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The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event that has shocked economies worldwide, propelling large-scale adaptation of expansionary policies. This paper examines how, specifically in the scope of developed countries, key economic indicators such as tax revenue and burden, labor force participation rate, and federal budget have been impacted by the pandemic. The specific nations examined in the paper include the United States of America (USA), Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom (UK). The article reveals that tax revenue had fallen at a rate similar to the GDP, and a redistribution of the tax burden has also occurred to some extent. Simultaneously, a fall in the labor force participation rate and increased government deficit were observed. This observation is primarily consistent across all five countries sampled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DEMATEL technique is a useful tool for understanding the influential relationship between criteria of a systematic problematique in structural modeling, and has received much attention in the field of decision analysis recently. However, the past papers focused on the applications of DEMATEL technique and ignored the convergence problem of the approach. In addition, two simple indicators, i.e., in-degree and out-degree centralities, used in DEMATEL technique cannot fully represent the insight of the network relationship. In this paper, we propose a general DEMATEL technique which incorporated the concept based on interaction diminishing effect. The traditional DEMATEL technique can be considered as a special case of the proposed method when we ignore the effect. Later, we give six important indicators which can be used in DEMATEL technique to conclude the relative importance of criteria. In addition, a numerical example is used to demonstrate the proposed method and the applications of the indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia's higher education sector has a substantial number and diverse types of public and private providers, which have contributed toward improving access. Over time, with improved access, there are increasing policy efforts directed toward improving the quality of higher education to meet the desired human capital needed for advancing economic development. This paper assesses three key areas that have been undertaken to improve the quality of higher education, their measurements, achievements, outstanding challenges, and ensuing implications on future policy directions. The key performance indicators used for monitoring quality improvements show that some targets have been achieved. A review of the approach used to measure performance and a consolidation of the sector are needed for further quality improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences is the property of University of Sharjah - Scientific Publishing Unit and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discusses the experiences resulting from EU's adoption and implementation of a wide variety of policy measures in response to the COVID-19 crisis. These measures included stimulating the relocation and expansion of manufacturing to reduce vulnerability, depending on imports, ensuring the stability and development of industrial production. Using the example of the pharmaceutical industry in EU27 in the years 1995-2018, the study proposes and tests a new approach to assessing the consequences of relocation policies aimed at developing the local production potential, increasing the value added by activity, and expanding the share of local value added in industry exports. Specifically, the focus is on the formation of statistical analysis tools for assessing the changes of the specialisation and identifying the country's comparative advantages. The authors propose new indicators: RSP - coefficient of Revealed Specialisation of Production, CAVA - coefficient of Comparative Advantage in Value Added by Activity and EVA - coefficient of Comparative Advantages in the Domestic Value Added Exports. Additionally, formulas for their calculation are provided which allow the assessment of the position of Ukraine's industries among a reference group, widening the 'revealed comparative advantage' concept. Finally, a test of the new methodology showed that it can be used to identify the comparative advantages of EU member states supported by state assistance programmes involving the implementation of business projects which aim to develop domestic production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart homes often face security problems caused by internal or external factors that can bring different problems both in terms of IoT components and at the overall level. In the paper, a prototype is defined to analyze several indicators to measure the extent to which the residents' requirements are met. At the level of scientific literature, the analysis is done from the overall point of view, the interest here being for the IoT components taken individually to see the impact in the daily life of the people who live in that house. The problem of the interdependence of the indicators and how they are managed individually both manually and by remote control is a point of interest in the analysis carried out, here both the technical part and the business part and adaptation to the requirements and the trend of the future come into discussion. Based on the current situation and trends, some guiding steps were identified regarding the appropriate use of the analyzed indicators. The security of the smart home can suffer changes if a new element is inadequately integrated into the system circuit, affecting both the other sensors, but also allowing attacks on the personal space of the people who live inside or who have sensitive data that can be accessed once with access to the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic growth in transition economies has been disappointing in the past 25 years. Transition economies failed to catch up with the EU member States in total factor productivity, and is growing slower than the EU economy. This calls for new policies to enhance competitiveness and economic growth. Implementation of effective policies that enhance competitiveness of transition