The EU Green Deal and its impact on economic transformation provoked a slightly forgotten free market vs. market regulation discussion, but in the light of a new context—economic and environmental performance development. The economic shock caused by COVID-19, which transformed economies and societies, intensified this discussion. This article analyses the impact of economic freedom on economic performance and environmental performance in European countries. The article contributes to a gap in the literature, because, to date, research has examined the effects of economic freedom, or some of its components, on economic or environmental measures in groups of nations with a lacking sustainable development context. In addition, the mixed results obtained led to confusion in perceptions and knowledge about the influence and usefulness of economic freedom for economic and environmental performance. We also found mixed results regarding the influence of economic freedom on economic and environmental performance, but the introduction of a new concept—the optimal level of economic freedom—organized the different results into a coherent logical sequence. The paper provides original empirical evidence and specifies the targets of structural reforms. The results are thus useful for policymakers to develop more appropriate and efficient economic freedom.

A rich volume of literature has analysed country investment attractiveness in a wide range of contexts. The research has mostly focused on traditional economic concepts—economic, social, managerial, governmental, and geopolitical determinants—with a lack of focus on the smartness approach. Smartness is a social construct, which means that it has no objective presence but is “defined into existence”. It cannot be touched or measured based on uniform criteria but, rather, on the ones that are collectively agreed upon and stem from the nature of definition. Key determinants of smartness learning—intelligence, agility, networking, digital, sustainability, innovativeness and knowledgeability—serve as a platform for the deeper analysis of the research problem. In this article, we assessed country investment attractiveness through the economic subjects’ competences and environment empowering them to attract and maintain investments in the country. The country investment attractiveness was assessed by artificial intelligence (in particular, neural networks), which has found widespread application in the sciences and engineering but has remained rather limited in economics and confined to specific areas like counties’ investment attractiveness. The empirical research relies on the case of assessing investment attractiveness of 29 European countries by the use of 58 indicators and 31,958 observations of annual data of the 2000–2018 time period. The advantages and limitations of the use of artificial intelligence in assessing countries’ investment attractiveness proved the need for soft competences for work with artificial intelligence and decision-making based on the information gathered by such research. The creativity, intelligence, agility, networking, sustainability, social responsibility, innovativeness, digitality, learning, curiosity and being knowledge-driven are the competences that, together, are needed in all stages of economic analysis.

The article deals with the analysis of the theoretical and practical aspects of measuring regional resilience to economic shocks. While the concept of regional resilience to economic shocks is still at the development stage, and the method of measuring regional resilience, which is grounded methodologically and is generally accepted, is still missing, the article presents a unique approach of the authors to the concept of regional resilience to economic shocks including the elaboration of the definition of regional resilience to economic shocks, the description of the capabilities to determine the regional resilience in the Resilio model, the specification of their quantitative and qualitative characteristics, and the introduction of the index of the resilience of regions to economic shocks (Resindicis). The rapid development of the globalization processes poses new challenges to the instruments of economic analysis and strategic planning. Different techniques can be used for obtaining the required information on building the regional resilience-enhancing strategies. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. In order to find out the strengths and the weaknesses of measuring resilience by Resilio, the newly developed index was empirically tested with regard to the data of 10 Lithuanian districts in the period of 2006-2015. The assessment results, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using the Resilio model are presented in this article. The newly developed Resindicis, introduced in the article, represents an objective for having a convenient tool which could be used for economic analysis, strategic planning and justification of solutions aimed at enhancing regional resilience.

Pasaulyje ir Lietuvoje vyksta daug diskusijų, kaip COVID-19 pandemija pakeis ekonomikos vystymąsi, kuriuos sektorius ji palies stipriau, o kuriems tai bus finansinių rezultatų gerėjimo metas. Leidinyje įvairiais aspektais analizuojama problema – kaip įvertinti skirtingų šalies ekonominės veiklos sektorių finansinį atsparumą, nuostolius ir grynąjį ekonominį poveikį, sukeltą COVID-19 pandemijos. Taip pat aptartos rekomendacijos dėl ekonomikos skatinimo priemonių dydžio neigiamiems padariniams šalinti. Mokslo studija bus naudinga vyriausybės ir valdžios įstaigų vadovams, ekonomikos analitikams, ekspertams. Skaitytojai ras reikšmingų rekomendacijų, padėsiančių ekonomikai veikti ypatingo neapibrėžtumo sąlygomis.

Today’s economy is facing various economic shocks, for instance BREXIT, that do not have any evidence from the past. Economic shocks directly affect market risks, the characteristics of which are observed by business company managers before making investment and operational decisions. Such decisions are directly affected by corporate ownership concentration and structure. The issue of ownership concentration in literature lacks approach when it is analysed in the interaction with market risk, caused by an economic shock. The contribution of this research to the discipline is the interaction between the indicators that reflect the impact of ownership concentration on corporate market risk by an economic shock (regression model was created). This model is proposed as a methodological tool to assess and analyse the scientific problem in question; it can also serve as a new and reliable instrument for business decision-makers and managers. An example of the data analysis representing European, American and Chinese markets as well as the United Kingdom as a country of origin of the economic shock under consideration is provided. The research proves that there exist statistically significant differences in the interaction between ownership concentration and corporate market risk in different markets. Also, it was found that BREXIT most significantly raised the risk in the UK market, as in the country of origin, in comparison to the risk observed in other markets. This paper contributes to the literature in corporate management decisions and systemic risk management; it also sheds light upon the economic-financial effects of the BREXIT process. Practical implication of this research is related to a focus on a detailed measurement instrument which allows to assess the systemic risk from a corporate management perspective.