Search

Governments, companies and citizens around the world consider necessary to adopt a new circular economy (CE) model that allows solving the planet's environmental challenges and guaranteeing sustainable economic growth. Europe advocates this philosophy, but there is no widely accepted index to measure CE implementation at a macro level. This paper proposes a new index based on principal component analysis for European Union countries that use all information available without losing any information by the dimensionality reduction and consider objective weights based on the percentage of variance that each one retains. Moreover, we develop a disaggregated analysis considering the CE dimensions set out in the 'CE monitoring framework', allowing a more comprehensive analysis than when using a single indicator of CE implementation. This method is also used to build an index of the degree of achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to see how they relate to the CE; the relationships between CE dimensions; and between SDGs. The results by geographical areas reveal a higher level of CE implementation in western European and EU-15 countries, with Luxembourg, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium alternately holding the top positions depending on the CE dimension considered. Therefore, the new European countries and the countries in the east must encourage measures to improve the implementation of the economy. In addition, there is a positive, strong and significant relationship with SDGs 8, 9 and 11, with both the overall CE implementation index and the disaggregated indices, and a negative one with 7 and 15. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the complex interplay between economic development and environmental sustainability in the context of India's pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It examines the inherent contradictions and trade-offs involved, particularly in agriculture, industrialisation, and infrastructure sectors. The paper highlights how economic growth, essential for improving living standards, often conflicts with environmental objectives. The paper underscores the importance of integrating economic, environmental, and social objectives to achieve a sustainable and inclusive future for India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between ICT, urbanization, and economic development. The context of the analysis is the Organization of Islamic Countries from 1997 to 2019. We develop an original empirical approach based on principal component analysis to generate ICT index. To mitigate any endogenous issue, we utilize the instrumental variable generalized method of moments. Further, we use pooled mean group estimation to check the short-run and long-run relationships between the variables. Our results have two significant implications. First, we demonstrate the favorable influence of ICT on economic growth in OIC nations in both the short and long term. Second, both urbanization and economic growth have a clear and substantial impact in the short and long term. Finally, our analysis supports the feedback hypothesis between ICT and economic growth. These novel empirical findings will help policymakers design ICT development policies to fulfill sustainable economic development in OIC countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]