Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

A Review of the Book: Besenyő, J., Huddleston, R.J., and Zoubir, Y.H. (eds.) (2022). Conflict and Peace in Western Sahara: The Role of the UN’s Peacekeeping Mission (MINURSO) (1st ed.). Routledge: London. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003284895

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.

Today the world energy market is in great transition and the demand of clean energy such as liquefied natural gas (LNG). Increase of natural gas production and supply causes drawback of onshore infrastructure and many environmental restrictions. As solution, offshore large-scale terminals especially Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) type is becoming commercially competitive and effective alternative for the areas where onshore gas supply infrastructure is not feasible. LNG production consumes around 850 kJ/kg of LNG energy and it is just dumped into seawater or in the atmosphere despite reusing as extra energy source. In this paper, we review the cold energy economy as well as current status of LNG cold energy utilization technologies. Moreover, current and emerging cybersecurity trends after LNG cold energy implementation at FSRU are proposed and discussed to broaden the perspectives of the researchers in the community and industry experts. Finally, the review concluded with a practical recommendation of implementation of LNG Cold Energy Hub concept for future energy systems.

The purpose of this article is to identify important aspects of the development of creditworthiness in the post-crisis period. The customer’s creditworthiness was and is one of the main valuation objects in the practice of banks in the world and in Latvia, determining the usefulness and types of credit relations. It is important for both the lender and the borrower to make an objective, complex assessment of the potential borrower’s creditworthiness in order to make an informed decision. More than a decade after the global financial crisis, the financial sector is still considered vulnerable. An analysis of the borrower’s creditworthiness is a mandatory step in the credit granting process. Because the borrower’s creditworthiness depends on many factors, determining a change in all the factors, causes, and circumstances that will affect the creditworthiness in the future is a significant and rather complex issue. Consequently, the purpose of the borrower’s creditworthiness analysis is to conduct a comprehensive examination of his / her performance with a view to making a reasoned assessment of the possibility of returning the resources granted to him. The complex analysis of the borrower’s creditworthiness uses different types of economic analysis. The article analyzes the theoretical and methodological aspects of the borrower’s (legal entity’s) creditworthiness and compares the empirical research of the real practice of Latvian commercial banks in 2011 and 2018. The author investigates the choice of borrower’s creditworthiness analysis methods in Latvian commercial banks, their ranking by importance, the importance of credit policy in the lending process and the main signals that indicate the low creditworthiness of borrowers, thus confirming the likelihood of credit risk.

Organizations have to face both the opportunities that the technologies provide and the challenges that they create in the local or global market as the consumer behavior in the electronic environment is different from the behavior in an actual shop, therefore it is important to not only understand the changing needs of the customers, the factors that influence their behavior but also to choose suitable strategies while trying to satisfy these needs taking in consideration security issues. For this reason, an important purpose of this study is to indicate the factors that determine the behavior of an e-shop customer by conducting a pilot study in Lithuania. The research identified the key factors of consumer behavior in an e-shop. To establish factors determining the online shop customer preferences, five factor groups were identified on the basis of empirical research: product (service) characteristics, delivery, methods of payment, service quality and web page functionality characteristics. The results of the structured consumer survey showed that the factors that positively influence the decision to buy goods online are lower cost, less time consumption, an ability to make an order at any time of the day, and a larger range of products. The key factors that negatively affect the online shopping are product quality, delivery costs, security aspects, delivery time, and complicated online shopping process. The main problem areas faced by online shoppers were delays in product delivery, product quality, insufficient choice of payment methods, difficult return procedures, too little information about the product. After performing the correlation regression analysis of the structured survey, the following relationships are established: the frequency of online shopping is significantly correlated with the product’s compliance with expectations, which indicates that the customers who were satisfied with the quality of online products, more often shop on the Internet.

Security of societies has become one of urgent issues in contemporary world. Too frequently we started encountering one or another form of malicious behavior, criminal activities or terrorism. New and complex threats highlight the need for further synergies and closer cooperation at all levels. Awareness, preparedness and resilience of societies emerge as key preconditions of further secure and sustainable economic development and general well-being. A special attention in those conditions has to be paid to development of theoretically grounded approach to protection of critical infrastructure (CIP), damage or disruption of which can be immensely harmful to unprepared and therefore vulnerable institutions and society. The aim of this paper is to lay theoretical foundations for theoretically grounded approach towards research in CIP area, in order to formulate, ultimately, an approach towards action, which, employing leadership societal stakeholders would allow to enhance awareness of society actors about the threats, i.e, to develop ability to recognize, prevent, and, in case of disaster, to resist to consequences of critical infrastructure infringement. Hence, enhanced resilience of society to critical infrastructure infringement is and ultimate goal of fostering of leadership for critical infrastructure protection.