economies requires a clear understanding of the concept of competitiveness. This paper deals with Total Factor Productivity (TFP) model that measures the ability of transition economies to compete in the international market. The growth of TFP are estimated using data from key sectors of selected post-transition and transition economies during 2004-2014. Competitiveness indicators can contribute to the identification of criteria between countries if the competitiveness analysis is reliable. The aim of this paper is to calculate competitiveness indicators for the current level of competitiveness of the transition economies. Also, paper aims to resolve the mystery of competitiveness indicators to enhance their usefulness for the evaluation of country performance and for policy conclusions. Competitiveness assessment is a way to use uniform evaluation criteria to gauge the extent to which a transition economy makes use of different ingots to promote sustained improvements in its prosperity. Indicators of competitiveness were drawn upon both the actual literature on competitiveness as well as modern economic theory. By bringing to bear all the existing data on transition economies, together with new survey data collected for the researching purpose, we are able to go beyond the simple ranking of countries to disassemble the sources of competitiveness into their constituent parts. This allows policy/decision makers to identify areas where transition economies are falling behind relative to other post-transition economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comparative analysis of results of estimating specific efficacy that characterizes the amount of gross regional product depending on expenditure on technological innovations, the fixed capital and the average annual number of persons employed. This approach includes comparison of actual data with normative values calculated for three types of models: linear, logarithmic, and power multiplicative. The particular performance indicator is determined as a relation between actual and normative values for the Russian Federation's Central District's regions. The investigation's information base was statistical data on the regions of the RF CFD for 2007-2016. The issues under discussion are differences in results of evaluation obtained in using the first, second and third type models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology is used in this study for a comparison of the dynamic efficiency of European countries over the last decade. Moreover, efficiency analysis is used to determine where resources are distributed efficiently and/or were used efficiently/inefficiently under factors of competitiveness extracted from factor analysis. DEA measures numerical grades of the efficiency of economic processes within evaluated countries and, therefore, it becomes a suitable tool for setting an efficient/inefficient position of each country. Most importantly, the DEA technique is applied to all (28) European Union (EU) countries to evaluate their technical and technological efficiency within the selected factors of competitiveness based on country competitiveness index in the 2000-2017 reference period. The main aim of the paper is to measure efficiency changes over the reference period and to analyze the level of productivity in individual countries based on the Malmquist productivity index (MPI). Empirical results confirm significant disparities among European countries and selected periods 2000-2007, 2008-2011, and 2012-2017. Finally, the study offers a comprehensive comparison and discussion of results obtained by MPI that indicate the EU countries in which policy-making authorities should aim to stimulate national development and provide more quality of life to the EU citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on quality of life of inhabitants in Slovak countryside as well as conditions for development of municipalities on possibilities of drawing European funds and the performance of Local Action Groups. Its main objective is to evaluate the effect of the Slovak Rural Development Programme 2007-2013 measures on increasing the quality of life in a selected region and to compare results in municipalities that were part of a public-private partnership and those they did not participate. The paper mainly deals with quality of life indicators defined in the field of employment and quality of employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major problems facing the Macedonian economy is competitiveness. Creating a competitive economy is highly prioritized aim of the Government, which includes active engagement of many institutions. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to assess the condition and the level of competitiveness in the economy using different methodologies, indexes and indicators, and to demonstrate the prospects and ways for its improvement. In this paper the results indicate the improvement of the condition of the Macedonian economy competitiveness, but at the same time point out the need for its further strengthening. For this purpose, the country needs to take a number of measures and some of them are highlighted in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South American countries have historically been characterized by weak democratic regimes, high levels of corruption and abuse of power, and generally low social and economic development. Nevertheless, citizens' increasing demand for better public services have impelled governments to improve countries' performance. The literature highlights a framework of interrelationships between governance, corruption and social-economic development indicators. Using these indicators, this paper analyses how South American countries have evolved and how they compare to each other, regarding their performance in the past two decades. Applying multivariate statistical techniques, the research revealed important differences between countries, clustering together those with similar behavior trends and evidencing the best performers. This research contributes in applying a methodology to identify the best performers according to nine worldwide indicators. This identification is important because top performers may serve as benchmarks for neighboring countries, pushing towards overall