Eco-efficiency links economic efficiency with environmental efficiency. The main purpose of the concept is to identify and implement activities to enable production that is both economically more ...efficient and cleaner. This means that parameters with a high indicative value have to be used.
Since both the environmental and the economic performance of industries must be described concurrently, environmental intensity appears to be a good indicator of eco-efficiency. Environmental intensity is environmental impact per unit of economic performance. In this paper, the environmental impact of industry classes is derived from emission data, released by the European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER), and then aggregated and assessed using Eco-Indicator 99, a single-score life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method. The calculated ratio is thus an accurate description of the environmental–economic state of industry classes. The main advantage of this approach is the underlying consistent statistical framework, that permits, on a disaggregated level, economic data to be correlated with ecological data and to be frequently updated.
This single indicator facilitates a comparison of environmental intensity of different industry classes. The paper shows that it is possible to deduce a disaggregated eco-efficiency indicator, which is exemplified using German data, however could be analysed for different European countries.
In its simplest form, morality refers to the value judgments that we define as "good" or "right" in human relations. Here, questions arise such as "what is understood from good? what is the ...criteria?, and what is good for whom?". Basically, morality has formed the basis of value judgments in almost all religions. Being moral is a phenomenon that should also be present in economic thought as it is present in every place in life. The conditions of free competition essentially provide the necessary situations for being moral in economics but it is not possible to ensure morality in terms of production and distribution under monopolistic structures. Taking these into concern, this review article attempts to prove that economics and morality are not independent from each other and both of them complete each other by means of fundamental principles in economy; and thus, provide suggestions.
Cities are key to climate change mitigation and adaptation in an increasingly urbanized world. As climate, socio-economic, and physical compositions of cities are constantly changing, these need to ...be considered in their urban climate adaptation. To identify these changes, urban systems can be characterized by physical, functional, and social indicators. Multi-dimensional approaches are needed to capture changes of city form and function, including patterns of mobility, land use, land cover, economic activities, and human behaviour. In this article, we examine how urban structure types provide one way to differentiate cities in general and to what extent socio-economic criteria have been considered regarding the characterization of urban typologies. In addition, we analyse how urban structure types are used in local adaptation strategies and plans to derive recommendations and concrete targets for climate adaptation. To do this, we examine indicators, background data used, and cartographic information developed for and within such urban adaptation plans, focusing in particular on the German cities of Karlsruhe and Berlin. The comparative analysis provides new insights into how present adaptation plans consider physical and social structures, including issues of human vulnerability within cities. Based on the analysis we make recommendations on how to improve the consideration of both physical and socio-economic aspects of a city to support pathways for adaptation.
Political economy developed from profound transformations in economic and political life. The economic sphere extended from the management of individual units, such as households or the royal
demesne
..., to a system defined as the collection of economic activities subject to sovereign authority, and characterized by widening webs of productive and social interdependencies across manifold units. In the political sphere, sovereign decisions came to be considered in the light of the material opportunities and constraints associated with productive interdependencies. Accordingly, the principle of economic life moved from the allocation principles of the household to system-level decision-making, guided by the correspondence between means and polity-level objectives and understood in the light of the material and social interdependences in the polity. The paper maintains that the relationship between economic structures and objectives at the systemic level should become again a central object of political economy. It goes on to argue that the development of structural economic analysis since the 20th century provides powerful analytical tools to investigate: (i) the systemic objectives that polities could pursue given their economic structure; (ii) the social aggregates that could form out of those which economic structure makes possible, and the particular objectives they could construe and pursue; and (iii) the constraints that economic structure imposes on the pursuit of all objectives, be they systemic or particular.
