Y 10 SOCIEDAD ANONIMA 3,975.00

Our sample includes 15 countries from Central and Eastern Europe and 6 Western European countries (Austria, Germany France, Denmark, Sweden and Finland). Table 1 includes a summary of the most recent code in each country from CEE structured by the year and the issuer. The countries included in our sample were further divided in two groups based on the European Union membership of each country. In order to analyze the development of corporate governance in these counties we used secondary data analysis, more specifically reports or statistics offered by: European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), World Bank Reports (ROSC Reports) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) reports.

Table 1. Country, year and issuer of the most recent corporate governance code

Country Year of last code

Issuer of last code Last code

Estonia 2006 Tallinn Stock

Exchange

Corporate Governance Recommendations

Latvia 2010 NASDAQ OMX Principles of Corporate

Governance Recommendations on their implementation

Lithuania 2003 National Stock

Exchange Lithuania

Corporate Governance Code for the companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of Lithuania

Poland 2010 Warsaw Stock

Exchange

Code of Best Practice for WEE Listed Companies

Czech Republic 2004 Czech Securities Commission

Corporate Governance Code based on OECD Principles

Slovakia 2008 Central European

Corporate Governance Association

Corporate Governance Code for Slovakia

Hungary 2008 CG Committee of

the Budapest Stock Exchange

Corporate Governance Recommendations

Slovenia 2009 Ljubljana Stock

Exchange

Corporate Governance Code

Bulgaria 2007 The Bulgarian Stock

Exchange

Bulgarian National Code for Corporate Governance

Romania 2009 Bucharest Stock

Exchange

Corporate Governance Code of Bucharest Stock Exchange

Croatia 2010 Zagreb Stock

Exchange

Corporate Governance Code Bosnia-Herzegovina 2006 Banja Luka Stock

Exchange

The standards of Corporate Governance

Serbia 2008 Belgrade Stock

Exchange

Corporate governance Code of Belgrade Stock Exchange

Montenegro 2009 Montenegro Stock

Exchange

Corporate Governance Code of Montenegro

Turkey 2005 Capital Markets

Board of Turkey

Corporate Governance Code and Principles

Source: (Own compilation based on data provided by the ECGI) 5. Data analysis

In order to test our two hypotheses we used the t-test for the difference of means for the number of codes issued and the years of distance of first code. The results are included in table 2.

Table 2. t-tests for difference of means on the years of distance and number of codes

CEE countries Western European countries

CEE countries members of the EU

CEE countries not members of the EU Years of distance from

first code

6.53* (0.72) 2.66 (0.71) 2.30* (0.66) 6 (1.14) Number of codes issued 1.93* (0.3) 8.17 (2.99) 2.20 (0.41) 1.40 (0.24)

Number of observations 15 6 10 5

*p<0.05. Standard error in parentheses.

Our results show that CEE counties issued codes later than the Western European countries and the CEE countries not members of the EU issued codes later than those that are EU members. Also the difference of means for the distance of the first code in the sample is significantly different (p<0.05) for both situations which validates our second set of hypotheses 1 and 1(a). The average distance from the first code (1998) in CEE countries was 6.53 years compared to 2.66 years in Western European countries. Also the average distance from 2001 in the second situation was 6 years for the CEE countries not members of the EU and 2.3 years for those that are EU members.

Moreover, we can observe that the Western European countries are more prone to issue codes than CEE countries the difference of means between the two sets is also significant, which validates our first hypothesis. Regarding the two groups of CEE countries we can observe that there are some differences between the average number of codes issued (2.20 for CEE countries members of the EU and 1.40 for CEE countries not members of the EU) but according to the results of the t-test these differences are not significant which does not validate the hypothesis 2(a).

Emerging markets, particularly those from Central and Eastern Europe, represent a great interest to investors as they indicate greater growth potential and higher returns. In order to attract capital, remain competitive and ensure credibility of their business, companies must seek to establish exceptional corporate governance standards. This is why we considered useful for our study to illustrate the overall ease of doing business rank (out of 183 economies). The ease of doing business rankings are illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Ease of doing business ranking

Source: (Doing Business Report, 2012, World Bank)

As we can observe, except for Romania and Montenegro all the countries from CEE that are EU members have higher rankings that those that are non EU members.

We chose to illustrate also the investor protection index (Figure 4), which is a component of the overall ease of doing business because we consider it to be very relevant to our study. The Investor Protection Index consists of three dimensions of investor protection: transparency of transactions (Disclosure Index), liability for self-dealing (Director Liability Index) and shareholders' ability to sue officers and directors for misconduct (Shareholder Suits Index).

196 Figure 4. Protecting investor ranking

Source: (Doing Business Report, 2012, World Bank)

As we can observe the results regarding the protecting investors are very mixed. The second place is occupied by Montenegro which is a non EU member while the bottom places were occupied by 2 EU member countries: Slovakia and Hungary.

6. Conclusions

To analyse the corporate governance situation in CEE countries we used a sample of 15 counties further divided in two groups: those that are EU members and those that do not have this membership. For a better insight we contrasted the results on two corporate governance variables (years of distance from first code and number of codes issued) for the CEE countries with the results for the same variables registered in 6 Western European countries. Based on the t-test results there are significant differences between these two set of countries on the two variables considered.

The results of this paper also show the differences of corporate governance in CEE counties. The most significant difference was demonstrated to be between the CEE countries that are EU members and those that are not regarding the years of distance from the issuance of the first code in the sample.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported from the European Social Fund through Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013, project number POSDRU/1.5/S/59184 „Performance and excellence in postdoctoral research in Romanian economics science domain”

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SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE MEETING OF PATIENTS. CASE STUDY: CHRONIC