performance improvements, hence strengthening citizens' confidence in their countries' governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Polish Journal of Management Studies is the property of Czestochowa University of Technology, Faculty of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper concentrates on the analysis of the impact of Business Incubator Centre on the economy development. The analysis has been done on the example of Hazelton Incubator Centre in Pennsylvania (United States). We conduct our analysis using various indicators divided into four groups: social indicators, procedural indicators, technical indicators and financial indicators. On the basis of those indicators we analyses functioning of this business incubator center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of fiscal rules as an instrument of fiscal sustainability is manifested, most of all, by imposing the requirements as regards borrowing and the costs of public debt service, and most research is conducted in this context. In this article, the Authors ask a different question altogether: does the right selection of calibration factors for fiscal rules with respect to debt, as applied at Visegrad Group's local government entities, have an impact on the fiscal discipline, on the one hand, and on the other, is it a factor contributing to sustainable socio-economic development of regions? A mixed method, one combining the results of qualitative and quantitative research, will be used to empirically verify the hypotheses related to the research problem presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the paper entitled The Analysis of the economic operators' matriculations in Romania and in Caraş-Severin County, in January 2011-2017, we proposed ourselves to highlight the trend of economic operators in the last seven years in Romania and in Caraş- Severin County. In this direction we defined the economic operator, the economic agents and the enterprise, we have mentioned the classification of companies according to the medium scriptic number of the staff annually and we processed the series of statistical data regarding the economic operators' matriculations. After the analysis we observed that most of economic operators are commercial firms with limited liability and authorised natural persons who develop the activity in the field of services, constructions, agriculture and industry. Regarding the average indicators calculated, regarding the economic operators' matriculations, we have observed that the average value of the series and an average positive coefficient of the dynamics and an average growth and an average negative rhythm of the growth, which proves a major reduction of the matriculations in Caraş-Severin County and Romania. We supposed a series of causes which can be the basis of the matriculations decrease and we have elaborated some proposals regarding the matriculations increase of the economic operators in Caraş-Severin County and in Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030) have evoked optimism but have also been criticized for reproducing a universal template grounded in a western and neoliberal ideology. Identifying three strands of responses/critiques on the SDGs from a review of literature across several disciplines, I analyze what they have to say in the light of histories of past development work. I analyze how universalism is understood differently in different disciplinary approaches and how, despite its limitations, Agenda 2030 might provide a platform to meet current challenges across the world and a framework to talk across different geographies and disciplines. While a delinking from current development and global economic structures are needed for change, I explore how the SDGs can be used to redeploy development to change those very structures. I argue that decolonizing development calls for changing development structures from inside out as much as finding new ways of being outside it. • The Sustainable Development Goals have been criticized for promoting a universalist agenda underpinned by Global North and neoliberal interests. • The paper identifies three overarching critiques and approaches in relation to the SDGs with indicators at the heart of their differences. • Discussing the different approaches that universalism can take, the paper 'walks backwards into the future,' looking to development histories to identify how the tools, language and spaces of development may be used for emancipatory struggles for change. • It is argued that indicators, at the center of the debates on SDG universalism, rather than a final framework may be seen as 'fictional expectations' as well as 'contact zones' where different interests might meet and make way for challenging dominance of some, especially the global North. • A universal SDG agenda offers the possibility where local imaginaries may meet, collective imaginaries constructed and indicators used as tools for a conversation towards Agenda principles not as final but as sites for a needed debate on the future we want. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at providing a regional approach regarding VAT rate at E.U. level and its links with the level of economic development, using data from Eurostat for the 2004-2013 period. World-wide taxation levels reflect, in a certain measure, the economic state of a particular country. If the tax level within a country is higher, the living standards are also higher, whereas a low taxation level that incites economic growth, will eventually rise. The main indicators considered in the analysis presented in this paper, as most relevant to the subject at hand, are: taxes on income in conjunction with the level of the GDP, business demography, employee compensation, poverty thresholds, income distribution, employment rate and the number of newly founded enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous monitoring and diagnostics of key security indicators and all its components are of particular importance to ensure a high level of security development of countries/integration associations. Modern international rankings form the analytical basis for assessing the components of the security sector, allow for comparative analysis and identify the respective leadership positions of countries. The