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Early papers found empirical support for a natural resource curse—the notion that exporting natural resources is detrimental to economic growth. Later papers, using reportedly improved econometric models and data, largely reversed these early findings by estimating that natural resources improve economic performance. However, this changing coefficient on natural resource dependence over time may not only be a function of model or data quality. Masked by this evolution in the economics literature is the possibility that the fundamental relationship between natural resources and economic performance has changed over the past several decades. This paper sheds a new perspective on the substantial resource curse literature by repeatedly estimating a single econometric model on data that evolve over time. The coefficient on natural resource dependence is estimated to steadily increases with the passage of time from a value that is negative and significant (for 1970, the basis for much of the early literature) to a positive and significant value a few decades later. Whatever natural resource estimated initially with data from 1970 seems to have evolved into a resource blessing over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) has been a crucial trade and development initiative, offering preferential access to qualified Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries to the United States market since its enactment in 2000. This paper presents a comprehensive review of scholarly articles and policy reports that analyze the impact of AGOA on the economic performance of SSA countries. Employing various econometric methods and data analysis techniques, researchers have investigated the effects of AGOA on trade flows, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, employment, economic growth, and poverty levels. The findings reveal that AGOA has positively affected the region's trade, particularly in apparel, textiles, and agriculture. However, its influence on promoting export diversification and attracting FDI is nuanced, with substantial heterogeneity among the beneficiary countries and industries within each country. While some SSA countries have experienced substantial export growth and FDI inflows, others have not fully leveraged the benefits of AGOA due to absorptive capacity constraints and governance challenges. AGOA's effectiveness in promoting broad-based employment, GDP growth, and poverty reduction remains an active area of inquiry, necessitating further research to understand the policy's sustained impact and inform future trade policy designs for SSA countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economy has shifted from the stage of high-speed growth to the stage of high-quality development. This paper selects panel data of 30 provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions (except Tibet) in mainland China with the time dimension of 2006–2016, selects indicators from five dimensions of innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing, uses principal component analysis to construct a system of indicators of high-quality economic development, and uses the spatial Durbin model to empirically the impact of government investment behavior in the three industries on the regional economic high-quality development was studied. The results show that: first, there is a significant positive spatial correlation between China's economic quality development. Second, government investment in different industries has different effects on the quality development of the economy. Investment in the tertiary industry can boost employment, raise income level, promote economic quality development, and enhance sharing, coordination and innovation; investment in the secondary industry can enhance innovation, but because of the "crowding-out effect", it will reduce openness and sharing, and is not conducive to promoting economic quality development; investment in the primary industry can Investment in the primary industry can significantly improve coordination, but it will reduce innovation, greenness, openness and sharing, which will also have a negative impact on the overall high-quality economic development. Third, there is a significant spatial spillover effect of government investment behavior on regional economic quality development, and the economic quality development of this region will have an impact on neighboring regions. Finally, based on the research results, this paper puts forward countermeasure suggestions for promoting high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy consumption has gained growing importance in the world energy consumption portfolio over recent years. One of the reasons is the increasingly negative development of climate change. The research carried out in this paper aims to discern whether the examined economic indicator (GDP per capita) and the environmental indicator (CO2 emissions per capita) affect the renewable energy consumption in the region of the Visegrad Group (V4 - Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovak Republic) countries, and to draw implications for public administration in the given issue. The fixed effects panel regression model was used to verify the mentioned relationships between variables from 1990-2020. The results show that the level of the share of renewable energy consumption on the total energy consumption in the region of the V4 countries can be affected by the GDP per capita (positive relationship validated) and the CO2 emissions per capita (negative relationship validated). These results are mostly in line with the findings of other researchers conducted on different samples of countries, although some differences can be noted, especially regarding the direction of the relationship. The implications of the research results are presented on three levels: practical implications for the business sector, emphasis placed on political implications for public administration, and theoretical implications that lay the foundation for further research. The main limitation of the research results comes from the sample used in V4 countries and, thus, from the limited possibilities of generalizing the results. The direction of further research in the addressed issue will include a larger number of countries in the research and the use of various quantitative and qualitative research methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the circular economy is emerging as a strategy for sustainable development. What is important in promoting the circular economy is to assess its current level and take measures for assessment. This paper discusses some methodological issues in comparing and assessing the efforts for the circular economy at the international level. To this end, the authors explain the theoretical premise related to the assessment of efforts for the circular economy, establish an indicator system for assessing the efforts for the circular economy, and suggest a method for comprehensively assessing the efforts for the circular economy by country. The conclusions are that (a) the comparative evaluation of activities related to the circular economy by country requires a unified standard or category that can cover these activities, including all factors that meet sustainable development; the outcome, process, and guarantee of the circular economy, and this can be the circular economy effort and (b) the circular economy effort of a given country must synthetically be assessed by using the indicators capable of showing all aspects. These conclusions may contribute to establishing a new theoretical foundation that can include various aspects of the circular economy activities and to setting a practical and methodological foundation for evaluating each country's various activities related to the circular economy at the international level and can serve as a policy basis for identifying the weak and strong aspects of circular economy activities at the domestic or international level and establishing technological and