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Nowadays, emerging industries are emerging, and the sports industry has become a remarkable new economic growth point. Vigorously tapping the potential of residents' sports consumption has important theoretical and practical significance for promoting the development of the sports industry, improving people's living standards, and stimulating economic growth. In this paper, a deep learning model is constructed, and the random forest and random network models in the deep learning network are used to analyze the pulling effect of urban residents' sports consumption on economic growth. Since the consumption level of urban residents is much higher than that of rural residents, urban residents are in a dominant position in sports consumption, so this paper takes urban residents' sports consumption as the core to explore the pulling effect of urban residents' sports consumption on economic growth. The research theme of this paper is the pulling effect of urban residents' sports consumption on economic growth, so this paper sets the explanatory variable as the added value of GDP, expressed by GDP. Sports consumption has the characteristics of inevitability, gradualness, and diversity. With the continuous change of people's living standards, sports consumption also presents several stages of relative consumption pattern changes. Research shows that sports consumption has a positive role in promoting economic growth and the transformation and upgrading of economic development mode. Every one percentage point change in sports consumption leads to an economic growth of 0.186 percentage points, and with the increase of the lag period, urban residents' sports consumption will gradually increase the driving effect of economic growth. This effect can be analyzed at the micro- and macrolevels and enhanced by a causal cumulative cycle mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the Granger-causal relationship between government spending (G) and income (Y) for Saudi Arabia for which G is the main driver of economic growth. Previous studies investigated two-way causality, from G to Y (Keynesian) and from Y to G (Wagnerian). This paper investigates a new explanation (post-Keynesian) that links Y to G through banks' loan-making and deposit-creation. The latter is accompanied by an increase in statutory reserves (R). The findings are consistent with the post-Keynesian theory (from Y to R, and to G). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Mirror / Európai Tükör is the property of National University of Public Service 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.)

Consumers are reluctant to change immediately their consumption patterns when confronted with budgetary changes, in spite of fluctuating economic conditions. Their reluctance evokes the notion of hysteresis used by economists to describe the persistent influence of past economic events. The importance of hysteresis in economic research represents a natural consequence of the development of economic sciences and of the pursuit of understanding economic systems' evolution by taking into account their 'memory', their conscience of the past. The present paper represents an attempt to review some of the most relevant approaches to hysteresis in economics and to emphasise the impact of the phenomenon on macroeconomic consumption in Romania. The paper aims at reviewing the application of hysteresis to economic models, and subsequently at constructing a two-phase research on households' individual final consumption in Romania during 1990 and 2016, employing both the unit root and the so-called 'true' approach to hysteresis. The research results indicated the existence of hysteresis at the macroeconomic consumption level, thus revealing several implications for economic policy, inaccessible through the standard economic models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds an evaluation index system, uses the entropy weight method (EWM) to decide the weights and, based on the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM), it systematically studies the coupling relationship between Chinese cold chain logistics and the Chinese economy from 2010 to 2019. It performs a grey relational analysis (GRE) to explore the main factors influencing the coordinated development of the two. The results show that the coupling coordination degree between the two presents a steady upward trend, and their coupling relationship has been upgraded from 'coordination' to 'good coordination'. They also indicate that the added value in the tertiary industry, the per capita gross domestic product (GDP), and household consumption levels are the main factors affecting the development of cold chain logistics, while the per capita cold storage capacity, the turnover of road cold chain freight, and the volume of human-power employed in cold chain logistics are the main factors affecting economic development. This study makes suggestions to support the coordinated development of cold chain logistics and economy, and provides a scientific basis for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Itobiad: Journal of the Human & Social Science Researches / İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of Itobiad: Journal of the Human & Social Science Researches 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.)

