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Due to the dramatic spread of information and communication technologies tools increased by the forced lockdown, the digital transition of all economic sectors has become a prime concern for all European countries. Not only that having digital skills and competences was a question that swiftly turned into a priority, but also developing a well-equipped smart infrastructure capable of reducing the digital exclusion of socially disadvantaged groups. Taking into consideration the profound impact of digital technologies on the educational environment, the main objective of this paper is investigating the digital transformation of the Romanian pre-university system after a decade paved with numerous regulatory changes, a global pandemic crisis, and a refugee crisis generated by the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine up to the Romanian borders. At the same time, the paper highlights a comparative overview of key indicators for the education sector of Romania, Bulgaria and the Republic of Moldova. In order to create resilient education systems, all European countries must urgently adopt and implement sustainable standards that place digital education on top of their priorities. Therefore, regulators and policymakers must focus on their key role in translating the European Commission\’s ambitions for the digital compass 2030 in concrete measures. The research is based on both qualitative and quantitative methods that study the positive impact of ICT on education, but also the challenges that need to be repressed in an effort to reduce the digital exclusion. With the sudden conversion of didactic activities into the digital universe, the negative repercussions of e-learning affected primarily the teachers and students in rural areas with poor/ no access to Internet, but also digitally unequipped. The findings of this research show positive premises for the Romanian educational pre-university system to recover the digital gap in relation to the best education systems in Europe.

Digital technologies and digitalization represent a growing trend across countries in Europe, especially for developed economies and markets. Today, it is commonly acknowledged that an important factor for the SMEs’ competitiveness, growth, and success, is the implementation of digital innovation and new tools. The varied and multidimensional reasons that either help or prevent SMEs from adopting digital tools and innovation, nevertheless, are numerous, and the ability of SMEs in Europe to obtain digital advancement and innovation is examined in this paper in relation to the influence of external factors such as governmental policies. By analysing different governmental policies among the EU, the aim of this paper is to establish a connection between various regulations and the innovation performance of Romanian SMEs.

The aim of this paper is to examine the existence and persistence across various portfolios of stocks of the January effect, a market anomaly suggesting that security prices exhibit distortions in the first month of every year compared to the rest of the year. The existing empirical studies on the January effect in contemporary financial markets, particularly in recent years, are somewhat limited. To provide a comprehensive overview, this paper utilizes data encompassing all American stocks listed on NASDAQ, AMEX, and NYSE from 1980s to 2023. The selection of the American stock market as the sample is based on its complexity and substantial trading activity. This investigation delves into the anomaly by assessing its impact on stock portfolios categorized by size, book-to-market ratio, and dividend yield. Additionally, the paper scrutinizes cross-sectional variations within the portfolios to uncover potential patterns explaining this anomaly, by looking at the corresponding quintile distribution. The data undergoes regression analysis using dummy Ordinary Least Squares. The results of the analysis reveal that the anomaly affects only a subset of stocks that share common characteristics: small capitalization, high book-to-market value and the ones that did not yield investors any dividends. The results are in line with previous findings in literature, particularly those of Ross (1983) and Reinganum (1983), suggesting evidence in favour of the window dressing hypothesis and the tax-loss selling hypothesis.

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on select Asian countries and the cointegration between the countries with high covid recovery rates and the countries with the least recovery rate. For this purpose, the daily closing values of ten Asian countries were taken from July 2018 to June 30, 2022. For this purpose, the paper employed Unit-root, Correlation analysis, Autoregressive Distributed Lag bound test, and Granger’s Causality. The result implies that as an effect of Covid-19, all the markets were found to be strongly and positively correlated with each other. The results of the ARDL bound test depict that cointegration between the markets has significantly increased. Further, the pandemic has accelerated the bidirectional causality between the indices; hence, the markets affect each other even in the short run. The study results will help investors diversify their securities and hedge against adverse shocks like this pandemic.

The regulation of lobbying is a topic of increasing debate in many European countries, not just those in the West. The significance of lobbying regulation is its capacity to promote dialogue between government officials and stakeholders, while also promoting transparency, accountability, and integrity in decision-making processes in democratic societies. Enacting lobbying laws, which require lobbyists to register, disclose their activities, expenditures, clients, and interactions with government officials, is necessary to ensure the legitimacy of the lobbying process. Both ethical and legal dimensions are integral to this process, and the paper takes a two-fold approach by examining the legislative framework for lobbying regulation in Romania within the context of the European Union, while also considering the ethical perspective. The ethical and legal dimensions of lobbying are interconnected, and both are vital in guaranteeing the legitimacy and integrity of the lobbying process. The research argument is supported by a theoretical background through the utilization of qualitative research in the paper.

This research paper endeavours to underscore the genuine context of globalization through an examination of its ideological implementation, chronological progression, and, last but not least, its potential to serve as a convergence of multiple perspectives. From the standpoint of critical thinking, every benefit will be emphasized, while the necessity for a fresh approach to progress will be underscored by highlighting every drawback that has resulted from globalization as a process or paradigm. In conclusion, this paper will discuss the insights that globalization provides regarding the empowerment of developed economies and the development of emergent economies, including cooperation and rising living standards.