economic measures to strengthen the weak aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological scholarship, economic theory, and empirical studies all indicate that interpersonal relationships are valuable productive assets and deserve to be formally incorporated into the study of human development. This paper employs the India Human Development Survey to examine, using OLS and logistic regressions, the impact of different dimensions of social capital on multiple proxies for household welfare. Social capital in the form of memberships in local community organizations and social network connections has a statistically and economically significant association with household consumption expenditures, physical asset ownership, and the probability of a household living in poverty. Households that are members of any formal community organization are expected to have higher monthly per capita consumption expenditures than households without any memberships. Estimates of a similar magnitude are observed when modeling a household's stock of physical assets, a longer-term indicator of economic welfare. These indicators of social capital are also significantly associated with lower odds of a household living below the poverty line. Organizational memberships and social networks are also associated with considerably higher odds of a household assessing its own economic situation positively. Overall, social capital is a catalyst for increasing household welfare along multiple dimensions, and, therefore, a critical area of focus for economists, sociologists, development practitioners, and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined finance-growth nexus in the finance industry and the influencing factors of economic indicators which deliberate on the performance of the Solow Growth model to prove the actuality of financial development (FD) inside the economic growth (EG) model, based on the regional data from 1980 to 2017 in Africa. We applied the econometric method of GMM style panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) and panel quantile regression (PQR). With the optimal finance-growth outcome, the review shows that the economic indicators influence the finance-growth nexus. The quantile results show that high economic indicators help to strengthen the finance-growth nexus, whereas low economic indicators hinder it. The GMM style PVAR results present a mixed effect in terms of the connection and marginal significance, indicating that FD has a varied impact on economic growth. Last, the granger causality results show a two-way causal association amid finance-growth in Western, Central, Eastern, and Southern African economies and a unidirectional causal link of finance-growth in Northern Africa. The policy conclusion is that to gain the long-term economic benefits of FD, African countries should strive for low and steady economic stability. To attain the required economic stability, it may be important to use suitable fiscal and monetary policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital era, digitalization brings great opportunities and challenges for cities' environmental governance and economic growth. However, it is worth noting that the impact of digitalization on cities' green transition has not been studied from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. This paper uses the principal component method and non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) to calculate the digital development level and the green economic performance of 269 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019. (1) The empirical findings demonstrate that digitalization has become a strong driver for cities' green economic transformation. (2) Digitalization indirectly promotes green transition through industrial structure optimization and green technological innovation. (3) The heterogeneity results show that the positive effect of digitalization on green development is more obvious in eastern and economically developed cities. (4) Using the partially linear functional-coefficient model (PLFC), this paper studies the non-linear nexus between digitalization and green economic transition from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. Thus, Metcalfe's law is confirmed in the green transition of Chinese cities. Some policy recommendations are offered for realizing the coordinated development of digitalization and greening of the urban economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the economy of China has developed rapidly, but this has brought widespread damage to the environment, which forces us to explore a sustainable, green, economic development model. Therefore, it is particularly necessary to clarify the relationship between economic development and environmental pollution. In this paper, we used satellite remote sensing tropospheric NO2 vertical column density (VCD) as an air quality indicator; the total exports, total imports, and industrial electricity consumption as the economic indicators; and the wind speed, temperature, and planetary boundary layer height as the meteorological factors to perform a Generalized Additive Modeling (GAM) analysis. By deducing the influence of meteorological factors, the relationship between economic indicators and the air quality indicator can be determined. When total exports increased by one billion USD (United States Dollar), the tropospheric NO2 VCDs of Nanjing and Suzhou increased by about 15% and 6%, respectively. The tropospheric NO2 VCDs of Suzhou increased by about 5% when the total imports increased by one billion USD. In addition, when the industrial electricity consumption increased by one billion kWh, the tropospheric NO2 VCDs of Nanjing, Suzhou and Xuzhou increased by about 25%, 12%, and 59%, respectively. This study provides a method to quantify the contribution of economic growth to air pollution, which is helpful for better understanding of the relationship between economic development and air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hops is an increasingly rare crop on the territory of Romania, but this culture deserves attention due to its use. It is worth mentioning that the Romanian farmers are encouraged to cultivate this plant by increasing subsidies from one year to the next. For the analysis of evolution of this crop for the studied period, the technical indicators represented by the areas and production environments as well as the economic indicators represented by the prices, subsidies granted / ha and commercial trade will be taken into account. This paper seeks to highlight the technical and economic aspects presented above, their dynamics and the importance of this culture that will reflect on the demand for the national market for this product. The outcome of the study will highlight the support of the domestic hop market through domestic or imported production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies the influence of selected groups of factors on the efficiency of the agricultural sector represented by the Czech Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (SME). The database Amadeus was used as the primary data source. The group of data gained from the database Amadeus covers the period of years between 2005 and 2014. The group of analyzed subjects consists of more than 2000 SME agricultural companies located in the Czech Republic. The econometric models were used for identification of relationships between groups of potentially relevant factors and the efficiency. The analyzed efficiency level is represented in the econometric models by the variables EBIT and EBITDA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research, development and innovation hold a prominent position in national economies and the public sector. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the role of public research in EU countries with focus on selected indicators of research and development (R&D). The area in focus is total R&D expenditures and public R&D expenditures in years 2010 and 2015. The author also strives to analyze other R&D indicators in EU countries, pointing out the similarities and differences in the particular countries. The analysis concentrates on not only the selected indicators of public R&D, but also a comprehensive evaluation and role of public research in EU countries. EU countries are evaluated on the basis of indicators of public R&D by means of factor analysis, cluster analysis and box-plot, divided into four clusters depending on internal similarity in 2015. The most marked differences were observed in indicators of public research (R&D public expenditures as % of total R&D expenditures, researchers in public sector as % of total researchers, number of publications per 1000 researchers in the public sector, number of citable publications per 1000 researchers in the public sector) in the first cluster in comparison to the third cluster. In case of the indicator H-index (per 1000 researchers in the public sector) the most marked differences were observed in most countries of the second cluster in comparison to countries of the fourth cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household are in a manner of speaking small motors for a national economy and for the consumption in particular. In most cases, the way a household is managed and its basic characteristics can reflect the economic processes that occur in a specific moment in the financial and economic context and are a great measurement unit for the real standard of living within a country. In this paper we will present the main characteristics of the household in Romania between 2010-2016 and its relation with the given economic growth indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, several studies using various methods for analysis have tried to evaluate factors affecting knowledge creation activity, but few analyses quantitatively account for the impact that economic determinants have on them. This paper introduces a non-parametric method to structurally analyze changes in information and communication technology (ICT) patenting trends as representative outcomes of knowledge creation activity with economic indicators. For this, the authors established a symmetric model that enables several economic contributors to be decomposed through the perspective of ICTs' research and development (R&D) performance, industrial change, and overall manufacturing growth. Additionally, an empirical analysis of some countries from 2001 to 2009 was conducted through this model. This paper found that all countries except the United States experienced an increase of 10.5-267.4% in ICT patent applications, despite fluctuations in the time series. It is interesting that the changes in ICT patenting of each country generally have a negative relationship with the intensity of each country's patent protection system. Positive determinants include ICT R&D productivity and overall manufacturing growth, while ICT industrial change is a negative determinant in almost all countries. This paper emphasizes that each country needs to design strategic plans for effective ICT innovation. In particular, ICT innovation activities need to be promoted by increasing ICT R&D investment and developing the ICT industry, since ICT R&D intensity and ICT industrial change generally have a low contribution to ICT patenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to some appreciations regarding the formation of the image in tourism it can be concluded that a satisfied tourist, satisfied with the place where he spent his vacation, by transmitting the information, of his value, can influence another five potential tourists to spend in the future, the holiday at the place of stay, while a tourist dissatisfied with the quality of services, especially by the tourism staff, influences ten potential tourists. Tourism is an important component of a community planning and economic development strategy in an area. If an area or region has important natural attractions, historical or cultural vestiges, sports facilities, event organizing facilities, and other similar assets, the promotion and tourism development of an area or region may attract more visitors, potential tourists in that community who will spend time and spend money to take advantage of these benefits. Bucharest is the most important urban center of Romania (currently with a population six times the size of the second largest city in Iași), it is not only a place attracting tourists but also the starting point for many of the areas tourists in the country. The purpose of this paper was to carry out a study on the evolution of tourist traffic at the level of one of the hotels in Bucharest. Thus, following the takeover of the statistical data on the tourist traffic, from the National Institute of Statistics Bucharest, as well as from the hotel taken into study, there were calculated some of the most significant indicators and indices regarding the tourist demand and offer, which allowed to interpret the evolution of the tourist traffic to the accommodation unit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the economic situation of Romania's West Region for a period of five years, based on some specific indicators. The most relevant indicators which are part of the analysis of the regional economic evolution are as following: gross domestic product per capita; the turnover; the number of employees in active local units; gross and net investments. Within this scientific paper there was presented a prognosis of gross domestic product per capita, from 2015 to 2017. This macroeconomic indicator gives wide information over the economy in a region. The indicators analyzed in this study recorded oscillations from an year to another which demonstrates that the economy in the West Region is able to develop, but recording different growth rates. In comparison with other regions in Romania, the West Region will distinguish by an industrial branch that gathers almost all the areas. The development of this area is both due to direct foreign investments and qualified employees. An economic leader of the region is Timis country, followed by Arad country. West Region has a big potential of development given to the existent resources, geographic settlement and an entrepreneurial environment that is capable to transform the opportunities in profitable business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have explored the relationship between three key indicators of the health of any economy, namely, human development index (HDI), foreign direct investment (FDI) and gross domestic product (GDP). Three alternative models were assessed in the study to investigate the dynamics of the cause and effect relationship between the three variables. Thirty countries were selected for the purpose of the study on the basis of a positive change in their HDI ranks from 2012 to 2017. Further, the countries were categorized into countries with very high, high, medium and low HDI ranks. Annual FDI, HDI and GDP data for the period from 1990 through 2016 were used to investigate the nature of the relationship among the selected variables. The proposed models testing the outcome-explanatory variable relationship between FDI, HDI, and GDP were tested using cointegrating regression with panel dynamic least square model (DOLS) and panel fully modified least square model (FMOLS). The findings of the study show that HDI and FDI are the statistically significant variables that positively impact the changes in GDP. Further, the impact of HDI is of larger magnitude than FDI. However, GDP and FDI were not found to exert any statistically significant impact on HDI for the period under the study. Similarly, HDI and GDP were also not found to exert any significant impact on FDI. Before applying DOLS and FMOLS, stationarity was confirmed using five panel unit root tests, namely, LLC, IPS, Fisher-type tests using ADF and PP and Hadri. Thereafter, Pedroni residual cointegration test and Kao residual cointegration test were used to confirm the existence of cointegration among the variables, which is a necessary condition for applying DOLS and FMOLS. The study has key implications for the policymakers in search of models and plans to boost GDPs of their respective countries. Since HDI exerts more than proportionate positive impact on GDP, governments can focus on improving the three components of HDI, namely, life expectancy, adult literacy and education enrolment to promote economic growth. Further, since FDI exerts a positive impact on GDP, policymakers can strategize to make more friendly policies to attract foreign investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined the contributions of sub-units of the crop subsector to the economic development of Nigeria (approximated by the per capita GDP (PCI)) from 1962 to 2020. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) was used to establish the existence of the cointegration among the specified series. The findings revealed that, the sub-components of the crop sub-sector co-integrate with the per capita GDP in the long run. The empirical results further revealed that in the short run, sugar-based crops gross production, vegetable, and fruit gross production have a significant relationship with the PCI in Nigeria; whereas the cereal gross production, oil-based crop gross production, sugar crop gross production, and vegetable and fruit gross production were long run significant determinants. The findings call for appropriate short and long-term economic policy packages that should stimulate investment opportunities in the crop sub-sector to increase the sub-sector’s productivity for greater economic development stimulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local Action Groups (LAGs) represent a dynamic platform for inter-municipal cooperation in Europe. Their principal advantages include EU funding and the capacity to generate economic returns and stimulate the development of local communities. The methodology used for the evaluation of the performance of LAGs is defined by the EU on the one hand and by national authorities on the other. Furthermore, there are an entire array of evaluation tools and academic experiments available. The present paper does not aim at a comprehensive evaluation of LAGs, but instead only examines the technical efficiency of LAGs. Using the Czech Republic as an example, the paper introduces an evaluation tool to measure the technical efficiency of LAGs and describes how it can be applied. The adoption of this tool is seen as a means of improving one of the parameters of the performance of LAGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research was to study the influence of related variety on the economic performance of Spanish provinces during the international crisis (2009–2013) and the post‐crisis period (2014–2018), with the goal of contributing to assess the validity of the skill‐relatedness approach. The research is based on labor flows in a sample of more than one million affiliated workers. Our results confirmed the influence of related variety on the growth of GDP and employment in knowledge‐based industries, in protecting against unemployment, as well as on the creation of new firms, although with marked differences according to the economic cycle. Robustness issues and possible lines of progress using this novel methodology are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether there are multiple explosive bubble episodes in international food market by employing the Generalised Supremum Augmented Dickey-Fuller (GSADF) test. This method is particularly suitable for practical application of time series and provides an innovative consistent date-stamping strategy for the origination and termination of bubble episodes. Our results show that there are four explosive bubble episodes mostly accompanied by huge price volatilities during 1990-2017, which is largely in line with the asset pricing model (Gürkaynak 2008). The exuberance and collapse of bubble episodes can be explained by imbalance between supply and demand, depreciation of U.S. dollar, financial crisis and speculation. Our findings also provide supporting evidence for the Masters hypothesis that tremendous buying pressure from index investments contributes to substantial bubble episodes. The authorities should accurately identify bubble episode and monitor its evolving process, which is propitious to achieve the effective stabilisation of global food system. Particularly, restrictions on excessive speculative trading should be arranged under extreme market situations in order to forestall the explosion of multiple food bubbles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an empirical model drawing on data generated over a decade of analysis, aiming to explain the impact of intellectual property by using patent records as an indicator. The model moreover correlates patenting with economic development and growth in Mexico. The pattern that emerges is a positive tie between greater investment in research and development (R+D) on the one hand, and economic development and growth on the other, manifest in the rising volume of national patent applications. The development and implementation of public policies designed to augment intellectual capital and innovation could benefit an emerging economy like that of Mexico in countless ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any economy goes through a cyclical evolution, the analysis of which makes the object of study of many specialists in the field, be they part of the macroeconomic decision organisms or simple researchers. Given both the existence of atypical economic cyclicities and the difficulties in correctly forecasting the impact force or even the influence direction, at macroeconomic level, of some key internal and external factors, the questions related to the expected evolution, from a macroeconomic perspective, are a continuous source of thorough analysis. The trend of the gross domestic product, the identification of the main elements determining such pattern, the trade balance, the budgetary deficit or the public debt are just some of the most important topics of research approached in order to anticipate the way an economy might evolve in the near or far future. This is also the intention of the authors of the current paper, who, based on the well-grounded pieces of information provided by the National Bank of Romania, via its financial stability reports, observed in the last five years, undertake to reveal the evolution registered in Romania during this period, as well as to forecast the direction in which the target country is going. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite several decades of academic and practical debate on tourism sustainability, its application in practice remains difficult. The dominant tourism discourse on sustainability (theory, seen as a concept) and responsibility (practice, understood as appropriate action) calls for a solid understanding of the process of how a responsible destination actually implements a sustainability agenda, which this paper aims to provide. In this context, we explore theoretical perspectives from political economics and behavioural economics to offer a well-reasoned integrated sustainability–responsibility model comprising three stages: Awareness, Agenda and Action. This Triple-A Model complements the sustainability indicators debate and provides advice on how to continuously implement the sustainability concept and move from market-value-led and environmentally laissez-faire tourism towards more environmental- and social-value-driven responsible tourism. In addition, this paper discusses the existing sustainability and responsibility nomenclatures and their use and contributes relevant conclusions on the current understanding of sustainability and responsibility in European and UNWTO practices. The term responsustable tourism is suggested to join two existing terms and demonstrate that the current understanding of responsible tourism behaviour is based on the concept of sustainable tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of trade in fruits in Romania, what share does it have in the European and global