Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics

In this article, we propose an application of extended Fay-Herriot models with the Generalized Variance Function and the use of benchmarking for estimating short-term business characteristics at a low level of aggregation. This method of estimation, based on the area-level approach, does not require access to unit-level data, which is a clear advantage from the perspective of data protection requirements. The purpose of the study was to estimate the average monthly wage in small companies (employing between 10 and 49 people) in Poland in 2011 for domains defined by the interaction of subregion and type of economic activities. The properties of small area estimators are examined using real data from a short-term business sample survey and administrative registers. Results indicate that the proposed models increase the precision of estimates, which can be used for detailed regional economic studies.

We propose a framework identifying sources of markup changes. Our approach derives from the conjectural variation theory and highlights the role of both price elasticity and concentration in shaping the markups. We show that a decline in markups in Poland, showed by by Gradzewicz and Mućk (2024), is related to rising price elasticity of demand, while rising concentration mitigated this effect. Moreover, we document that the globalization trends, e.g. international fragmentation, increasing standardization and tighter integration with global economy, affect both price elasticity of demand and markups. We also identify factors specific to demand elasticity (product varieties and a home bias) and to markups (import content of exports).

Researchers and practitioners who consider economic regional (sub-national) policy questions often face the problem of regional input-output (I--O) table unavailability. The literature offers a number of approaches to approximate such tables. In this paper, a survey of the leading state-of-the-art methods in the field is presented, and their pros and cons are discussed. I take into account both single-region approaches, such as the location quotient (LQ) family, as well as interregional input--output (IRIO) methods, especially their class referred to as gravity-RAS. I pay particular attention to recent developments in using spatial econometric methods (Spatial IRIO). The discussion is illustrated with simple numerical examples and selected empirical results.