results of the monitoring contribute to an objective assessment and management of economic security risks at the relevant levels: regional (regional security complex), national (security of individual countries), micro-level, etc. Diagnosing the asymmetry of the EU countries' development will help to identify joint coordinated actions in specific areas and security components to improve the common European position in the global environment. Economic growth and sustainable development of the EU, strengthening the competitiveness of both European countries and the EU will contribute to the security development of all member states of the integration association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The statistical literacy for decision making represent one of the multiple functions for which this discipline exists and progresses. When decision makers think of a specified amount to spend to fight poverty, they first have to think about whether the program for which the money will be spent will reduce poverty in reality. Otherwise, it would be a waste of time and resources while poverty would remain the same. How do we find out if we achieved this goal? When policies aimed at certain support group / strata of population to strengthen their economic growth, increasing their prosperity, how can we judge whether they have succeeded? Economic aid is a social policy that the government applies to a certain stratum of the population below a certain level of poverty. How can we assess if this policy will be effective in helping the poor? By using theories already discovered and widely accepted, as well as official statistical data, this paper will attempt to help with the orientation of the use of statistics in decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marketing & Management of Innovations / Marketing ì Menedžment Ìnnovacìj is the property of Sumy State University, Department of Marketing & Management of Innovative Activity and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims at providing a regional approach regarding VAT rate at E.U. level and its links with the level of economic development, using data from Eurostat for the 2004-2013 period. World-wide taxation levels reflect, in a certain measure, the economic state of a particular country. If the tax level within a country is higher, the living standards are also higher, whereas a low taxation level that incites economic growth, will eventually rise. The main indicators considered in the analysis presented in this paper, as most relevant to the subject at hand, are: taxes on income in conjunction with the level of the GDP, business demography, employee compensation, poverty thresholds, income distribution, employment rate and the number of newly founded enterprises.

Research and development are important sources of economic growth and social welfare and play a key role in creating new knowledge, products and technological processes. In our paper we focused on the analysis and evaluation of research and innovation potential in the European Union countries in 2010 and 2015 using Data Envelopment Analysis. For the evaluation, seven indicators were selected, as starting point for the evaluation of research activities and the measurement of the innovation performance and of competitiveness of the individual countries. Input capital indicators were - R&D expenditure in the higher education sector and in the business enterprise sector as % of GDP. Input human labour indicators were total researchers (FTE), human resources in science and technology (HRST) as % of active population and employment in total service intensive sectors as % of total employment. Output indicators were the number of scientific publications and high-tech export as % of total export. On basis of DEA super-efficiency analyses results we can make following conclusions. The best group of five countries is characterized by efficient status in both analysed periods 2010 and 2015 (Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Croatia and United Kingdom). The second group contains two countries Germany and Italy. This countries improved status from inefficient in 2010 to efficient in 2015. In the third group are five countries that worsened their status from efficient in 2010 to inefficient one in 2015: Portugal, Malta, Poland, Luxembourg and Netherlands. In last fourth group are all other EU28 countries that were inefficient in both analysed periods 2010 and 2015. In group of V4 countries situation is not optimistic. Poland worsened its status from efficient in 2010 to inefficient one in 2015 and three remaining countries - Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia stagnated in inefficient status in both periods. On the opposite there was not significant difference in super-efficiencies in 2010 and in 2015 and in their differences between capitalist and post-socialist EU28 countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is devoted to the study of the problem of effective quality evaluation of the implementation of municipal target programs in the regions of the Russian Federation. The evaluation of target programs is a methodologically complex process that requires not only specific knowledge, but also well-formed tools (approaches for effectiveness assessment). The authors revealed that there is no all-purpose approach to assess the effectiveness of municipal target programs in municipalities of the Russian Federation. However, municipalities develop different criteria and scales to evaluate the effectiveness of different programs. It is determined that the assessment is mainly based on two indicators, namely, the social outcome and budget efficiency resulting from the assessment of achievement of the planned targets of indicators. The authors emphasize the importance to interconnect the indicators of target programs' implementation and strategic industrybased plans. The method of integral assessment of program effectiveness is developed to make it possible to evaluate the implementation of programs at each stage to compare the results with the planned ones and to record critical moments that affect the effectiveness of program implementation to use tools to eliminate or minimize the impact of the risk events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protection