Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The discussion about the impact of financial development on economic growth is still relevant for economists. However, in recent years, after the financial crises of the first decade of the 21st century, there has arisen certain scepticism about the positive impact of the growing financial sector on economic growth rates. Moreover, specific cases of negative consequences of such a connection or its absence have become known. The 2008-2010 crises, certainly, played an important role in rethinking the nature of the impact of the financial sector on the real sector in the economy, which led to new arguments in favour of a relatively more cautious approach to stimulating the financial sector, given the potential negative effects on the country’s socio-economic security. The aim of the research is to determine the nature of the relationship between financial development and economic growth and its direction in Latvia in the period 1995–2017.

The paper has investigated the patterns of defence expenditure in the Baltic countries, such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during the period of 2004-2018. Distribution of defence expenditure by main category has been analysed and the main tendencies have been provided. The author has done this by applying total expenditure and decomposition approaches. Firstly, the author has calculated the intensity rate of defence expenditure‘s structural changes in order to assess which country’s defence spending structure has been more dynamic over the period analysed. Secondly, Finger-Kreinin indicator has been used to compare defence expenditure distributions and determine their dissimilarities among the countries under consideration. The author believes that the research highlights key structural trends of defence expenditure and could be helpful for policy makers.

Our paper focuses on the issues of food security and agricultural trade. Specifically, we tackle the issue of economic selfsufficiency of a country using an example of the import ban on agricultural production as one form of economic sanctions. Our paper attempts to estimate the impact of sanctions in separate regions, rather then on the aggregate country level. We propose an original methodology of estimating allocation of import ban effects based on the OECD Customer Support Estimate (CSE). Our results demonstrate that in case of some agricultural products (e.g. potatoes) consumers in most of Russian regions were net beneficiaries before 2014, but the magnitude of the benefits decreased significantly after the introduction of sanctions. This provided Russian agricultural producers with more support arising from the market price differential. All in all, we find no significant evidence of the import ban impact, however after 2014 the cumulative cost paid by consumers in different regions declined significantly due to other factors, leaving consumers in the position of net beneficiaries. Our results demonstrate that despite the economic sanctions are important, they do not affect food security of neither of conflicting parties.

Our paper focuses on the threats to the global development and sustainable economic development of a country that might include economic, political, human development, as well as sustainable development issues and problems. Sustainable economic development might serve as a tool for fostering the country’s prosperity and helping it to overcome various threats that might stem from its geolocation, economic situation, natural resources, as well as many other internal and external factors that all play their decisive roles. The paper uses a case study of the United States as an example of the country vulnerable to a plethora of threats. It analyzes the most crucial threats one by one and classifies the most notorious and impending issues stemming from these threats that might hamper the economic growth and development. In particular, we focus on the issue of energy security and the renewable energy sources (RES) that represent an important aspect in this debate and research. Our results can be used by the policymakers as well as regional development managers for improving the security strategy.

Presented paper aims to investigate internationalization of multinational company by exploring the main proactive and reactive factors impacting internationalization process. The authors strive to reveal the patterns of internationalization taking into account the aspects of the main theoretical models. The research is based on the main ideas of stage, learning and contingency approaches. The main proactive and reactive factors impacting internationalization process are based on the previous studies. The authors develop a research methodology and discuss main findings of the case study and survey. Results of the empirical investigation allow concluding that internationalization of a multinational company was initiated by several factors, namely environment, market, home and production.