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Several empirical studies indicate that the existence of a large informal sector is a major obstacle to firms’ choices of innovation strategies. This paper aims to address this issue and investigates the effect of the informal sector on the innovation of formal firms in Greece.

Using the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey data, the impact of informal competition on formal firms’ innovation in Greece is investigated by testing whether formal firms use innovation as a tool to protect and sustain their competitive advantage vis-à-vis informal firms and whether overall and informal competition has an inverted-U relationship with the innovation of formal firms. The effects of bribing and other variables drawn from the empirical literature are also controlled for.

The findings fill a gap in the literature regarding the effects of the informal sector on formal economic activity in Greece, by indicating that the informal sector puts pressure on formal firms to innovate, in order to differentiate their product or service and enhance their productivity and by offering learnings to help policymakers to promote innovation in Greece.

The originality of this study is that it investigates the impact of informal competition on formal firms’ innovation in Greece, a developed economy with a large informal sector. It does so by focusing on the effects that formal firms’ informal practices have on their competitors’ innovation activities, and the role of informal competition in creating and sustaining a competitive advantage in Greece.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the empirical literature on the effects of informal competition on firm performance and provide directions for future research.

We search the Scopus and Web of Science databases and adopt a specific protocol to perform a systematic review of the literature. We screen 536 documents and apply three inclusion criteria for filtering.

We identify the impact of informal competition on nine types of formal firms' performance. We assess the findings according to the explanatory and response variables and the data samples of the articles reviewed. We find that five areas of focus are under-researched due to analyses of country or region-specific data, or lack of consensus because of contradicting findings.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review of the empirical literature on the effects of informal competition on the performance of formal firms.

This study investigates the impact of institutional factors on firms investing in R&D.

The study uses data from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys for the Republic of Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Portugal. A model with institutional factors as explanatory variables and firm performance factors as control variables is estimated with weighted least squares heteroscedasticity corrected regression. The reverse causality problem is addressed by using a two-stage least squares regression approach.

The findings indicate that institutional quality has a significant influence on firms' R&D expenditure. The results have several implications in relation to findings of previous research.

The inclusion of more countries that were affected by the European economic crisis will probably give more insights about the effect of institutional factors on R&D.

Policy makers have to address short-comings in institutional quality, particularly in terms of the labor regulation burden. Policy makers should prioritize anti-corruption measures to foster an environment that would attract more R&D in the Republic of Cyprus and Greece.

This study contributes to the growing body of literature investigating the impact of institutional factors on R&D. It focuses on four developed European countries that bore the brunt of the European economic crisis and have to implement their recovery and resilience plans successfully, in order to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their economic activity.

The purpose of this study is to present actions and initiatives, developed within the scope of the Empowering Teachers to Trigger Cybersecurity at Schools (ETTCS) CyberTeach Erasmus Project, to enhance cybersecurity literacy through innovative digital content and contemporary Learning Management System (LMS) platform.

The concept of cybersecurity literacy has become increasingly crucial in recent years, as the digitization of most human activities is being completed within the framework of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Almost all devices, vehicles and services in the near future will be interconnected to the internet and operate on advanced computing platforms. The benefits of these technological advancements are evident, as are the potential risks. To this end, organized cybercriminals, black hat hackers and state-sponsored actors may attempt, through various cyberattacks, to steal personal data, cause road accidents in connected autonomous vehicles and, in general, disrupt critical infrastructures. Cybersecurity is a growing concern when it comes to digitalization and cloudification. This way, digital assets must be conveniently protected to avoid any concern about their confidentiality, integrity and authentication. Therefore, the ability of every citizen to use the internet and smart devices wisely and securely is one of the most fundamental skills they should possess. In this work, the authors present actions and initiatives, developed within the scope of the ETTCS CyberTeach Erasmus Project, to enhance cybersecurity literacy through innovative digital content and contemporary LMS platform. A new approach to teach cybersecurity, based on innovative teaching methods, is presented to prepare future citizens and their teachers to keep up with cybersecurity issues in an efficient manner. To this end, the authors propose ways to reach cybersecurity literacy, giving use case examples and proposing the necessary digital skills.

A new approach to teach cybersecurity, based on innovative teaching methods, is presented to prepare future citizens and their teachers to keep up with cybersecurity issues in an efficient manner. To this end, the authors propose ways to reach cybersecurity literacy, giving use case examples and proposing the necessary digital skills.

This work demonstrates a new methodology to infuse cybersecurity awareness into teachers so that they can train and prepare their students accordingly. The authors identify the teacher as the critical link between a young generation of digital natives, who consider the internet as a utility, and the most experienced information technology security experts striving to enforce good cybersecurity practices among users.

Greece's slow recovery from the severe economic depression caused by the great global financial and economic crisis that erupted in late 2000s was interrupted by the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on economic activity. This chapter looks into the factors shaping Greece's competitive position and discusses the potential to achieve a V-shaped recovery at the end of the pandemic.

The contribution of the Greek transport industry to the country's GDP has been well over the EU average. The industry is of vital importance to the efficient operation of local, national, and international economic transactions and is responsible for almost half of the value added to the Greek economy by its tourism industry. Despite its significant contribution to Greek economy, the industry is facing challenges and has not achieved its full potential. This chapter provides an overview of the transportation and storage industry and examines its general institutional framework and its overall performance, before focusing on specific policy issues for each transport mode, namely air, rail, road, and maritime transport.

A report of the International Labour Organization on undeclared work in Greece refers to failures of formal institutions which contribute to the asymmetry between state and civic morality. The particular asymmetry is explored through the context of tax morale, which is one of the major determinants of the shadow economy. Although several papers have been published on the Greek shadow economy, tax morale in Greece has not been adequately explored. This research aims to investigate the effect of the economic downturn on the factors determining the level of tax morale through primary data from a European Union-funded research project on the Greek shadow economy. The findings provide policy orientations toward transferring activities from the shadow to the official economy, a goal which is part of Europe 2020 strategy.

This paper discusses the nominal and real convergence regarding Greece being a country-member of the European Union (EU), and of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). We argued that nominal convergence is relative to Maastricht criteria when real convergence has been investigated through six different axes: (1) the five Maastricht Criteria, (2) the GDP per capita in PPP prices, (3) the real GDP growth rates, (4) the minimum wages, (5) the HDI index development, and (6) the unemployment rates. We concluded for the case of Greece that by utilizing alternative indicators, such as the Maastricht criteria, and the above criteria only nominal convergence exists while real convergence appears to be a long-term target with many obstacles. In particular, Greece has managed to achieve the criteria proposed by the EMU (Maastricht Criteria) for membership, decisively different levels of unemployment, wages, and GDP growth rate/GDP per capita in PPP prices, and different human development indexes appear for the case of Greece.