and sustainable management of water was indicated as one of the strategic tasks in the process of transformation towards a circular economy (CE) in the European Union (EU), therefore, the water and wastewater sector plays an important role in this process. At the same time, the European Commission (EC) strongly underlined the importance of the possibility to assess the transformation process toward the CE, and developed a set of CE indicators that are available on the Eurostat website. However, these indicators have limited ability to assess the transformation progress in the water and wastewater sector. This paper presents a set of indicators for assessing the economic progress of transformation towards the CE in this sector. The proposed economic CE indicators were grouped into the following actions of the CE model in the water and wastewater sector: reduction, reclamation (removal), reuse, recycling, recovery and landfilling. The selection of specific indicators was based on a systematic review of the literature presenting economic indicators developed by international organisations and researchers (covering different thematic areas, scopes and potential applications). The selected economic CE indicators were assigned to three groups of the cash flow: income (revenues, expenses), costs, and investment financing. The proposed CE indicators can be used by water supply and sewage companies (i.e., supplying water to the public and wastewater treatment plants, and companies that use water in their production processes) to assess the level of the transformation toward the CE at a microeconomic level. An important aspect of future application and usage of the proposed set of CE economic indicators is the collection and processing of data needed for their reporting. The proposed set of CE economic indicators refers to information that are reported by the companies to prove its revenues, costs and investment outlays, and are collected by companies anyway. The proposed set of economic CE indicators is flexible, allowing the adaptation of indicators and areas of interest to maintain effectiveness throughout the transition period from linear to the CE model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sustainable municipal solid waste management (MSWM) system is recognized by Agenda 21 as an opportunity for cities for creating decent jobs, raising incentives for responsible consumption, and protecting the natural environment. However, according to our experience for many stakeholders and decision-makers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the principles for sustainability defined by the Bruntland Commission are far too abstract. They are not readily applicable to establish a sustainable MSWM system. Even though Brazilian cities are strongly being influenced by concepts developed in high-income countries to search for strategic policies and long-term action plans for MSWM, many decisions-makers have not paid much attention to an overall sustainability approach so far. Against this backdrop, the present paper introduces the municipal solid waste diagram (MSWD) as a comprehensive framework for assessing the current state of a MSWM system against a future sustainable one. The normative foundation of MSWD is the Integrative Concept of Sustainability (ICoS), which contrasts the conventional approach of sustainability which typically characterizes a sustainable future along the three dimensions of economy, environment and society. ICoS points out crucial documents for sustainable development (e.g., Brundtland report and Agenda 21), and moreover, it does not neglect the potential of the capability approach. By this, the dynamic interrelationship between the abovementioned dimensions is taken into account. Another characteristic of the MSWD is the strong involvement of stakeholders, experts, and decision-makers during the construction and application of that instrument. Their central task was to certify the relevance, compatibility, flexibility of the chosen nine assessment criteria and the related 18 indicators on the ground of the ICoS. Any other study is known which looks for the dynamics of MSWM. The proposed approach helps to identify the constitute elements of MSWM clearly and to match to goals of sustainability without distinguishing and prioritizing any dimensionality. This approach clarifies the scientific background for sustainable development in the process of decision making regarding MSWM which is not done by conventional sustainability assessment methodologies. By the participation of the most relevant stakeholders of Belo Horizonte, the municipal solid waste diagram is verified. Belo Horizonte has currently obtained a level of development of about one third towards the goals of sustainability. The city had the best performance on securing human existence, in which the individual protection takes currently a high priority. The presented MSWD and thus the findings are specific to Belo Horizonte, but not the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finance has always been considered as one of the important parameter of the growth for any economic activity. The economic growth of a country can be enlarged by using financial inclusion as a bridge that would facilitate fuller participation by weaker sections of the country. Financial inclusion is a system through which a developing country like India can attain inclusive growth by connecting the contribution of weaker or rural population of the country with the main stream. If there is an easy access of weaker section to the financial system of the country, country can move towards higher economic growth. In the available literature, it has been found that one or the other indicator is absent for different reasons. However, since each of the indicator is important for calculating the more comprehensive financial inclusion index. The main objective of this paper is to introduce an index that allows for a general overview of India in terms of financial inclusion. The index is calculated using three dimensions related to the measurement of the levels of access and usage of financial services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the community indicator system used in Victoria, Australia, in which benefits associated with Community Indicators Victoria (CIV), factors driving the widespread use of community indicator systems over traditional economic measurement tools, and good practices on the three key stages of developing the CIV. Also mentioned is the concept behind community indicator systems.