The extent of demographic changes in Europe is much more drastic than in the United States. This paper studies the effects of population aging on the interactions between economic growth and living standards in Europe with labor market and pension reform, behavioral adaptations, and international capital flows. Our analysis is based on an overlapping generations model with behavioral reactions to reform which is extended to the multi-country situation typical for Europe. While the negative effects of population aging on growth in Europe can in principle be compensated by reforms and economic adaptation mechanisms, they may be partially offset by behavioral reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the impact of permanently extending most of the provisions in EGTRRA and JGTRRA, coupled with potential legislative changes to the AMT, on the federal deficit, the distribution of after-tax income, and economic growth. The paper shows that including moderate behavioral responses offsets 16 percent of the static revenue loss estimate from 2005 to 2014. In addition, including behavioral responses implies that the percentage change in after-tax income from permanently extending the 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts would be largest for taxpayers with incomes ranging from $20,000 to $40,000. Finally, the simulation results suggest that extending the 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts and reducing the growth rate of government spending (excluding Social Security and Medicare), assuming that government expenditures are cut to avoid dramatic increases in government consumption relative to GDP in comparison to historical norms, would increase investment, employment, and output. However, postponing the implementation of tight spending controls would more than offset the positive benefits of lower tax rates on the size of the economy and leave future generations with fewer resources for private consumption and production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents models of economic growth for all the countries of the Group of Seven (G7) in the 1973–2016 period. The models consist of differential equations, of both integer and fractional order, where the gross domestic product (GDP) is a function of the country's land area, arable land, population, school attendance, gross capital formation (GCF), exports of goods and services, general government final consumption expenditure (GGFCE), and broad money (M3). Results show that fractional models have a better performance, measured by several summary statistics, without increasing the number of parameters, or sacrificing the ability to predict GDP evolution in the short term. A standard validation procedure for economic growth models is presented for the assessment of future models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the economic consequences of migration in the Ramsey-type dynamic optimizing context. In contrast to Hazari and Agro (J Econ Dyn Control 28:141-151, ) conclusions, we show that migration unambiguously reduces the per-capita domestic consumption growth, whereas necessarily raises the long-run per-capita consumption of domestic residents when production is 'sufficiently' reactive to capital changes. Our findings are consistent with several empirical studies and simulation analyses, suggesting that changes in technological adjustment in response to migrants inflows may take some years to translate into productivity, generating some crowding out effects. The gains for natives are likely to materialize in the long run when the specialization of natives adjusts, firms invest in capital and adopt appropriate technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the accuracy of macroeconomic economic forecasts of the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic using the average forecasting error, the mean absolute error and Theil's inequality coefficient. The paper analyses the forecast accuracy of the main macroeconomic indicators - real GDP growth, nominal GDP growth, GDP deflator growth, real private consumption growth, average inflation rate, average unemployment rate and current account balance to GDP Ratio. The forecast accuracy is also assessed using the modified Diebold and Mariano test, which compares the accuracy of two forecasts under the null hypothesis that assumes no differences in accuracy. Last but not least, the paper compares the accuracy of the forecasts of the Ministry of Finance to those of the European Commission, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and International Monetary Fund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using changes in the possession of household assets over the past 20 years, several recent papers have argued that economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa was substantially better than suggested by national income data and income poverty statistics, which suffer from well-known weaknesses. We scrutinize these claims and first argue that trends in assets provide biased proxies for trends in incomes or consumption. In particular we show that the relationship between growth in assets and growth in incomes or consumption is extremely weak; instead, we find evidence of asset drift using macro and micro data, which is consistent with the claims we make about possible biases in the use of asset indices. As a result, we find no evidence supporting the claim of an African growth miracle that extends beyond what has been reported in official GDP/capita and consumption figures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernization of agriculture had the effect of income transfers to other sectors and the boost of overall economic development but also led to a relative decline of agriculture in favour of the food industry. The industrialization of agriculture was realized by increasing inputs from industry through the expansion and generalization of industrial production processes in many agricultural activities. Gradually the share of intermediate consumption and capital per active person in agriculture has increased. For example the total industrialization of pig and poultry farming, as a result of the production of compound feed, a starring role in this process have the upstream industries from agriculture and the technical - commercial services. Food industry based on scale economies have developed and diversified as a result of major investments, food technologies were adapted to the new nutrition