trade, to show what is its contribution to the development of national economy and how does it affect the GDP of agriculture in Romania. Trade represents a form of human activity hat achieved along time the strongest connection between peoples, contributed to the development of economies and societies. The analysis methods used in order to highlight the changes occurred on the fruit market in Romania are as follows: the grouping method, the degree for covering the import by exports, correlation method. Analysing the correlation in Romania between fruit production, the value of agriculture GDP, and fruit import, a significant correlation is noticed, and the increase of fruit production has a positive impact on GDP and helps diminishing the imports. For the situation to be improved, fruit production increase is advisable, by increasing productivity as a result of using more efficient technologies, setting up associations of producers, building storage facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the evolution of the turnover, which is determined by the action of several factors, and of particular importance in determining the causes and growth reserves of this indicator has the studying of the structure of sales, structure by type of turnover on groups of products (goods) and the types of customers. Thus, in the case of SC "Diana" SRL, the largest contribution on the turnover was the sold production, with a contribution of 67-78%, followed by sales of goods, with 28-37%. In the period under review, turnover registered a downward trend due to the influence of the three factors with direct action: the average number of employees; annual average productivity and leverage of manufactured products intended for sale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aging population is a global phenomenon, which has affected almost all the EU states. The consequences are very important since it affects the socio-economic environment usually on the long run. Some of them could consist in increasing the public expenditure on pensions, social security and health services, which will raise the overall burden on the working population. Sometimes, a significant reduction of the labour force will even diminish the growth rate of an economy. Considering these aspects, the present paper intends to analyse the demographic situation from the EU states, the factors that have generated it and to identify the possible future trends. To determine the evolution of the ageing population phenomenon, we have analysed some demographic indicators included in various statistical reports and databases, such as the fertility rate, the median age, the percentage of population over a certain age and the age dependency ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to propose a new economic index, namely, real national income average growth rate (RNIAGR), which measures the performance of economic growth with consideration for income distribution. This study also develops another new economic index, called five-scale real national income average growth rate (FSRNIAGR), which simplifies the calculation of RNIAGR. The merits of these new indexes are discussed to justify their efficacy. This paper also justifies the use of proposed index by showing that this index can actually measure the ordering of social welfare. To highlight the difference between this new index and the traditional ones, this paper compares the index with real economic growth rate using the data of Taiwan. In addition, this paper shows that when the real growth stagnates or even declines, this new index indicates that income distribution deteriorates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the economic development of the South-East Region of Romania, since 2007 until present. The research questions are the following: which are the main indicators that can determine the economic development on the level of Region and, also, which are the predictions about economic development of the Region? In this order were identified and analyzed significant economic indicators, such as gross domestic product at regional level; gross domestic product by category of resources; GDP per capita; number of private entrepreneurs; the number of active local units; staff of active local units; gross and net investments. Economic development of the South-East Region is possible because of foreign investments that contributed to replace old technologies with new technologies, to create jobs and increase productivity. For this study data were taken from the National Institute of Statistics and the National Forecast Commission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between economic growth and energy is a widely researched topic in the world of economics and there are quite many studies on the relationship between energy and sectoral output; however, to the best of our knowledge there have been none in the context of Bangladesh. This paper examines the causal relationship between energy consumption and output growth of Bangladesh both at aggregate and sectoral level using the annual data from 1980 to 2014. For the purpose of our study we have used the GDP at constant local currency as an indicator of economic growth while energy use has been used as a proxy for energy consumption. These variables have been taken from World Development Indicator (WDI) 2015 published by World Bank and EViews 7.0 has been used to run the tests in this study. To test our data for stationarity, we have run two tests which are the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test and the Phillips-Perron (PP) test. Then to test for cointegration and causality between the variables, we used the Johansen cointegration method and the Granger Causality tests respectively. We find the variables to be stationary after running both the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test and Phillips-Perron (PP) test. Using the Johansen cointegration method, we find that all the variables are cointegrated. Granger Causality tests reveal that at the aggregate level there is unidirectional causality running from GDP to energy consumption. Similarly, at the sectoral levels, there is unidirectional causality running from agricultural, industrial and services sector output to energy consumption. However, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) test observes no causality between energy consumption and output at the macro level and at the sectoral level in the short run. Thus we can conclude that GDP or sectoral output is not energy dependent in Bangladesh and our findings are also consistent with the conservation hypothesis. Moreover, our short run results are consistent with the neutrality hypothesis. This further strengthens our conclusion that the economic growth of Bangladesh is not energy dependent. These results have important implications for policy as energy conservation policies can be applied in Bangladesh without hurting growth. Furthermore, it is evident that implementing subsidies in the energy sector will not contribute in achieving growth and cost reflective pricing policy would be more effective in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, the government of Bangladesh should invest in efficient energy production and utilize the various energy sources available to Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents models of economic growth for all states of the European Union (EU), since either 1970 or the year of accession to the EU. Both integer and fractional order models are obtained, where the gross domestic product (GDP) is a function of the country's land area, gross capital formation (GCF), exports of goods and services, and average years of school attendance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP). It explores the relationship between sovereign bond yields spreads and the variables contained in the MIP scoreboard using quantile regressions. Results suggest that MIP indicators can explain the behavior of sovereign spreads two, three and four quarters in advance. The scoreboard can't capture strong non-variant country effects that affect the evolution of spreads as well as the different impact that each indicator has on different countries. The introduction of employment indicators has reduced the aggregate effect that country effects have on sovereign spreads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) was designed to reveal the economic, social, and environmental trade-offs associated with conventional economic growth as traditionally measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Although originally designed for use at the national scale, an interest has developed in the United States in a state-level uptake of the GPI to inform and guide policy. This study presents the first fifty-state estimate for U.S. GPI in order to address questions over its design, implementation, and ultimate potential as a tool to guide state-level economic policy. Following a review of the current state of analysis and critique of GPI, we provide an overview of methodology and database development. Results are then presented, including discussion of lessons learned through a fifty-state application. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research and next steps to consolidating a consistent methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city is an important component in the construction of circular economy (CE), and after years of development, assessment of urban CE and calculation of an urban circular development index (UCDI) is an important task that the Chinese government has faced. However, existing research into the indicator system and evaluation methods is not enough to support calculation and subsequent publishing of UCDI. Building off current research into CE, its index systems and its evaluation, this paper puts forward an evaluation index system for urban CE development (UCDI) that uses an improved entropy methodology combining expert and entropy weightings. The index was calculated for 40 cities that were part of China's pilot CE cities program for alternating years in the five year period between 2012 and 2016 (that is, the index was calculated for 2012, 2014 and 2016). The study found that the level of urban CE increased significantly over the five year period, with that in the CE pilot cities growing at a faster rate than the national average. Results show that a certain relationship exists between UCDI, urban types and economic development, but has little relationship with industrial structure. Finally, recommendations for the promotion of urban CE are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the universe of literature on franchises, several studies have examined the impact of franchising on economic growth, tending to focus on growth rather than development, although the empirical research has already concluded that franchising does have an influence on economic growth. Likewise, some articles have underscored the importance and influence of franchising on development, but have failed to provide empirical proof of its true sway. With that in mind, this paper provides empirical evidence demonstrating the relationship between franchising and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presented paper analyses the development of conditions for the development of a creative economy in the regions of the Czech Republic. Through the calculations of a number of sub-indicators in the area of talent, technology and tolerance (Florida's 3T model), the development of the Creativity Index in 2011-2015 has been mapped in individual regions. In the next phase the development of the average growth rate of the Creativity Index was evaluated and graphically illustrated. At the end of the research, a situational and trending matrix of creativity was compiled, dividing the regions into four quadrants (leaders, up and coming, laggards, and losing ground). The results showed the dominant position of the capital city of Prague, which reached the highest score throughout the whole period and with great precedence surpassed all other regions. Only the South Moravian Region surpassed Prague in a specific way, in the value of the R & D indicator. In this region lies the second largest city of the Czech Republic in Brno, which has a very strong position in the field of research, development and innovation. The situational matrix captured the situation in which the leader's quadrant was only Prague, while the other regions were growing in the region quadrant. On the contrary, the trend matrix has suggested that Prague is losing its leading position as it is overtaken by the South Moravian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The banking industry plays an essential role in China's economic growth, and the assessment of bank efficiency has attracted increasing interest in the past two decades. Given that the data envelopment analysis cross-efficiency method can provide a more reliable reference set, a large number of studies targeting performance evaluation and its applications adopt this method. Few studies, however, address the issue of the non-uniqueness of weights in cross-efficiency evaluation. Whereas, this paper proposes a cross-efficiency interval considering all weighting schemes along with a VIKOR aggregate model to gauge the universal productive efficiency of 16 major Chinese commercial banks of China and rank them for the period of 2007–14. Specifically, we use the cross-efficiency interval to generate the global performance of each bank based on internal and external assessment while using VIKOR to compare the solution with the attitude index which ranks all of the banks. The results indicate that the cross-efficiency interval can provide more information than the traditional DEA model, that the banking system efficiency of China has been improved during the study period, especially for SOBs; that JSBs are more efficient compared with SOBs; and the efficiency gap narrowed during the study period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differences in regional economic growth trajectories and the multiple regional effects of the economic crisis have revived studies dedicated to the subject of resilience. The main goal of this paper is to measure the resilience of the Romanian regions, seeking to answer two basic questions: What was the regional impact of the global crisis from 2008 onwards? How have the Romanian regions recovered following the crisis? We focus our analysis on the region with the highest economic growth in the post-crisis period (South-East) in order to understand the main drivers of economic recovery. The methodology of the study involves a multi-dimensional understanding of resilience. This means that we have extended our focus from economic indicators towards a more inclusive methodology related to the measurement of regional well-being. Our main finding is that productivity growth was a critical driver of economic recovery, having a significant impact on income and jobs, as well as influencing non-material elements of well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to establish the future intervention priorities in building a new programme that would target the economic development in the research area. The used methodology included an adapted A'WOT analysis - an initial SWOT analysis and a prioritization of the items through an expert questionnaire. In the present paper we analyze the experts' opinions and the areas where intervention is needed for the optimum strategies for the 2014-2020 financial frame. These should rely on the strengths in the Guidelines for Applicants, the rules for projects implementation and the institutional system, it should consider changes on the weak points concerning the programme objectives, the Guidelines for Applicants and the beneficiaries consultations, it should make use of opportunities coming from the crossborder status, European Union frame and economic opportunities and overcome the differences coming from crossborder status, membership of two different supranational structures and the economic gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic development is a subject that generates much controversy, mainly because of the widening gaps between poor and rich nations. In the present paper, we intend to identify and explain the differences that exist both between and within the European Union states, from an economic development point of view. In order to reach this objective, we have collected, analysed and interpreted information included in various statistical data bases, reports and year books. The results show that the development differences between EU economies are not so large, compared to the situation of the rest of the world. However, there are significant development gaps inside some EU states, especially from the South-East part of Europe and the Baltic countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FDI had a strong impact in the last three decades on economic growth, foreign trade and production structures in almost all countries. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main factors that contribute to attracting foreign direct investment flows and also the competitiveness of the business environment in Romania and its implications on investment decisions and economic growth. Research results show that the presence of FDI goes to those areas that can provide efficiencies investment factors: skilled and qualified labor, educational and research institutions etc.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the Note issued by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 2011 calling for reform of the international financial and monetary systems. Three main themes are identified: (a) the inequality of global economic growth over the last century, (b) the failings of economic liberalism as a guide for the conduct of policy and (c) the need for a degree of transfer of sovereignty from individual states to the global level. This paper articulates the meaning of these themes in economic terms and illustrates the nature of the changes in thought and practice that the Note considers necessary in the interests of the common good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A zoning method based on ecological indicators and economic indicators is applied. • Ecological and economic situations are highly correlated with topographic conditions. • The coupling coordination degree(CCD) between ecology and economy is calculated. • Economic development is highly positively correlated with CCD. • Targeted regional sustainable development strategies are put forward. The coordinated development of ecology and economy is one of the key issues of sustainable development. A full understanding of the relationship between ecology and economy is necessary for the coordinated development of the two. This paper takes Sichuan Province as the research area and county-level administrative districts as the research unit. Based on the medium value of the ecological quality index and economic growth index of each unit, Sichuan Province is divided into dual pressure zones (DPZ), economic backward zones (EBZ), ecological crisis zones (ECZ), and coordinated development zones (CDZ) and the coupling coordination degree (CCD) of each unit is studied. The results show that: (1) On the whole, the eastern part of Sichuan Province has a better level of economic development, and the southern part of the western region has a higher ecological quality. The ecological quality and economic growth pattern are highly correlated with topographical conditions. (2) The distribution characteristics of the four types of partitions are significantly different. The EBZ are more distributed in the western and southern of Sichuan Province, the ECZ are more distributed in the eastern, the DPZ and CDZ are relatively more sporadic. More than 90% of the partition changed zones are distributed in the eastern area. (3) The CCD of more than 95% units belongs to moderate coordination and high coordination. The overall CCD of the four types of zones has shown an upward trend from 2010 to 2015. Based on the results, Sichuan Province should follow the path of clear waters and green mountains are as good as mountains of gold and silver, and targeted sustainable development suggestions for DPZ, EBZ, ECZ, and CDZ are put forward. This paper provides guidance for formulating regional sustainable development strategies, especially in areas with unbalanced development due to congenital topographical conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper outlines a simple, aggregate, descriptive model of what is here termed a “whole economy”, covering all human involvement in the economy, from ultimate means or ecological sacrifices, to the ultimate ends of human satisfaction. The model embraces not only the formal “professional economy” driven by money, but also the parallel non-paid, voluntary economy, here termed “amateur economy”, driven by peoples’ affective motivations. The input of work to the economy plays an essential role in the paper’s analysis of options for reducing ecological sacrifices. Hence, part of the paper is devoted to a brief historical overview of the role of work, including turning points in the 1930s in the United States, when work sharing was displaced by work creation through consumerism, and, in the post-war economy when GDP became the dominant economic indicator. The paper proposes the aim of a happy and sustainable degrowth for affluent countries, implying the transfer of some activities from the professional economy to the less ‘labor’ productive amateur economy. This will tend to reduce overall labor productivity and hence resource throughput, but increase satisfaction and happiness. A key element in the analysis is combining a reduction in consumption with a reduction in production, which is obtainable through lowering either working time or work productivity and turning some of the leisure time into voluntary activities. Economic growth is not a law of nature but the consequence of explicit political decisions taken. Hence growth is also open to new political decisions in recognition of physical limits to growth and the human quest for replacing economic growth with life satisfaction, including increased free time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The relationship between political freedom and economic growth is considered very critical in political economics. On the one hand, political freedom is found to be positively correlated with economic growth (Lipset 1993; Przeworski and Limongi 1993; Barro 1997; Minier 1998; and Przeworski 2004). On the other hand, a number of high growing countries experienced low political rights such as: China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Besides, several democratic countries faced low economic growth such as: Greece and Spain (Arat 1988; Vanhanen 1990; Heo and Tan 2001). This study aims at examining the impact of political freedom on economic growth. Since, the literature covered three contradictory findings regarding the main driver of economic growth, an unbalanced panel of dataset running from 1970 to 2012 and spanning 92 (high and low income countries) was adopted to address our research question. The data was retrieved from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI) and the Global Development Finance (GDF) databases. Furthermore, classification of countries political freedom was derived from the Transparency International. This study considered the following factors as the main determinants of growth: population growth rate, mortality rate, fertility rate, human capital, government expenditures, foreign direct investment, culture and political risk. In addition, the significance of the adopted variables was compared between two models: Model 1 (high political rights) and Model 2 (low political rights). Through comparing results based on income level, it is revealed that there are more differences between countries. Countries with high political rights (even with different income levels) show that all factors have similar effect on economic growth except the fertility rate. Conversely, countries with low political rights show different