The efficient and sustainable exploitation of energy resources may secure a sustainable economic growth for different regions. However, the peripheries are subject to social, economic, and political ...constraints, with limited power over energy management. The present work examines regional convergence in exploitation efficiency as synopsized in the GDP generated by energy and minerals in an era of the country’s efforts to shut down the lignite-run power production. With the assistance of panel unit root tests, we confirm non convergence of the variables employed, an expected result given the fact that different energy sources are being used for energy production by each different periphery, generating different economic results. In the second stage the methodology employed is a Bayesian vector auto-regressive model (BVAR) with an informative prior on the steady state. The particular methodology outperforms the conventional VAR methodology due to limited degrees of freedom. The Impulse response analysis and the Variance Decomposition analysis confirmed interlinkages among the regions studied. This result implies that the growth generated by different energy and mineral resources are interconnected. Furthermore, the energy transition taking place in Megalopoli and West Macedonia, where the two greatest lignite industries were located until recently, affects the growth generated by energy and resource exploitation for all the other peripheries, according to our findings. The novelty of the present work stands on the concept to detect interlinkages of energy and resources-based growth for the peripheries in Greece with the assistance of the Bayesian Var. The results of the present work are significant, since our findings suggest to policy makers tools to promote economic growth generated by energy based on alternative energy sources, including the environmentally friendly ones, by taking into consideration the interlinkages established by the existing infrastructure and the conventional energy sources used.
The escalating global demand for goods transport via shipping has heightened energy consumption, impacting worldwide health and the environment. To mitigate this, international organizations aim to ...achieve complete fuel desulphurization and decarbonization by 50% by 2050. Investigating eco-friendly fuels is crucial, particularly those with a reduced carbon and zero sulfur content. Methanol derived mainly from renewable sources and produced by carbon dioxide’s hydrogenation method, stands out as an effective solution for GHG reduction. Leveraging its favorable properties, global scalability, and compatibility with the existing infrastructure, especially LNGs, methanol proves to be a cost-efficient and minimally disruptive alternative. This review explores methanol’s role as a hybrid maritime fuel, emphasizing its ecological production methods, advantages, and challenges in the shipping industry’s green transition. It discusses the environmental impacts of methanol use and analyzes economic factors, positioning methanol not only as an eco-friendly option, but also as a financially prudent choice for global shipping. Methanol is efficient and cost-effective and excels over MGO, especially in new ships. It is economically advantageous, with decreasing investment costs compared to LNG, while providing flexibility without specialized pressure tanks. Global marine fuel trends prioritize fuel traits, accessibility, and environmental considerations, incorporating factors like policies, emissions, bunkering, and engine adaptability during transitions.
The compatibility of shipping with environmental protection is a subject that the international community is becoming increasingly concerned about, considering the threat of climate change. The ...current study aims to assess the worldwide shipping sector’s eco-efficiency performance for the first time using the Dynamic Slack-Based assess non-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis methodology, while the visualization of the results has been made with the geographic information system of ArcGIS. The findings show that the most vibrant shipping sectors in the world, such as the Marshall Islands, present the lowest eco-efficiency levels due to the nations’ roles as tax havens for shipowners. Furthermore, traditional maritime economies such as the Chinese one show a great growth in the eco-efficiency score due to the strategies of the shipping companies that are headquartered in the region to invest and adopt Environmental, Social, and Governance principles, which help them to achieve high scores in eco-efficiency. Finally, nations with small fleets have the greatest eco-efficiency score, as local governments have engaged in sustainable activities and initiatives over the previous four to five years to enable their marine industry to thrive and dominate the market.
A green balanced scorecard allows businesses to monitor their environmental progress and energy use, as well as quantify their achievements toward decreasing their ecological footprint. The scope of ...the current research is twofold: (i) to highlight the new sustainable profile of the Balanced Scorecard; and (ii) to investigate the contribution of the Sustainable Balanced Scorecard to the achievement of the energy efficiency and environmental goals of businesses. The present research study applies the rigorous bibliometric analysis technique and the PRISMA method for the years 2011–2023 to investigate the most popular research sources and documents, where the most frequently used keywords and research trends are utilized to answer the research question. In addition, findings from the network, content, and cluster analyses were visualized with the use of the bibliometric tools of Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. The results of the study indicate that businesses have made it a priority to build an energy-efficient management system based on the Sustainable Balanced Scorecard, which will help them achieve their organization’s environmental strategic goals. Moreover, a new era in the Sustainable Balanced Scorecard, that of the Contact Balanced Scorecard, has started emerging in the field. This article explains how the Sustainable Balanced Scorecard benefits organizations by enabling them to enhance their performance on both the economic and social fronts as well as the environmental front. Finally, by employing strategic evaluation methods like the Sustainable Balanced Scorecard to analyze organizations’ sustainability performance, the present study effort supports the sustainable growth of enterprises.