models thus diversifying food products and satisfying the demands of mass distribution. Food industry has grown at a different rate from that of agricultural production, as a result of the evolution of consumer demand and consumer behaviour, corresponding to the growth of their incomes. So from a simple activity of processing agricultural products, food industry has become an industry that produces more and more developed food products which highly increases added value compared to agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional panel models that overlook nonlinearity, nonstationarity, heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependency when analysing the energy-growth nexus might produce misleading conclusions. In addressing these issues, this study extends the examination of the nexus by applying nonstationary panel models with common correlated effects (CCE). They involve two estimators, namely CCE mean group (CCEMG) and augmented mean group (AMG) estimators. The main objective is to examine the effects of total and renewable energy consumption on the gross domestic product (GDP) by comparing the top oil-importing and top oil-exporting countries. The datasets are in annual frequency, ranging from 1992 to 2015. The results are compared to ordinary least squares (OLS)-type models that serve as benchmarks. This study innovates the models by incorporating the asymmetric effects of energy consumption into the estimations. The findings reveal a positive correlation between total energy consumption and GDP for both panel groups, and capital input is one of the determinants in all cases. The results disclose evidence of the asymmetric effects of total and renewable energy consumption. The positive impact of total/renewable energy consumption decreases for the top oil-exporting group is more apparent than its increases, signifying the importance of energy conservation. For top oil-importing nations, increased renewable energy consumption impedes the GDP, but the increase in total energy consumption accelerates it. Energy efficiency policies should be implemented in oil-importing countries since the positive impact of total energy consumption is smaller than in the other group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the largest CO2 emitter in the world, and it shared 28% of the global CO2 emissions in 2017. According to the Paris Agreement, it is estimated that China's CO2 emissions will reach its peak by 2030. However, whether or not the CO2 emissions in China will rise again from its peak is still unknown. If the emission level continues to increase, the Chinese policymakers might have to introduce a severe CO2 reduction policy. The aim of this paper is to conduct an empirical analysis on the long-standing relationship between CO2 emissions and income while controlling energy consumption, trade openness, and urbanization. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and the bounds test were adopted in evaluating the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. The quantile regression was also used as an inference approach. The study reveals two major findings: first, instead of the conventional U-shaped EKC hypothesis, there is the N-shaped relationship between CO2 emissions and real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the long run. Second, a positive effect of energy consumption and a negative effect of urbanization on CO2 emissions, in the long run, are also estimated. Quantitatively, if energy consumption rises by 1%, then CO2 emissions will increase by 0.9% in the long run. Therefore, the findings suggest that a breakthrough, in terms of policymaking and energy innovation under China's specific socioeconomic and political circumstances, are required for future decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Economics / Ekonomija is the property of Rifin d.o.o. 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 Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian & Latin American Economic History is the property of Cambridge University Press 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.)

Abstract: Arithmetic average annual growth of China''s real GDP has reached 9.93 percent over the 30 year period since the start of reform in 1979 up to 2009. Numerous books and articles have been written in the past to try to Account for the emergence of such an economic titan. This paper aims at sorting out, quantitatively, factors that seem to have been the culprits of high growth. In assessing the major factors that seem to explain the past high growth, the standard approach in the literature has been the supply side growth accounting. Growth accounting has the merit of being able to show quantitatively the contributions of growths of capital and labor, and the increase in productivity that is not attributed to them (growth of total factor productivity). We shall conduct fresh calculation of this growth accounting, but do more along the way. In what follows, this paper first examines the growth accounting which is a standard method of attributing GDP growth to three sources of growth: capital, labor and total factor productivity (TFP).The second part of this paper attempts to an Analysis of TFP growth. We focus on education and financial development as very important determinants of the level of TFP. Our analysis above shows that there are two serious imbalances in the Chinese economy today. One is the weakness in personal consumption growth. The other is the non-declining share of the secondary sector (manufacturing). The Chinese government recognizes that these problems exist. As for the low consumption problem, Yang (2010) emphasizes the importance of increasing services consumption in his lecture text at the Communist Party School, but there is no prescription. The 11th Five-Year Plan aimed at promoting consumption, but failed. The coming 12th Five-Year Plan will give it another try, but the achievement will be very difficult. We see few signs of this current high growth regime changing, and high growth is likely to continue for a foreseeable future. Whether this is a blessing for China is something to be studied. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper uses OECD data to examine changes in labor productivity, real gross domestic product (GDP) and real gross domestic income (GDI), economic aggregates, and relative economic growth over time. Real GDI combines changes in production (real GDP) with a trading gain derived from relative price changes. The paper considers two sources of trading gains: the terms of trade, and the real exchange rate. For OECD countries, the terms of trade is the more important price ratio, making a contribution to real income growth that is, on average, an order of magnitude larger than the real exchange rate. Over long time periods, the most important source of real income growth is changes in production. Over shorter time horizons, however, the trading gain can make noteworthy contributions. Changes in aggregates like real private consumption, or the relative economic performance of nations, are shown to be particularly dependent on the trading gain during the large swings in resource prices that occurred post-2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the present issues surrounding the role of workers remittances and its contribution/effect on economic growth and development. In particular, this paper examines how such remittances have been able to spur development and growth in the countryside. As a case study, the paper focuses on the regions of the Philippines. The Philippines is one of the countries in the world with a long history of sending workers abroad. In 2007, the Philippines received approximately US$l5Bn of remittances, more than 12% of its GDP. It ranks as the 3rd largest recipient of remittances in the world, after India and Mexico. Along this line, the paper looks into the following areas: (a) linkages between remittances and microfinance; (b) tracing the contribution of remittances to countryside development; and (c) the relationship between worker remittances and structural reform policies. We hypothesize that workers' remittances have not been properly utilized into productive and investment uses in the Philippines. There are strong anecdotal evidences that show that most of these remittances are being used to fund conspicuous consumption. Hence, we would like to find ways to harness these resources to funding development needs of the country. We find that remittances contribute to national growth; however, it also makes worse income inequalities among regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an unresolved debate as to whether natural disasters present true obstacles to a country's economic growth and development, given that the empirical evidence is rather heterogeneous. In this paper we explore whether aggregate analyses are likely to mask different responses of the components (export and import, government consumption, investment and private consumption) of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). To this end, we assembled a panel data set of hurricane strikes and national income accounting data for 21 Caribbean countries for the period 1970–2011. We used a panel Vector Autoregressive (VARX) model to take account of the direct impact of the storm shocks and any feedback mechanisms. Our results suggest that the responses on each GDP component differ widely, where we find some effects on export, import, public consumption, investment and private consumption. However, the differences in timing and directions of these impacts demonstrate why it may be difficult to find any clear and large net aggregate impact of hurricanes and natural disasters in general on GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The degree of responsiveness of fiscal and monetary policy mechanisms that promote growth and development in Sierra Leone is the subject of this article. Design/methodology/approach: This article uses both the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model presented by Hashem and Yongcheol (1998) and the Non-Linear Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model by Shin et al. (2014) to analyze annual time-series data in evaluating the asymmetric effect of real gross domestic product (RGDP), inflation, government expenditure and money supply using annual time-series data for 40 observations over the period 1980–2019. Findings: The augmented Dickey–Fuller unit root test shows that money supply, government spending and consumer price index are integrated at first difference I (1), while RGDP is stationary at level I (0). The results of the NARDL cointegration test indicate that the variables are cointegrated. The study shows that government expenditure is a positive function of both positive and negative changes. Hence, both positive and negative cumulative sum government expenditures improve economic growth but show a relative weak asymmetric effect with the regressand. This study also reveals that inflation is a negative function of both positive and negative changes with asymmetric effect with the dependent variable. This study shows that the positive change of money supply is statistically insignificant in boosting economic growth, while the negative change positively improves economic growth. Conclusively, this article shows that fiscal policy has a greater and more responsive than monetary policy in promoting growth and development in Sierra Leone. The result of the error correction term of the NARDL model shows a high spend of adjustment of 135% from any disequilibrium of GDP imbalance in the economy. Originality/value: To address the problem of fiscal dominance in Sierra Leone, this study recommends that fiscal and monetary policies should be coordinated simultaneously and to an appropriate extent to achieve the desired outcome in growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wages and salaries represent the most important component of household disposable income. The aim of the article is to examine how the relationship between the shares of households' wages and final consumption expenditure in their gross disposable income has developed over the past 20 years. The presented analysis uses publicly available national accounts data for 30 countries for the period of 2000–2019. The studied indicators include the proportion of households' wages and salaries, and final consumption expenditure in their gross disposable income. Using the proposed method based on the evaluation of changes in the spatial map, it is possible to observe any significant changes in these proportion values in the years of financial crisis and recession, as well as in the years of prosperity. The procedure can therefore serve as an indicator of appreciable changes in economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ekonomski Vjesnik is the property of Ekonomski Vjesnik 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.)