results. The growth rate of population is statistically significant in high income countries but not significant in low income ones. In contrast, mortality rate is not significant in high income countries but highly significant in low income countries. Likewise, the fertility rate is statistically significant in countries with high income but not significant in countries with low income. Finally, fiscal policy (government expenditures) does not seem to be effective in both groups. In summary, regardless of the income level, the lack of political rights makes both the fiscal policy and the foreign direct investment invaluable for economic growth. Contrary to Prescott (2014), Taylor (2014), and Summers (2014), this paper concludes that foreign investors prefer high political freedom over internal policies within a country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the number of farm-level sustainability assessment tools is growing rapidly, concerns are raised on whether the assessment results of different tools present similar and valid conclusions about the sustainability performance of farms. In this paper we analysed the thematic scope of sustainability assessment tools, and compared assessment results from sustainability assessment tools. A coverage analysis of four tools (RISE, SAFA, PG and IDEA) demonstrated the diversity in approaches to assess sustainability at farm level. Tool developers select different (sub)themes and indicators, and apply different methods for measurement and aggregation of scores. This variability in approaches results not only in different tools, but can also result in different conclusions on the sustainability performance of farms. Decisions made in the development of a sustainability assessment tool need to be transparent to understand and explain the results of a tool and support farmers in a sustainable development of their farm. To improve the transparency in sustainability assessment tools we presented a framework describing decisions made in the development of a tool. An increased transparency in sustainability assessment tools can reduce the risk on distorted assessment results and actions, and contribute to the trust and relevance of future sustainability assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) hold tremendous potential for rural development in Ghana in the areas of agriculture, health, Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs), and education. Using the theoretical sampling method, this paper takes a closer look at the ICT scene in Ghana from 2000 to 2011 with emphasis on the role of ICTs in rural development. The paper also draws attention to the efforts made by past and present governments of Ghana to solve the major problems facing ICTs development in Ghana. Investigations from the study revealed that ICTs play major roles in the socio economic development of rural areas in Ghana with a huge potential for accelerated development in these rural areas. ICTs have contributed immensely to improve communications, deepen decentralization, and attract Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). ICTs have also contributed in automation of Rural Banks, networking, information sharing and the provision of ICT enhanced distance learning in the rural areas of Ghana. However, there are some serious challenges militating against the full realization of ICTs role in Ghana's rural development. Issues such as unavailability of electricity, lack of ICTs equipment, high level of illiteracy, user acceptance and local content have to be addressed before the full potential of ICTs role in Ghana's rural development can be achieved. Some recommendations are made as to what the government and other development agencies can do to address these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New strategy regarding economic growth and employment in the EU, "Europe 2020 - A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth", adopted by the European Council in March 2010, offers an overview of the development of Europe in the decade two XXI century, aimed to drive out of the current financial and economic crisis, but also to transform the EU into a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, with high levels of labour employment, productivity and social cohesion. This paper presents a brief characterization of young labour market at global, European Union and national level during the current financial and economic crisis. Of the many problems facing young labour market, in this paper is analyzed the evolution of unemployment population aged 15-24 years. In this paper are presented a series of the best practices from European Union countries to minimize the rate of youth unemployment, and their employment on the labour market. Also, are presented some of the advantages of using young labour in achieving the objectives of "Europe 2020" strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether related variety, among other types of spatial externalities, affected regional growth in Spain at the NUTS 3 level during the period 1995-2007. We found evidence that related variety matters for growth across regions, especially when using two new methods that measure revealed relatedness between industries. The first method is based on Porter's cluster classification while the second method uses the proximity index proposed by Hidalgo et al. Our analyses show that Spanish provinces with a wide range of related industries tend to show higher economic growth rates, once we control for other determinants of growth. Este artículo investiga si la variedad relacionada, entre otros tipos de externalidades espaciales, afectó el crecimiento regional en España a nivel NUTS 3 durante el periodo 1995-2007. Hallamos pruebas de que la variedad relacionada influye en el crecimiento entre regiones, especialmente al utilizar dos métodos nuevos que miden el grado de conexión manifiesto entre industrias. El primer método está basado en la clasificación de conglomerados de Porter, mientras que el segundo método utiliza el índice de proximidad propuesto por Hidalgo et al. Nuestros análisis muestran que las provincias españolas con un amplio rango de industrias relacionadas tienden a mostrar tasas de crecimiento económico más altas, una vez que se logra controlar otros factores determinantes del crecimiento. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It is widely acknowledged that China’s economic miracle has been achieved at the expense of its natural capital and environment. In order to deal with this problem, the circular economy (CE) has been chosen as a national policy for sustainable development. National laws and regulations have been enacted to facilitate the implementation of CE and national CE demonstration projects have been initiated such that national benchmarking activities could be completed. China is the first country to release nationally focused CE indicators so that objective and credible information on the status of CE implementation can be recognized. These CE indicators are valuable metrics for policy and decision-makers and can help achieve CE goals and outcomes. This unique indicator system has not been communicated to international communities. This paper aims to more broadly introduce this unique national CE indicator system. China’s CE efforts are first detailed with various provisions of the national indicator system. A critical analysis of such an indicator system is presented. We show that certain benefits can be gained, but substantive revision is also needed due to the lack of a comprehensive set of sustainability indicators which should include social, business indicators, urban/industrial symbiosis, absolute material/energy reduction, and prevention-oriented indicators. Concerns related to barriers on implementation are also presented in this paper. The knowledge gained from Chinese efforts on CE indicators are valuable to both developed and developing nations seeking to implement sustainable development measures within their regulatory policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]