AbstractThe Teaching and Research Staff (TRS) of Greek universities consists of lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors and full professors (or simply professors). In addition to their ...special role as public officials, they constitute a group of employees with specific intellectual qualifications, special skills and a scientific background. Therefore, they are not part of the national single salary and ranking system for public servants; instead, they are paid through a specific and specialized salary table.In recent years, due to the financial crisis, their salaries were reduced, while at the same time, there was an increase in taxes and contributions. These changes had a serious negative impact on their salaries. That situation led to the following questions: Which fiscal policies were employed by public management during crisis? What were the measures of the government policy aimed at ameliorating the consequences of the financial crisis? And how much was the reduction in the salaries of the TRS of Greek universities?We conducted a comprehensive search of both the literature and primary sources to answer these questions by presenting a thorough analysis of the current payroll status and changes over the years for the TRS at the University of Western Macedonia during the economic crisis.
The technological developments in the social economy have significant implications for social banks and are optimistically changing the way social retail banks conduct their business. Social banks ...can invest in social services for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SSMEs) either to acquire a strategic advantage or out of strategic necessity. With the assistance of a mathematical model, this study tries to identify SME service channels and assess potential impacts on social deposit banks’ performance. In the first stage, the proposed model estimates the predictive capacity of interpretive accounting variables (financial ratios) versus the interpreted accounting variable (future quarterly earnings before taxes (EBT)). Then, in the second stage, the SSME service channels were added to the earnings before tax model in terms of profitability measure, which informs corporate earnings before operating the business to account for the income tax attributed to it for the purpose of estimating their impact on the performance of social banks. According to our findings, the banks are investing in SME services just to validate their investments in SME services as a strategic necessity. SSMEs services do not provide any strategic advantage to any banks in terms of financial or accounting performance or efficiency since the banks are already efficient. Investing in SMEs is a tool for preserving their strategic positions. Therefore, the contribution of this study is focused on the fact that it highlights the impact of financing the social deposit banking industry on institutions, while most studies analyze the vice versa interaction.
Wagner Law and Keynesian approaches are the two fundamental theories of public finance. The aim of this study is to assess empirical evidence for the public spending–national income relationship at a ...disaggregated level for the time period 1995–2019. The sectoral public expenditures include education, health, and defense. The data employed were derived by EUROSTAT and OECD. Based on our findings, a sole relationship of the variables was validated, while the causality of the relationship provides conflict results depending on whether two-variate or multivariate methodology is employed. In the case of the multivariate framework that outperforms the two-variate approach in terms of information, the causality is directed from government expenses to the GDP level, validating the Keynesian approach in the long run as well as in the short run. On the other hand, the results validate Wagner Law based on the results of Granger causality pairwise test. A potential interpreatation for the results found is related to the measures imposed by the Memorandum, since the disproportionate cuts of the public expenses in the period of crisis have determined the evolution of national income. The scientific value of the presents study stands on the suggestion of potential effective measures aiming at the limitation of national income shrinkage in periods of severe economic crises worldwide.
The economic crisis in the EU had severe impacts not only on the performance of the domestic economy but also on the living standard for the citizens. The extended spread of this crisis resulted in ...limitation in the disposable income and significant negative changes have taken place with negative consequences for the corporate economic performance and competitiveness (de Jorge Moreno, Castillo, & de Zuani Masere, 2010). Within the dominance of certain conditions of economic crisis, there are a few firms that act as lighting exceptions. The present work makes an effort, to unveil the role of selected supermarket retail chain stores in the performance of certain macroeconomic parameters and therefore to illustrate the mechanism through which the restoration of the economy in Greece becomes feasible. More specifically, based on data derived by Eurostat and Greek National Statistics with the assistance of the findings of present analysis that validate a significant contribution of the firms studied to macroeconomic parameters such as national income or employment it may provide policymakers with knowledge tools to promote corporate efforts of this type and in sequence to lead the macroeconomic system in a trajectory of economic growth.
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