Economic activities are directly supported by the natural environment, and in this context, it has become crucial to analyse the phenomenon of decoupling economic growth from environmental ...degradation. The negative effects of economic activities on the environment are clearly visible, and understanding how to separate economic growth from environmental harm is of utmost importance. This paper aims to study the degree of the decoupling of economic growth, measured by GDP, from environmental degradation, quantified through CO2 and HFCs emissions, at the level of each EU27 country in the periods 2008–2012 and 2013–2020. In the analysis, graphical representations and statistical tests were utilised. In the first period, most of the EU27 countries registered negative levels for the variables considered, placing them into the negative coupling stage. In the second period, the evolution of the decoupling process was visible in all the countries, enabling them to make a significant transition to the relative or absolute stages. Overall, the Nordic countries could be observed as examples of best practices, managing to achieve the most desired stage of decoupling, i.e., the absolute one. These results are important for a wide range of stakeholders implicated in the preparation of programs, projects and policies dedicated to achieving economic growth in a sustainable manner.
The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis has become a centre of interest for empirical research, as it serves to identify the relationships between economic growth and environmental ...degradation that will lead to a sustainable development path. The aim of the paper is to investigate these relationships for each of the EU15 countries, which are responsible for the largest amount of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe. Based on the results of the analysis of ARDL bounds cointegration approach, for the 1960–2019 period, it was found that there is a great diversity between the countries in the EU15 regarding the existence and shape of EKC, from the identification of N shape, Inverted U-shape or monotonic relationships to the absence of statistically significant relationships. Thus, there are countries that have managed to implement environmental protection measures early and now ensure GDP growth while significantly reducing CO2 emissions. The similarities and differences identified among EU15 countries can serve as a guide for EU policymakers in developing recommendations adapted to specific situations in order to facilitate economic growth taking into consideration environmental protection.
The current health crisis has several socioeconomic influences that could be compared to those experienced during the 2008 economic and financial crisis. Governments around the world are making great ...efforts to sustain markets as there are signs showing that the health crisis will be followed by an economic crisis. In this study, we aim to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the Romanian stock market. For this purpose, we considered the influence on the Bucharest Exchange Trading (BET) index of such variables as the number of new cases and the number of new deaths caused by COVID-19, measures taken by authorities, and the international economic context. The collected data covered the period between 11 March 2020 and 30 April 2021. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bound cointegration test was used to measure the impact of COVID-19 on the stock market. The results showed a significant long-term negative impact of the pandemic on the BET index for Romania, while the European economic context had a positive influence. Therefore, these results could be used by authorities as a good guideline for the efficient management of measures that aim to reduce the negative effects of the healthcare crisis.
The market of public goods is one of the most particular institutions because both the suppliers and consumers are very heterogeneous. In one of the richest, from public goods point of view, area of ...Romania, the region of Dorna Valley in the North East of Romania, we find both local and external consumers, which have different perspectives on the utility of public goods. The region is characterized by extensive activities, especially in agriculture and forestry, and many of the public goods are related to the environmental dimensions, the reason why many of the consumers are in the position of tourists and consumer of local private goods. The analysis of the consumer profile enabled us to understand the particularities of the demand and the causes of different willingness to pay to benefit from different public goods. Such parameters as age, professional status, level of income or level of education have been used to describe the classes of consumers and their propensity to consume public goods. The used methodology includes a cluster analysis based on the data obtained by a survey conducted in the North-East of Romania. The utility of results is obvious for the general interest of scientists and practitioners to understand the necessity and intensity of public goods provision.
Economic activities are directly supported by the natural environment, and in this context, it has become crucial to analyse the phenomenon of decoupling economic growth from environmental ...degradation. The negative effects of economic activities on the environment are clearly visible, and understanding how to separate economic growth from environmental harm is of utmost importance. This paper aims to study the degree of the decoupling of economic growth, measured by GDP, from environmental degradation, quantified through COsub.2 and HFCs emissions, at the level of each EU27 country in the periods 2008–2012 and 2013–2020. In the analysis, graphical representations and statistical tests were utilised. In the first period, most of the EU27 countries registered negative levels for the variables considered, placing them into the negative coupling stage. In the second period, the evolution of the decoupling process was visible in all the countries, enabling them to make a significant transition to the relative or absolute stages. Overall, the Nordic countries could be observed as examples of best practices, managing to achieve the most desired stage of decoupling, i.e., the absolute one. These results are important for a wide range of stakeholders implicated in the preparation of programs, projects and policies dedicated to achieving economic growth in a sustainable manner.