The concept of innovation intermediaries has gained relevance in the innovation management literature due to the role they play in supporting innovation processes. This paper focuses on the concept of ‘trust builders’. These are defined as volunteers that cooperate with firms, facilitating their interaction with other stakeholders in developing innovation projects. The role of ‘trust builders’ is analyzed from the impact they have on the territory, promoting initiatives that influence and improve local competitiveness through joint activities. The research is based on a case study conducted in Durango County, Spain. It aims to explore the impact of trust builders’ activity in the increased willingness of cooperation and coopetition in the territory. Our results suggest that trust builders constitute an interesting mechanism to promote new products, processes, and technological and market opportunities through knowledge sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Currently, energy systems are not fully sustainable due to the heavy power demands provoked by high population and increasing level of the living standard and economic growth. Hence, it requires significant efforts to conserve the resources and ensure the sustainability in energy demand and in its management from a nation perspective. The Indian economy is growing at a good pace and there is an enormous demand for resources and energy in the country. In this regard, this paper aims to identify and prioritize the indicators to develop a decision-support framework for the sustainability assessment in energy planning and management in Indian context. To achieve it, this work proposes to use a two-phase research methodology. In first phase, a comprehensive literature review and expert’s inputs are used to identify the important five key dimensions of indicators and twenty-five indicators for assessing the sustainability in energy planning and management. In second phase, fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used for prioritizing of indicators to develop an integrated sustainability assessment framework for energy systems. ‘Environmental’ indicator dimension has been reported as the most important dimension for assessing the sustainability in energy planning and management. The proposed decision framework may offer some valuable guidelines for policy makers to develop their plan of action in terms of design of both short term and long term flexible decision strategies, to assess the sustainability in energy systems. Sensitivity analysis has also been made to investigate the robustness and priority ranking stability of the proposed sustainability assessment framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's uncertain climate, competitiveness and sustainable development have become milestones of both advanced and emerging countries. Since competitiveness and sustainable development are interconnected, an extensive vision of competitiveness should be available for both the economy and the society. The definition, measurement and analysis of both concepts taken into consideration, competitiveness and sustainable development, is thus an important issue for policy-makers. Thus, the goal of this paper is to research the interconnection between the competitiveness and sustainable development factors for two emerging countries, Romania and Bulgaria, based on the existing literature and the most recent studies in this area. Using extensive data over a period of 10 years, this study explores and tests the sign of the relationship between national competitiveness and sustainable development indicators for the cases of Romania and Bulgaria. The dataset includes the Global Competitiveness Index values and the sustainable development indicators for both countries and covers the period of 2004 - 2013. Our findings are the basis of developing new models describing the relationships between competitiveness, economic growth and sustainability, justified by the need of sustainable economy's development to increase the national competitiveness, in order to attract financial resources necessary for financing the growth of the economy and economic entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Financial, Accounting & Managerial Studies is the property of Journal of Financial, Accounting & Managerial Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Sustainability Window (SuWi) analysis is a novel tool to analyze the minimum economic development to fulfill the requirements for social sustainability and the maximum economic development not to surpass the environmental limits. The method provides quantitative measures to define whether the real development of GDP is within the sustainability limits using different indicators for measuring social welfare and environmental stress. The SuWi results can be used to form a visualization of the sustainability doughnut to illustrate the critical areas of development where policy intervention may be needed to reach sustainability. The doughnut economy visualization is constructed for Cuban development for the analysis of both strong and weak sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade there has been growth in the use of water governance indicators to assess and deepen our understanding of water policy. This article presents research that applies the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) water governance indicators at the transboundary scale in the North American Great Lakes region. Findings reveal the OECD's water governance indicators provide some diagnostic value, however there are some important limitations when adapting and applying the indicators at the transboundary scale. The article concludes with insights and outlines challenges of using water governance indicators in research and practice while at the same time embracing complexity in water governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Paranaense de Desenvolvimento is the property of Revista Paranaense de Desenvolvimento and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)