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This study investigates the relationship between taxation and financial stability in the European Union (EU) from 2005 to 2019, a period that encompasses a full economic cycle, including the 2008-2009 financial crisis. The EU’s diverse economic landscape, with varying tax systems, provides an opportunity to analyse the interaction between tax burden and national economic development. Using a quantile regression approach and hierarchical clustering (Ward method), the study examines the effects of different taxation levels across 28 EU member states. The research highlights the role of tax structures in promoting economic growth while maintaining financial stability, addressing how tax reforms—particularly lowering taxation rates while broadening the tax base—can impact financial systems. The findings demonstrate that while tax burdens play a critical role in shaping financial stability, this relationship varies across countries and time periods. Data from international organisations such as the World Bank and Eurostat were utilised to support the empirical analysis. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion on optimising tax policies to foster stable and competitive financial environments in the EU, especially in the wake of the global financial crisis.

The paper presents a perspective on the decline in entrepreneurship in the US and the EU in view of the rapid growth trend in the entrepreneurship education. The basic goal of the entrepreneurship education is to promote entrepreneurship and while the entrepreneurship education has exploded parabolically, yet empirical research on the state of entrepreneurship in the entrepreneurship education pioneering regions shows significant slowdown over last decades. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the incompatibility of the macro data and to delineate the framework of possible solutions. We survey long term longitudinal studies of entrepreneurship as well as country level data supporting decline in entrepreneurship and critically assess the disparity with the shorter-term statistical entrepreneurship measurement data, which may be tainted by policy biases and misrepresentations. The former data is irreconcilable with the rapid growth in entrepreneurship education, and especially with the data showing exceedingly positive entrepreneurship education outcomes. The disparity urges for critical assessment of the ROI of the entrepreneurship education and especially predominant curriculum, yet it has not been empirically researched. We argue that standardized “Omni ability” driven entrepreneurship education shall give way for context adapted cross disciplinary and cross generational entrepreneurship education with the emphasis on psychological hardening and resilience training on how to deal with and overcome personal failure and daily uncertainties. The COVID-19 crisis and ongoing virtual economy revolution present an opportunity for the critical remolding of entrepreneurship education, as well as for development of robust and objective measurement framework for the state of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education outcomes.

The links between emotional intelligence and loss are under-researched, even though a lot of studies have investigated the psychological outcomes of traumatic experiences. Many people suffered multiple losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a loss of job, money, support services, or loved ones. The loss of a loved one might result in severe psychological trauma, and research suggests that early-life trauma relates to numerous forms of emotion dysregulation, including stress-reactivity. The consequences of loss for people with special needs deserve special attention since it often means not only the loss of a loved one but also the usual way of life. Thus, it is essential to analyze various aspects of loss experience, including the impact on emotional regulation, to reduce the harmful consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this research was to examine emotional intelligence in groups of those who have a recent experience of loss and those who have not and to establish the impact of the experience of loss on the human psyche and mental health. We have analyzed the results of a simple random sample of gymnasium students (n=362). We hypothesized that the recent loss of a loved one diminishes the ability to understand self and other focused emotions as well as situational emotions. The survey has revealed that respondents who experienced the loss of a loved one understood better how individuals felt in the presented situations than those who did not have such experience. The premise that people who have experienced the loss of a loved one have a lower understanding of emotions than their peers who did not have such an experience has not been confirmed.

Objective: This study aimed at identifying the relationship between socioeconomic status and psychological well being in the Lithuanian population. Background: Socioeconomic status implies that not all individuals have equal opportunities to achieve their goals, because not everyone has equal access to education, health, even business support services, and the psychological well-being of some may be significantly reduced solely by lack of material resources. Method: The main method of research in the article is an interview method at the respondent's home. Also, various assessment tools were used in the Lithuanian population survey. In this survey, the authors applied the following scales: Flourishing Scale; The Satisfaction with Life Scale; The Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale and The Positive and Negative Emotional Experience Scale. Results: The results of the study showed statistically significant differences in psychological well-being (psychological flourishing, life satisfaction, happiness, positive and negative emotional experiences) between different income quintile groups, with average psychological well-being constructs in the lowest income quintile being about twice lower than in the highest income quintile. The study showed that the mean ranks of the happiness score in the most deprived group were almost seven times lower than in the middle class. Conclusion: The research has established that strong and lasting negative emotional experiences are related to diminished well-being and can cause direct and indirect public damages. Authors indicate that additional research is needed.