Given the current context, with phenomena such as dramatic climate change, water, air, soil pollution, etc., the complex relation between environmental degradation and economic growth is intensely ...debated in the academia as well as in worldwide politics. This study examines the relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, gross domestic product, energy consumption, and urbanization rate in Romania and Bulgaria over 1980-2019 period. For this purpose, we have applied the ARDL bounds testing approach and, to validate the robustness of the results, we have used the VEC Granger model. The results showed that there are long term relationships between CO2 emissions per capita and the determinant factors taken into account in both countries; however, while the inverted N-shape of EKC is significant in the case of Bulgaria, this does not happen in the case of Romania although the model which includes the inverted U-shape of EKC is significant for both countries. Considering the fact that both Romania and Bulgaria are emerging economies which, despite having made significant progress, are still in search of a path towards sustainable development, such a study may constitute a good starting point and may suggest some action directions in terms of sustainable development policies.
The role of the interest and exchange rates in sustaining economic growth has been a highly researched subject. Therefore, this study examines the influence of the monetary policy interest rate, the ...real exchange rate and the business climate in the Euro area on the economic growth in Romania. For this purpose, we have applied a pre-test for structural breaks to identify the existence of structural breaks, followed by the traditional unit root tests and the unit root tests with structural breaks to verify the stationarity of the variables. The results of the Bound cointegration test led to the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) short-run model that measures the short-run impact of the interest rate, exchange rate and the business climate in the Euro area on the economic growth of Romania. Our findings show that in the short run, the economic growth is negatively influenced by the interest rate, and positively by the exchange rate. We also indicate that the business climate in the Euro area has mixed effects on the economic growth. Finally, considering the growing interdependence between the internal and external (European) business environment, the results are highly significant for handling the interest and exchange rates in sustaining economic growth.
The activity of enterprises has a major impact on the quality of the environment. Deterioration and abusive exploitation of resources, with no concern for environmental protection, bring the need for ...a higher level of corporate environmental responsibility (CER). Consequently, CER has become a sine qua non concern of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study aims to estimate the importance of drivers for CER. It was conducted on a sample of SMEs from two groups of EU countries characterised by a different level of social and economic development backgrounds. The authors applied statistical analysis to estimate the importance of the effect of drivers for CER using the logit model and the nomogram. The logit model shows that the most important effects of drivers for CER correspond to the company’s core values, the impact of resource efficiency actions on the production costs, and the return on the investments made on resource efficiency. The magnitude of these effects is different for the SMEs from the two EU groups. Also, the study underlines the significant effect of SMEs’ size for CER. The differences for the two groups of countries call for policies stimulating environmental responsibility, differentiated by the two types of SMEs.
The protection of the environment is an important topic in these days and is given a special attention at national and international level. The quality of the environment has effects that propagate ...at both economic and social levels, putting its mark on the state of health and lifestyle of present and future generations. The aim of the paper is to verify whether the implementation of environmental protection measures led to the improvement of the economic and social climate. The variables used are composite indicators developed for the three components of sustainable development, such as the Environmental Wellbeing, the Economic Wellbeing, and the Human Wellbeing. In order to capture more analytically the relationship between the environmental component and the other two components of sustainable development, in the paper are analysed also the indicators that compose the aggregate indices. The applied methods are cluster analysis and regression analysis. The analysis is performed at the level of the 28 EU countries, in 2008 compared to 2016. The result of the comparative analysis show that the quality of the environment is negative correlated with the economic and social climate, in 2008 and 2016. The aggregated indicators for economic and social components registered significant increases in 2016 compared to 2008 and the corresponding indicator for the economic component decreased. The econometric models identified have highlighted the importance of good governance and economic growth policies in implementing environmental policies.
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