performance and the price of electricity in four sectors namely the industrial, commercial, mining and agricultural by using the panel data approach on leading ASEAN countries. The present study intends to contribute significantly to the existing literature by presenting a comprehensive approach of the issue of electricity consumption in Thailand. The information of electricity consumption in the industrial, commercial, agricultural and mining sectors is essential to understand the magnitude of the sectors’ sensitivity to change with respect to GDP and electricity price. Moreover, real electricity price is incorporated in this study to provide a more consistent result. The findings are important for researchers and academicians by providing a better knowledge of sectoral electricity demand to permit better regulatory decisions in order to facilitate economic efficiency. Apparently for the policy makers, it will be possible that the approach of this study could be useful as a guideline to facilitate the adoption of a more appropriate model for electricity demand management as well as restructuring the electricity sectors. Furthermore, the findings of this study will be helpful in the formulation of effective energy and pricing policies in order to encourage consumers towards the efficient use of energy for the future of sustainable energy and development.

The article describes the research of the development of the shadow economy, defines its essence, discloses main reasons for its occurrence; describes its structure, Identifies factors that promote its development; evaluates the system of combating measures and reveals the results of controlling it. Policy implications are being suggested.