The paper describes actual problem of socio-economic inequality between the East and West of Germany. We examine the analysis of sociological differences between parts of the country in terms of the ...results of German unity policies, the introduction of coronavirus restrictions, technological equipment and economic potential. All those issues are considered with key works of German literature of recent years on understanding the contradiction «East-West». It is determined that the ongoing intellectual attempts have not overcome the split in the country. Additionally, we examine the federal government’s concept of a «new look to the East» was explored. The results show that as an independent region, for which the western part of the country does not serve as an indisputable reference point. Most likely, in fact, this approach has shifted the focus from the traditionally important internal chronic shortages of new lands in economic power, labor, infrastructure and technology. This problem is particularly relevant in connection with the lack of representation of people from East Germany in key positions in many areas of society and politics. This explains why its that these issues will be considered in a special concept of the federal government, adopted at the beginning of 2023. The second part of the state's efforts is related to changes in approaches to the implementation of regional policy in the country and financing of measures to improve the economic structures of the regions. The author concludes that they are synchronized with the tasks of ensuring energy security and accelerating the transformation at oil refineries and ports in eastern Germany after the cessation of oil and gas supplies from Russia. In this regard, we consider that the continuation of the polycrisis in the country makes a decisive contribution to the growing disillusionment of East Germans in politics. On the example of this analyses, we obtained that they do not reject democracy as such, but are much more critical of political actions than the population of the western part of Germany.
Strangers No Moreis the first book to compare immigrant integration across key Western countries. Focusing on low-status newcomers and their children, it examines how they are making their way in ...four critical European countries-France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands-and, across the Atlantic, in the United States and Canada. This systematic, data-rich comparison reveals their progress and the barriers they face in an array of institutions-from labor markets and neighborhoods to educational and political systems-and considers the controversial questions of religion, race, identity, and intermarriage.
Richard Alba and Nancy Foner shed new light on questions at the heart of concerns about immigration. They analyze why immigrant religion is a more significant divide in Western Europe than in the United States, where race is a more severe obstacle. They look at why, despite fears in Europe about the rise of immigrant ghettoes, residential segregation is much less of a problem for immigrant minorities there than in the United States. They explore why everywhere, growing economic inequality and the proliferation of precarious, low-wage jobs pose dilemmas for the second generation. They also evaluate perspectives often proposed to explain the success of immigrant integration in certain countries, including nationally specific models, the political economy, and the histories of Canada and the United States as settler societies.
Strangers No Moredelves into issues of pivotal importance for the present and future of Western societies, where immigrants and their children form ever-larger shares of the population.
Resilience is essential to better withstand adverse shocks and reduce the economic costs associated with them. We link resilience to the quality of countries’ economic structures. The paper finds ...robust evidence that sound labour and product markets and conditions for doing business increase the resilience towards adverse shocks and reduce the incidence of crises more generally. In the presence of a common shock, a country with weak economic structures can on average suffer up to twice the output loss in a given year compared to a more adaptable economy. From a policy perspective, this implies the need to push forward structural policies in countries with lower quality economic structures to increase resilience in case of future shocks. We also suggest how a monitoring process towards more resilient economic structures could look like.
The article discusses the applicability of the robotization of business processes in the banking sector, justification, development and practical use, the key benefits.
•If not corrected for, SPEs distort the estimation of the determinants of FDI.•Given the increasing relevance of SPEs, it is important to get the data right.•The quality of institutions also matters ...for attracting FDI in advanced economies.
In this paper we empirically investigate the drivers of genuine FDI inflows in advanced economies for the period 1985–2018. Our contribution to the existing literature is two-fold. First, we use newly available data of genuine FDI flows analysing the role of statistical artefacts, such as special purpose entities and financial round-tripping in headline FDI data. Second, we augment the traditional analysis on the drivers of FDI inflows in advanced economies by considering a range of potential factors which are under the policy makers’ control, i.e. measures that proxy for a country's quality of economic structures. Our results show that it is important to get the data right. In particular, more recently, total FDI data became increasingly distorted thus prompting misspecifications if not cleaned beforehand. Moreover, we suggest that there is a significant empirical relation between the quality of a host country's economic structures and FDI inflows. Our findings are robust to various economic specifications.
PDF
