The Level of Development – Students’ Perceptions and Beyond: The Case of Balkan Countries

Vladimir Šimić – Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism, University of Split, Cvite Fiskovića 5, 21000 Split, Croatia

Lena Malešević Perović – Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism, University of Split, Cvite Fiskovića 5, 21000 Split, Croatia

Abstract: This paper investigates the level of development in Balkan coun­tries through comparison of the common development indicators. A start­ing point is the perception of the level of economic development by a group of first year economics students at the Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism in Split, Croatia. With the students typically not being aware (fa­miliar) of how rich (poor) their country is, this study provides a deeper inves­tigation of the level of development of Croatia and compares it with sever­al countries from the neighborhood. The investigation employs commonly used indicators of economic development – GNI (Gross national income) per capita as usually reported by the World Bank, but also takes into account additional indicators like HDI (Human development index) and life satisfac­tion indicator. Overall, the study provides an interesting review and compar­isons between countries and resolves some misperceptions that are typical­ly present in general public.

6th International Scientific Conference on Recent Advances in Information Technology, Tourism, Economics, Management and Agriculture – ITEMA 2022 – Conference Proceedings, Hybrid (University of Maribor, Slovenia), October 27, 2022

ITEMA Conference Proceedings published by: Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans – Belgrade, Serbia

ITEMA conference partners: Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Slovenia; Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb, Varaždin; Faculty of Geography, University of Belgrade, Serbia; Institute of Marketing, Poznan University of Economics and Business, Poland; Faculty of Agriculture, Banat’s University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine ”King Michael I of Romania”, Romania

ITEMA Conference 2022 Conference Proceedings: ISBN 978-86-80194-63-9, ISSN 2683-5991, DOI: https://doi.org/10.31410/ITEMA.2022

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission.

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