Author(s): Lorena Mošnja-Škare / Language(s): English
Issue: 1/2024
Decades after the transition processes have spread across Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe (CESEE),
the former Soviet Union, and the Baltic, it was interesting to perform the post-transition and non-transition
advanced European economies comparison to capture the outcomes of the 'catching-up process' . In this
analysis, I tried to reach the results of this ‘catching process’ using the firm-level accounting data, namely,
enterprises' annual accounts rather than countries' national accounts. The goal was to evaluate if post-tran-
sition countries' enterprises have reached the financial performance of non-transition countries' enterprises
across Europe, three decades after the transition processes began. The research captured firm-level financial
performance aspects revealing some differentiators, namely, financial report indicators that differed for the
enterprises belonging to post-transition countries in comparison with the ones belonging to non-transition
countries in Europe. The findings related to the liquidity, solvency, indebtedness, profitability indicators, and
labor intensity ratio were derived by logit regression models. The observations for 569 European companies
were provided by Orbis Europe for the year 2021 annual accounts. According to the results, enterprises in
post-transition countries, characterized by lower total assets and working capital scale, were likely to have
lower profit margins, share of employees’ costs in operating turnover, current ratio, and gearing, while higher
solvency and liquidity ratio. Mild marginal effects indicated the gap narrowed but with still existing significant
disparities, particularly in the field of liquidity.
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