Sustainable and secure development of any country is considerably affected by energy efficiency of economy. Efforts directed to diminishing of energy resources consumed have to be directed to achieving multiple goals, ultimately impacting demand in energy resources. Hence, ultimate demand of energy resources depend on economic growth rates, economy structure, technological level, distribution of income and behavioral patterns, both of business companies and households. This paper is devoted to analysis of energy efficiency in transport sector of three secected European countries. The methodology of research is based on comparison on long-term tendencies of energy intensity in transport equipment segment. The long-term forecasting untill year 2050 will be performed by using LEAP (the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system) software; ceteris paribus assumption will be selected. The countries selected for analysis are: Belgium, Bulgaria and Lithuania. The selected countries, we assume, would represent better developed Europea countries (represented by e.g. Belgium), and comparitively less developed European countries of different size (represented by Bulgaria and Lithuania). The juxatopsing of energy intensity change in long run, revealing mode of this change and comparison of cases of selected countries, would allow to reveal if energy efficiency of transport equipment converge. Since trnasport equipment sector embraces various modes of transport, additionally public roads sector will be tackled. We believe, that results obtained will signal what policy implications, if any, are necessary in order to direct transport users towards stewardship of energy resources through increase of efficiency of conventional energy resources and transfer to renewables in the nearest future.

Each country has to be able to develop efficient economic policy, facilitating sustainable economic development of national economy. In order to devise such policy, development patterns of a country has to be known, external threats indicated and various scenarios of their impact has to be foreseen, their impact forecasted and discussed. Alas, in contemporary environment in conditions of globalization predicting of development peculiarities and external factors’ impact becomes especially urgent issue. Presented paper is devoted to discussion about predicted development selected national economies with account of threats caused by global environment. Economic indicators of Lithuania and Germany forested for period of three years, estimated, are being analyzed. The following methodology is applied. At first main macroeconomic indicators, such as real GDP growth, inflation, interest rates and unemployment ceteris paribus forecasted until year 2022 will be compared. The second, external threats will be selected and considered. Forecasted impact of indicated threats on real GDP growth of Lithuania and Germany will be discussed; source of employed data: database Passport, provided by Euromonitor International Company and powered by Clarivate Analytics (data are provided for research purposes for subscribed users). Change of real GDP growth in Lithuania and Germany under indicated threats pressure after one year period and three years period is juxtaposed. The findings suggest insights about development patterns of small comparatively less developed open economy and big well developed country belonging to the same economic union. Findings are instrumental for devising national economic policies enhancing resilience of national economies to external (global) threats.

Sustainable development of separate regions and countries is affected by array of factors among which energy security plays a cricial role. We claim, that efficient use of energy is very important constutuent of energy security. The first part of the presented paper we wil devote to overview of perception of energy security and revealing waht role energy efficiency plays. Energy efficiency could be estimated by energy intensity indicator, which shows what ammount of energy is used for e.g. one European Euro. This indicator can be calculated for main sectors of economy: various branches of industry, services and agriculture. The higher value added is created in the sector, or, to put it in onother way, the higher activity of sector, the more important that energy in this sector would be used efficiently. In this paper we tackle longterm activity and energy efficiency of agriculture sector in developed and less developed countries.We raise an assumtion that in better developed countries activity of agricultural sector in long-run would diminish, what would be followed by gradular increase in energy intensity; i.e. energy intensity indicator would gradually diminish. Besides, we assume that those tendencies would be slightly different in currently less developed countries; i.e. agricultural sector not necessarely would contract and energy intensity would diminish with higher rates if to juxatopse with better developed countries. In order to verify raised assumptions data of the selected European countries will be used. Better developed countries would be represented by one country – Germany. Less developed European countries would be represented by Bulgaria and Romania. We will forecast activity and energy intensity by using LEAP software. Indicated data for chosen countries will be forecated untill year 2050. Obtained results will indicate if consitent patterns could be traced and respective policy implications formulated.

Our paper is dealing with the issues of energy security and economic development. Our focus is on the changes and challenges that are posed in front of the many countries with regard to the threat of the shortages of energy sources and the depletion of the existing carbon sources. Economic, social and demographic changes in the world call for the novel solutions that would include innovative ways how to secure the smooth and undisrupted flow of energy for maintaining the daily lives of the citizens. We are particularly interested in showing how the integration of energy systems or the coordination between neighboring energy systems might contribute to the sustainable development and operation of the energy sector. The paper uses an example of hydro energy storage in order to show the shortcomings of the battery energy storage and the ways how it can be solved. Our results and findings show that renewable energy sources might become a viable solution to the problems specified above. Well-balanced and well-placed usage of renewables might cushion the shortcomings of the traditional energy systems and prevent major shocks to the energy security through the world and in the European Union countries.