In this paper, we reexamine the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Nigeria using annual data over the period 1960-2020. we employ the novel frequency domain causality test based on Granger and Toda-Yamamoto causality tests to identify the direction of the causality in the short (temporary), medium (intermediate) and long-run (permanent). To this end, first, the paper takes advantage of the principal component analysis (PCA) to construct a financial development index using three standard ratios introduced in the literature to measure financial development, namely the broad money stock, the domestic credit to private sector, and the domestic credit to private sector by banks, all expressed as a percentage of GDP. Then economic growth is captured by real GDP per capita. The empirical results suggest a unidirectional permanent causal relationship running from economic growth to financial development.

The most topical twenty years ago in the 20th century; there has been a development of accounting research in rising economies. Research in management accounting takes very diverse academic perspectives; this may be embedded in a mass of compound factors, including the increasing pressures of globalization, technological advancements, and the business volumes of enterprises that have enlarged and developed significantly. Moreover, this paper gives further exact proof of the utilization of managerial accounting techniques. Specifically, it provides a focused analysis of management accounting research published in recent years. The core intention of this paper is to present an overview of some of the recent management accounting literature. With respect to the use of managerial accounting in Middle East nations in the case of Jordan and compared to Romania.

The paper examines how digitalization has significantly impacted contemporary businesses. The incorporation of digital technologies has transformed conventional business models in an era of quick technological progress. This transformation covers a range of topics, including improving operational effectiveness, extending market reach, and promoting innovation. The paper starts off by defining digitalization and tracing its history to show how it has evolved into a crucial component of modern business strategy. It emphasizes how important digitalization has been in reshaping conventional business models, with subscription-based business models and e-commerce serving as prime examples of its disruptive potential. With a focus on how automation and data-driven decision-making optimize business operations, efficiency emerges as a key theme. The importance of personalization, global market expansion, and digital marketing as tools for sustainable growth is emphasized in the paper. The paper also explores how agile development and collaborative ecosystems can promote innovation while acknowledging the difficulties and factors related to data security and the digital divide. The paper concludes by highlighting the transformative power of digitalization in forming contemporary business landscapes and highlighting its potential to boost innovation, scalability, and efficiency while navigating difficulties to promote sustainable development.

The paper analyses the impact of globalization on the labour market, with a specific focus on wage inequality and job displacement. Globalization increases competitiveness, which breeds income inequality and job relocation. Technological change has resulted in a widespread shift in labour demand, favouring skilled workers at the expense of less skilled ones. Around the world, significant numbers of jobs have been eliminated due to cyclical downturns as well as structural changes brought on by changes in consumer demand, trade patterns, technology change, etc. Loss of employment has a detrimental effect on morality, consumption and health. Understanding the advantages and downsides of prospective public policy responses in the context of these consequences is essential. The paper also addresses potential strategies to deal with the challenges it brings. By throwing light on these concerns, the study aims to enhance a better understanding of the effects of globalization on the labour market and provide information for policy discussions aimed at creating a more equitable and sustainable future for workers.

Our paper investigates the explosive nature of cryptocurrency prices in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we use the daily prices of six major cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin (BTC), Dash (DASH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Nem (NEM), and Ripple (XRP), ranging from 07.08.2015 to 16.12.2020. We employ univariate and panel GSADF recursive unit root tests for analytical purposes. Our results identify multiple periods of explosive price movements in the individual cryptocurrencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, we find synchronised explosive behaviour in the prices of cryptocurrencies during the pandemic period. Our results indicate the possibility of herding in the cryptocurrency market.

The proposed study is attempted to frame a theoretical framework for Rainfall Index Based Futures (RIBF) contracts. The study explains the evolution and present status of rainfall risk market in India. The paper contains the detailed theoretical framework for RIBF contracts. Along with this paper elucidate the contract specification to trade the RIBF contracts. The paper show the flow of hedging the rainfall risk of various stakeholders like farmers, insurance and reinsurance companies, banking and financial institution, construction, manufacturing and other who directly or indirectly affected by the rainfall. Eventually the study identify the why the RIBF contracts are not yet developed so for and what are the essential police, regulation required for the design and development of full-fledged rainfall index-based futures contracts in India.

In the context of globalization, some companies have developed beyond the perspectives of their borders, becoming multinational companies. This way of development confers multiple advantages that can generate efficiency, competitiveness and profit. The decisions on which companies base their choice of states take into account aspects such as economic growth or corporate tax rates. In the context where some countries have strong economies and represent promising markets but have a high level of taxation compared to other countries, multinational companies choose to access promising markets while using various methods of tax avoidance. The purpose of this paper is to determine the tax avoidance methods practiced by multinational companies in the European Union and their mode of operation. We hope that this research can provide a broad perspective on ways to avoid taxation when debating fiscal policies.