China's current account surplus widened from the late 1990s, and its private consumption fell to one third of gross domestic product ( GDP). We examine these domestic and external imbalances from two perspectives: the saving-investment balance and the effective renminbi exchange rate. China's large external surplus has arisen neither from anaemic consumption nor from weak investment but rather from the saved windfalls from favorable demographics, market liberalization, robust restructuring and World Trade Organization ( WTO) accession. Looking ahead, as these windfalls fade, saving will subside. The exchange rate is already playing a supporting role in rebalancing the Chinese economy, and the real effective exchange rate based on unit labor costs has appreciated very sharply. Prospective savings-investment and exchange-rate developments point to a higher consumption share and a narrowing of China's current account surplus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effects of minimum wages on both the long-run per worker GDP and welfare in the textbook Diamond style overlapping generations economy. In addition, we assume the existence of unemployment benefits financed at a balanced budget with consumption taxes. Under suitable conditions, it is shown that a regulated-wage economy with unemployment performs better than a competitive-wage economy with full employment in the long run. Moreover, a welfare-maximizing minimum wage exists. Our findings may have interesting policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the relative economic performance of Sweden. Criteria and methods in measuring economic growth are presented such as conducting an evaluation through the use of real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. This option is suggested both by data availability for comparative analysis over an extended period and for comparability with a wide range of previous studies. Another method is that of a Human Development Index (HDI). However, the HDI is not yet sufficiently developed conceptually or statistically to replace GDP. A table is shown that displays paths of real GDP per capita measured in 1985 at constant international prices up until 1992. The combination of convergence and cyclical fluctuation suggests that there should be caution on placing much emphasis on changes in GDP rankings between a particular pair of years.

In this article, the authors look at the physical measurement of Chinese energy consumption as a way to evaluate the growth of real gross domestic product (GDP). We use the elasticity of energy consumption with respect to GDP to measure the response of energy consumption growth to the GDP growth. In the absence of trends in intensity, we anticipate that the annual-average elasticity would be close to unity reflecting the short-run correspondence between movements in GDP and energy consumption. Our assessment is based on the assumption that, since the Chinese economic development level is at the average of the East Asian countries, the GDP elasticity of energy consumption in China might be at the average of the other East Asian countries. These calculations provide some insight into recent Chinese economic growth and its likely future role in the world economy.

This paper develops a simple theory governing the relationship between useful energy consumption and national output that explains why the adjusted elasticities found by two economists turned out to be greater than one. The theory is quantified by reference to a wide range of countries covering the whole spectrum of economic development and is tested against the actual experience over 20 to 25 years of individual countries. Conformity to the theory was very close and the efficiency-in-use coefficients computed by economists were found to hold good for periods of 20 to 25 years. Briefly, the hypothesis states that as a country moves through the various stages of its economic development from primitive subsistence agriculture to the ultimate state of fully energy-dependent production, its useful energy elasticity steadily falls from a high value tending asymptotically to one. By itself this proposition is of little use to energy forecasters, because it simply substitutes the requirement to predict energy intensiveness of output for the requirement to predict energy consumption. If we can satisfy ourselves that real GDP per capita is a good measure of energy intensiveness, however, then the relationship derived above can be used as the basis for a mathematical model linking useful energy consumption per capita with GDP per capita.

