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The risks derived from climate change and the social inequalities of the economic model en-danger the continuity of society as we know it. The investment community is developing financial products in order to channel the environ-mental and social transition process, with green bonds and social bonds being key instruments to facilitate the change of model. In just a few years, investments made in assets that respect environmental sustainability, social responsibility and good management practices have in-creased from 12% to 42% of total investments made by investors around the world. The current paper it is intended to discuss the regulation and evolution of green bonds since its inception in 2007, globally and nationally, focusing on the principles of implementation, benefits and role of the COVID-19 pandemic in issuing green bonds.

Art and technology. Most of us when we are thinking of fine art we are thinking of the paintings and sculptures and we are less inclined to associate the art with technology. Yet, there are many developments in this area and technology intersects the fine art industry in different points and takes different shapes. The purpose of the paper is to identify where technology is interfering in the fine art industry.

Globalization is changing the rules of how to achieve long-term success by companies in their pursuit to meet growing customer requirements spanning various industries from manufacturing and retail to public sector. Traditional focus on simple stand-alone products or services aiming for low cost or product performance is over-ruled by the increasing demand for designing and offering customer solutions. They are defined in the extant literature as a combination of goods and services designed to satisfy the business needs of a customer. To consider the shift towards developing, selling and implementing effective customer solutions, the firms must transform many aspects of their business. The challenges they are facing are discussed in this paper by conducting an empirical research study within the Romanian IT industry and concluding that the contextual dimension must be considered in order to capture the complexity of integrated solutions agenda for both scholars and practitioners.

As part of their political risk management strategy, multinational corporations (MNCs) can use joint ventures as a tool to reduce their exposure to political risks in international activities. The aim of this article is to present the main benefits for MNCs in using joint ventures with a local partner to mitigate political risks in developing countries and to put forward three risks that MNCs have to consider when choosing the local partner (the risk of opportunistic expropriation, the risk associated with transferring of intellectual property rights and reputational risk).

Confronted with a variety of political risks that affect their international activities, multinational corporations (MNCs) can use Political Risk Insurance (PRI) as a method to mitigate some of those risks. The aim of this article is to present the main characteristics of the PRI policies and participants, to highlight its benefits and to put forward three limitations that prevent MNCs in using PRI in their political risk management strategy (fluctuating capacity on the market, high premium rates and small compensation value). The recent trend in incorporating corporate social responsibility requirements as a pre-condition for providing PRI can contribute to lowering PRI premium rates.

Taking into consideration the determinants of the economic crisis and of the sovereign debt crisis, we aim to analyze the dynamics of the European economies and discuss changes related to macroeconomic imbalances, as highlighted by the recent crises as an important factor of the unfavorable dynamics registered during the last years. In this respect we considered both internal and external imbalances, as specified in the macroeconomic imbalance procedure that was implemented for the European Union member states since 2012, as a response to the crises that affected all open economies of the world. The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive analysis of economic imbalances in the European Union and to determine their influence on economic growth.

The field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown exponentially in the last two decades. There are different views of the role of the firm in society and disagreement as to whether wealth maximization should be the sole goal of a corporation. Nevertheless, there still remains a debate about the legitimacy and value of corporate responses to CSR concerns. This paper examines the effect of CSR on financial performance. It examines the effect CSR- related shareholder proposals lead to positive announcements returns and superior accounting performance. Also, the channels through which companies benefit from CSR are examined. The paper finds that CSR improves employee satisfaction and helps companies cater to customers that are responsive to sustainable practices and that the adoption of CSR proposals is associated with an increase in labor productivity and sales growth. The results indicate that the sign of the relationship is positive and statistically significant relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance, supporting the view that socially responsible corporate performance can be associated with a series of bottom-line benefits.

The objective of this paper is to analyze fiscal revenues registered by the European Union member states in order to determine groups with similar fiscal structures, their composition and to identify the similarities that characterize European countries in this respect. The research conducted in this paper is relevant especially for countries as Romania, which is in the process of adopting the European single currency, as is allows us to determine which countries are similar in terms of fiscal structure so that the comparison is carried out mainly with those countries. The analysis of European fiscal structures allows a better identification of tax preferences within the European Union and highlights the types of taxation that would allow leeway in implementing long term fiscal strategies, which could lead to improvements in macroeconomic dynamics registered by each member state and also at Union level.