This paper describes the major issues in the clearing of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives and the current regulative initiatives aimed at removing the market opaqueness. The core of the paper is the comparison of the US Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). The similarities and the major differences of these two regulative approaches are emphasized. The major similarities between EMIR and the Dodd-Frank Act relate to the mandatory clearing for standardized contracts, the scope of the derivatives covered, the exemptions from clearing for end-users and the reporting of cleared and uncleared derivative transactions by nearly all financial counterparties. The major differences arise with the restrictions on bank proprietary trading, with separation of derivative trading activities from commercial banking activities, with central counterparties (CCP) ownership rules and with the establishment of mandatory exchange trading requirement.

This paper provides an overview of the environmental, economical, and policy considerations related to biofuels. While the biofuel production and consumption exhibited significant increase over the first decade of the new millennium, this and further increases in biofuel production are driven primarily by government policies. Currently available first generation biofuels are with a few exceptions not economically viable in the absence of fiscal incentives or high oil prices. Also the environmental impacts of biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels are quite ambiguous. The review of the most recent economic models dealing with biofuels and their economic impacts provides a distinction between structural and reduced form models. The review ofreduced models is structured toward the time series analysis approach to thedependencies between prices of feedstock, biofuels, and fossil fuels.

This article is concerned with contribution of microfinance investment funds to a sustainable financial portfolio. With regard to the dependence of microfinance funds' returns on the performance of stock and fixed income markets in developed and emerging economies we find slightly negative correlation when measured by the portfolio beta measure. Our regression analysis confirms that returns on investment in microfinance investment funds exceed the returns on the market portfolio. This result together with reported near-to-zero beta estimates as a proxy for the systematic risk may be taken to be a clear financial advantage of an inclusion of microfinance assets in a portfolio compared to pure stock or bond portfolios. The results based on CAPM beta and Jensen's alpha are confirmed by mean-variance spanning test. We show that the socially responsible investors may invest into microfinance without sacrifice with respect to pure financial indicators. © 2014 Copyright © 2014 Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Press.

Rural micro-enterprises are an important factor in sustainable rural development in post-transitional Eastern Europe. This paper deals with determining the key factors influencing profitability in rural micro-enterprises in Poland. The research design was based on a questionnaire survey of 300 rural micro-enterprises in the food-processing sector in rich and poor Polish provinces. The analysis carried out in this study is centered around the Polish EU accession in May 2004. Similar to other related studies, our results show that EU accession was not perceived as a major change by rural Polish micro-entrepreneurs and that the EU related factors were not significant determinants of their profitability. However, our results also show that the success of the rural food processing micro-enterprise in Eastern Europe is most related to its owner/manager and enterprise characteristics. For the owner/manager the most significant determinants are his/her age and risk-taking as the main motive for establishing an enterprise. The enterprise characteristics that determine the profitability include enterprise location within a region with competitive situation, enterprise size (being a sole trader or family enterprise), IC T advancements in enterprise and the fact whether the enterprise has any certificates for its products. The results have significant implications for the researchers and policy-makers and can become a basis for preparing relevant enterprise support policies in post-transitional Eastern Europe.

Rural micro-enterprises are an important factor in sustainable rural development in post-transitional Eastern Europe. This paper deals with determining the key factors influencing profitability in rural micro-enterprises in Poland. The research design was based on a questionnaire survey of 300 rural micro-enterprises in food-processing sector in rich and poor Polish provinces. The analysis carried out in this study is centered around the Polish EU accession in May 2004. Similar to other related studies, our results show that EU accession was not perceived as a major change by rural Polish micro-entrepreneurs and that the EU related factors were not significant determinants of their profitability. However, our results also show that the success of the rural food processing micro-enterprise in Eastern Europe is most related to its owner/manager and enterprise characteristics. For owner/manager the most significant determinants are his/her age and risk-taking as the main motive for establishing an enterprise. The enterprise characteristics that determine the profitability include enterprise location within a region with competitive situation, enterprise size (being a sole trader or family enterprise), ICT advancements in enterprise and the fact whether enterprise has any certificates for its products. The results have significant implications for the researches and policy-makers and can become a basis for preparing relevant enterprise support policies in post-transitional Eastern Europe.