NON-PERFORMING LOANS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of non-performing loans on the economic growth of Southeast European countries for the period 2012-2022. This research has a sample of 10 countries, part of South-Eastern Europe, which includes countries such as Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The scientific methodology that has been applied in this study is the quantitative method. The data used in the research are secondary data and were generated from official data published by the World Bank and the Kosovo Statistics Agency. Based on the results of this research, we can conclude that the increase in the level of non-performing loans has a negative impact on the economic growth of the countries of Southeast Europe for the period 2012-2022. While there is a positive relationship between the rate of unemployment and GDP, it should be noted that the rate of unemployment, as an independent variable of this research, has turned out to be statistically insignificant. However, there is a positive relationship between inflation and GDP.