This study empirically investigates the relationship between economic growth and several factors (investment, private and government consumption, trade openness, population growth and government debt) in Greece, where imbalances persist several years after the financial crisis. The results reveal a long-run relationship between variables. Investment as private and government consumption and trade openness affect positively growth. On the other hand, there is a negative long-run effect of government debt and population growth on growth. Furthermore, the study addresses the issue of break effects between government debt and economic growth. The results indicate that the relationship between debt and growth depends on the debt breaks. Specifically, at debt levels before 2000, increases in the government debt-to-GDP ratio are associated with insignificant effects on economic growth. However, as government debt rises after 2000, the effect on economic growth diminishes rapidly and the growth impacts become negative. The challenge for policy makers in Greece is to halt the rising of government debt by keeping a sustainable growth path. Fiscal discipline should be combined with the implementation of coherent, consistent and sequential growth-enhancing structural reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses trends, updates, and outlook for the Australian economy. Topics explored include the gross domestic product (GDP), consumption, and unemployment rates recorded from 2017 to 2018, international economic developments in the U.S., Europe, and China which could impact Australia, and the contribution of non-mining business investments to Australian economic growth.

The majority of Asian countries, in particular, those located in East Asia, such as China, are characterized by high GDP shares of consumption. While over the past two decades there has been a remarkable growth in consumption, and to a lesser extent of consumption per capita, the GDP share of the consumption has declined by a considerable amount in Asia. The article presents projections of the GDP consumption share. The projections are based on time series models and an econometric model that relates the GDP share of consumption to GDP growth. Instrumental variables estimates show that the GDP share of consumption is significantly negatively related to growth: A decrease in PPP GDP per capita growth of 1 percentage point increases the GDP share of consumption by around 2 percentage points. Slower growth in Asia would thus significantly contribute to a higher GDP share of consumption in that region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This publication presents the results of the comparative analysis of economic growth in the United States and Poland using Harver Analytics. It takes into account factors such as GDP, industrial output, consumption expenditure, investment, exports and consumption expenditure of the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aim to clarify how objective wellbeing in Romania, as expressed by statistical indicators, evolved during two and a half decades (1990-2014). We considered three main pillars of welfare - health, income & consumption, education - and we investigated their evolution for five CEE countries: Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, to which we added a western european country - Germany -, as a banchmark for comparison. We conclude that Romania's welfare development, determined using our indicators and methodology, appears to be consistent and robust. Considering the overall welfare development relative scores, Romania ranks second among the countries under survey, after Poland. Accordingly, even though for some indicators Romania was and still is positioned below other CEE countries in absolute figures, the positive evolutions we have observed for some indicators show a convergence tendency with countries better positioned so far, as confirmed by reducing gaps for these indicators. However, this 2nd rank comprises mixed performances among the analysed indicators. For instance, Romania's wellbeing development lags behind some other CEE countries for life expectancy, tertiary enrolment and human capital. As a result, absolute gaps have expanded. Moreover, in the case of GDP, although its relative growth was lower only than that of Poland, the absolute gap between Romania and other two countries (Czech Republic and Germany) widened in 2014, as compared with 1991. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most ecosystem services, which are essential for human well-being, are globally declining, while the production of consumption goods, measured by GDP, is still growing. To adequately account for this opposite development in public cost-benefit analyses, it has been proposed-based on a two-goods extension of the Ramsey growth model-to apply good-specific discount rates for manufactured consumption goods and for ecosystem services. Using empirical data for ten ecosystem services across five countries and the world at large, we estimated the difference between the discount rates for ecosystem services and for manufactured consumption goods. In a conservative estimate, we found that ecosystem services in all countries should be discounted at rates that are significantly lower than the ones for manufactured consumption goods. On global average, ecosystem services should be discounted at a rate that is 0.9 $$\pm $$ 0.3 %-points lower than the one for manufactured consumption goods. The difference is larger in less developed countries and smaller in more developed countries. This result supports and substantiates the suggestion that public cost-benefit-analyses should use country-specific dual discount rates-one for manufactured consumption goods and one for ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]