Most job reforms in terms of digitalisation stem from technology and information. The changes and developments that take place in this sector of activity subsequently determine what will be the changes in the labor market for all bald areas of activity (Aleksynska et al., 2019). Thus, there can be no discussion about the digitalisation of agriculture itself as an individual sector, nor about other isolated areas. Digitalization takes place among employees, the workforce and acts in the direction of changing the job description of a particular profession (De Stefano et al., 2018). Digitalisation does not depend only on the way of automation and technology of technical processes (Asmer et al., 2022). It also largely depends on the ability of individuals to adapt and educate themselves digitally (Veselko and Gaurav, 2021). In this way, jobs do not change only as a structure, but are modernized and make way for the emergence of new jobs, new specializations that require training from several fields of activity or a greater deepening of a certain field (Graham et al., 2017). The statement is valid for all fields of activity, starting from the financial sector of activity where the activity is aimed at processing large databases, to activities specific to the humanities, sociological field (Horton et al., 2017). This paper is concerted on the interpretation of those elements that alter a certain structure of the labor market, as well as the way in which these changes propagate.

The digitalization revolution has been noticed in recent years in the global economy, as a possible solution to contemporary challenges. The accounting professional is an important part of technological progress, not only in the sense of beneficiary and user but also a decisive factor in the methods adopted and applied in the evolution of the profession. The present paper proposes an analysis of the trends in the digital economy, with an emphasis on the accounting and auditing profession, to what extent accounting firms use cloud or non-cloud. The analysis carried out indicates that there is an increased interest in the field of digitalization of accounting and audit, and the researchers turned their attention in several directions. After the review, the results show that the most researched sub-area of digitalization is given by big data and data analysis, but especially how accountants need to be prepared to meet the needs of clients. Moreover, cloud computing, blockchain, digital reporting and process automation through robots are other sub-areas of interest. However, research in the field of digitalization of accounting and auditing is at an early stage and needs further development.

Digitalization, the main driver for the current economic paradigm helped the business environment to gain more sustainability by developing business models based on the implementation of the latest digital technologies in their activities, gaining more economic growth by being more efficient in their approaches; and by transforming the analogue paper-based procedures into digitalized procedures by using the IT technology, the waste of resources has been decreased significantly. But is that completely true?

In addition to the negative effects generated by the pandemic period, nowadays, the digital and ecological transition exerts additional pressure on the economy and society, especially on the labor market. Digital transformation is changing people\’s live, offering new opportunities to increase productivity and to improve the well-being of the citizens. To get the desired results, the EU\’s policies and measures must put people at the center of the actions by ensuring an equitable transition. Gender equality is a key factor in promoting an inclusive and sustainable growth. The digital transformation provides new tools to increase the participation of women in the labor market and to close the gender gap. In this context, the main objective of this paper is to examine the evolution of gender disparities between Member States and to show how Europe\’s digital decade can contribute to remarkable progress towards gender convergence by improving the labor market conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic had profound effects on several industries. In this background paper, we attempted to justify how much this anomaly conducted to the increase of socio-economic inequality at the European level. The research takes into account 27 European countries simultaneously with 9 indicators that were the basis for the creation of the unequaled indicator. The composite index was calculated adopting the approach of the researcher A.A. Davidescu (Davidescu, 2017, pp. 227-240). Regarding the statistical methods and techniques used, we can mention: descriptive statistics, principal components analysis, cluster analysis, self-organizing maps and forecasts. The results determined a moderately increase in socio-economic disparities throughout Europe.

Ideally, the education and training system offered by the private or public environment offer high flexibility in the labor market. However, forecasts of skills needed in the labor market in the future are not complementary to the current system, but rather substitutable in several respects (Akyazi et al., 2022). Although digitalization is seen as a singular process, separate from other sectors of activity, this process is not a uniform one in all economic sectors. There are people whose occupations place them in the high-risk category of people with a high probability of losing your job as a result of the digitalization process (Bhatnagar and Grosse, 2019). Thus, this paper focuses not on the individual side of the digitization process, but analyses the competitiveness of different scenarios within different sectors of activity (Heyman et al., 2021). Prior to a thorough research to determine which tasks and skills are most likely to take a certain category of labour out of the market, it is necessary to determine which areas are most likely to be affected by digitalisation in the near future, as well as what are the effects of people working in that field (Bhatnagar and Grosse, 2019). Digitalization can be seen either as an exogenous phenomenon for industries, which is why we must focus on changes specific to a certain segment, an approach specific to economic interests related to profitability (Peña-Casas et al., 2022). At the same time, it can be focused on the way of influencing a profession in particular, a specific approach to the social, human and professional side, a vision specific to social policies and humanistic orientations (Lilja, 2020).

Over time, technology continued to evolve, creating a favorable environment for the development of digitalization. In crisis situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it has served as a bridge between consumers and businesses. This paper aims to study how consumer behavior has been influenced in the pandemic through the use of different digital tools. It also highlights the uncertainty that has arisen in the context of the pandemic and how this has led to limited consumer rationality. Using data from specialized institutions, the impact of digitalization on Romanian consumer behavior in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic was analyzed. At the same time, within this study, correlations were made to better understand the results.