Stock Market Enhancement Opportunities for the Development of the Baltic States = Akciju tirgus pilnveidošanas iespējas Baltijas valstu attīstībai
Authors:   ,   Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, Pilvere Aija 
Published: April 2022

Aija Pilvere. PhD Thesis “Stock Market Enhancement Opportunities for the Development of the Baltic States”, Jelgava, 2022. The assessment of the situation and international research created the basis for the hypothesis of the PhD Thesis: stock market listed companies’ financial indicators and capital structure are essential for the enhancement of the stock market for the Baltic States development. Based on the defined hypothesis, the aim of the PhD Thesis was defined to assess the economies and stock market of the Baltic States by analysing the financial performance and capital structure of listed companies in order to develop proposals for the development of the stock market in Latvia. To achieve the aim of the research, the following tasks have been formulated: 1. to examine the key theoretical and historical aspects of a stock market and their role in the development of the stock market and the economy; 2. to assess the institutional system and the legal framework governing the stock market, as well as to give the characteristics of the stock market of the Baltic States; 3. to analyse the external environment affecting the stock market and the main macroeconomic and banking sector indicators for the Baltic States; 4. to assess and compare the financial performance indicators of the companies listed on the stock exchanges of the Baltic States and the EU Nordic countries; 5. to develop scenarios for possible enhancement of the stock market in Latvia, in order to promote Baltic States development. The content of the work is created and structured according to the work tasks; it has five chapters with subsections. Chapter 1 analyzes the theoretical and historical aspects of the stock market, factors influencing the external and internal environment. Theoretical conditions for the development of listed companies and their role in the financial and economic system are explained, the exogenous environment for stock market development and its connection with macroeconomic and banking indicators is analyzed, endogenous environment for stock market development were studied – company financial and capital structure, company development indicators. Chapter 2 evaluates the institutional system and regulatory framework of the stock market and provides a description of the stock market in the Baltic States. Chapter 3 examines the indicators of banking industry, the macroeconomic and investment environment in the Baltic States and the EU Nordic countries. Chapter 4 assesses the absolute and relative financial indicators of 50 companies listed on the Baltic States stock market and compares to 510 listed companies on the EU Nordic countries exchanges, using factor and clusted analysis. Chapter 5 develops three scenarios for the enhacement of the stock market in Latvia using companies registered in Latvia, financial indicators for 93324 companies evaluated, and indicators for 510 large and medium-sized companies were used for scenarious. The results of the developed scenarios were also evaluated – whether these scenarios would allow Latvia to reach market capitalization to gross domestic product level in 2019 of Estonia and Lithuania in the next 3 - 5 years. Main conclusions, the main results of the research are formulated as well as problems are described and proposals for their solution are put forward. The volume of the PhD thesis for obtaining a doctor's degree is 170 pages. The work contains 65 tables, 35 figures, 14 annexes, 221 information sources are used, incl. 206 sources in English.