Over the past few years, Korean Hyundai and KIA have become one of the most recognizable and influential brands in the Russian automotive market. Many motorists and organizations loved the cars of these manufacturers for their reliability and one of the most attractive price-quality ratios. The appearance of such models is due to a number of thoughtful strategic decisions made by these companies based on all sorts of features of the domestic automobile market. In this article I will try to conduct a detailed analysis of these solutions and highlight the general features of the Russian automotive market.

The aim of this paper is to review current research problems in analysis of relationship between financial stability and aggregated debts and define research problems which are not well explored and can inspire further researches. First, concept of financial stability was briefly reviewed and macro prudential approach explained, as the further analysis is based on this approach. Further it was reviewed what questions are raised while analyzing each aggregated debt’s impact and overall influence of all debts on financial stability. Aggregated debts are the debts of institutional sectors which are households, enterprises and government. It was noticed that most research problems concentrate on analysis of how either household debt or public debt impacts financial stability. The influence of enterprise debt is much less researched. In particular how non-financial business sector’s debt is related with financial stability of the country. And finally, the overall impacts of all aggregated debts is the least researched, therefore there is obvious need for further research problems in this area.

Nowadays security is one of the most important things and a hot issue among politicians. The European countries are surrounded by threats and have to be prepared to face instability. For every country it is necessary to ensure internal as well as external security. That is why many policy-makers have to decide how much money should be spent on security. This paper investigates the tendencies of defence expenditure and its structural changes in the European Union countries in the period of year between 2004 and 2012. Firstly, based on the defence expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the European Union (EU) countries have been classified into four categories, such as high defence spenders, upper middle defence spenders, lower middle and low defence spenders. Secondly, the structural analysis of defence expenditure has been applied in the context of the EU countries’ groups. To that end, the findings suggest the following: 1) over the period of 2004-2012, spending for military defence has dominated in the structure of total defence expenditure of the EU countries; 2) increase in foreign military aid and R&D defence promote growth of the defence expenditure as a percentage of GDP, while the drop in military and civil defence as well as defence n.e.c. impact on decline of total defence expenditure; 3) high defence spenders report increase in the share for military defence, while other groups of the EU countries show decline of this spending; the increase of the share for foreign military aid has been typical for all the EU countries’ groups; 4) high defence spenders have the most significant intensity coefficient of structural changes, while upper middle and low defence spenders’ groups have the least changing defence’s patterns.

In recent years, the role of credit unions (credit cooperatives) has gradually become more and more significant in financial sector of Lithuania. The number of credit unions grew as well as their assets, number of members and deposits. The beginning of rapid process of credit unions establishment and development caused unmeasured risks, which led to suspended activity of several credit unions in 2013. In order to assess factors that affect stability of credit unions, the study using the economical – statistical methods was performed.

This paper has analyzed the patterns of government expenditure in the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), comparing them with those in Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland and Sweden). The investigation has summarized the tendencies of structural changes of government expenditure and extent to which countries expenditure structures have been dissimilar in a period of 2004 – 2013. Breakdowns of these expenditures on the basis of the activities they support have been provided and analyzed. The authors have done this by looking both at general government expenditure statistics, and also by considering a number of descriptive statistical indicators. Firstly, based on the statistical data, structural changes of government expenditure have been analyzed. To this end, the indicators of absolute structural changes and intensity of structural changes have been applied. Secondly, Finger-einin index has been calculated in order to compare government expenditure patterns and determine their dissimilarities.

The relationship between energy consumption and economic growth has been a hot issue in academic research. The results of the investigations have been varied due to quite different national economic development and diversity of research methods as well. This paper investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in the Baltic countries, such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the period of year between 1995 and 2012. To that end, Granger causality test is applied in order to suggest which variable in the model has significant impact on the future value of other variable in the system. Based on the causal relationship, regression model has been employed for the estimation of interrelationship between energy consumption and economic growth. The empirical results could be summarized as following: 1) in terms of correlation analysis between energy consumption and economic growth, there is a weak and insignificant relationship for Lithuania, strong and significant for Latvia and moderate one for Estonia; 2) in terms of causality running from GDP to energy consumption, the causal relationship exists for Estonia. The main implication of this finding is that the energy conservation policies will not have impact on economic growth; moreover, the results of the research highlight the absence of Granger causality between variables observed in the case of Lithuania and Latvia. In this light, national energy policies will not have impact on economic growth as well as economic growth will not has influence on energy consumption.