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The paper analyses the determinants of green development in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries pointing out the influence of the sophistication of productive structure and exported goods (economic complexity). The study uses OECD data regarding green development, World Bank Indicators, World Penn Table Data, and MIT Harvard data covering the period of 1996 to 2020, in a heterogeneous panel approach. Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) models are estimated in order to express the influence on green development of the economic complexity index, KOF globalization index, renewable energy consumption, human capital index, and a constructed institutional quality index (computed by using the Principal Component Analysis based on data from World Governance Indicators). All considered variables have a validated statistical influence on green growth in both models. The Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test revealed a bidirectional causal relationship between institutional quality and green growth and unidirectional ones from economic complexity, human capital and renewable energy to green development and from green development to globalization. Policy implications are also provided.

Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries are struggling with internal and external macroeconomic and social factors in their catching-up strategies to be closer, as economic wealth, to the Western developed European countries. In these ex-communist countries, institutional factors could be seen as critical for success in narrowing the income gap. The paper proposes an analysis of the impact of economic and financial development and globalization on the income gap in 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Slovenia) for the period of 1996 to 2019, taking into consideration institutional factors. The study analyses the variables: transition coefficient as a proxy for income gap, GDP per capita, KOF Financial Globalisation Index, Financial Development Index and World Bank Institutional Indicators in a panel approach methodology and estimation of FMOLS and DOLS equations. The paper’s findings show that all considered factors have a significant contribution to the income gap in the examined period of time. Economic and financial development, as well as institutional quality, is positively associated with the closing income gap, while globalization has a negative influence. It is also revealed the direction of the causality relationship between the considered variables: from economic and financial development, globalization and institutional quality to the income gap. These findings suggest some policy recommendations in support of the continuation of the European integration process.

The paper examines the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) model in the panel of the most complex economies in the world by considering the ecological footprint as an indicator of environmental degradation and economic complexity - as a variable of interest and expression of structural changes in the economy. The study includes the first 48 complex economies in the world, with positive averages of the Economic Complexity Index (ECI) for 1995-2017. The model of cointegrating polynomial regression (CPR) includes also variables with impact on ecological footprints such as globalization, energy intensity and urbanization. The EKC model is validated in the panel of the 48 complex economies, suggesting that these countries have already reached a development stage enabling them to curb the increasing pollution expressed by ecological footprint. Globalization has a mitigating effect while urbanization and energy intensity have an extension effect on ecological footprint. Policy implications are also included.

t The paper explores the link between financial development and environmental performance in the world economy. The cross-country regression including 173 countries is based on 2020 data on Environmental Performance Index (EPI) compiled by the experts of Yale University and 2019 Financial Development Index (FDI) data provided by IMF. The results show that financial development is positively associated with environmental performance and this positive relationship is more powerful in countries with low development of financial sector. It is also revealed a validated causality running from financial development to environmental performance in the world economy and also, in the group of well and less financial developed countries, respectively. The paper highlights the importance of the development level of financial sector for environmental sustainability, especially on ecosystem health. Paper's findings suggest an urgent call for appropriate policy measures in all countries, targeting the strengthening of financial institutions and markets (access, depth and efficiency). It is possible in this way for economies to be more empowered in the fight against the environmental degradation and for the improvement of environmental quality

The aim of the paper is to provide empirical evidence in support of the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in eleven Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries over the period 1995-2015 within a multivariate panel data analysis. Based on World Bank data, the panel cointegration analysis reveals that renewable energy consumption and economic growth are positively associated in the long run in CEE countries. The heterogeneous panel causality test indicates a bi-directional causality relationship in support of the feedback hypothesis between economic growth and renewable energy consumption in Central and Eastern European countries.

The study aims to explore the real wage convergence across the 42 Romanian counties from 1991 to 2016 by using the convergence algorithm developed by Phillips and Sul (2007). The process of divergence is identified in the period of 1991-2016 as well as a number of 4 convergence subgroups (clusters). Transitional curves indicate that over the long-run the real wage tends to converge. Policy implications of the paper’s findings are also provided.

The paper aims to prove the link between human capital and gross added value in bioeconomy sectors in the EU countries. Data from EUROSTAT data base regarding employment and gross added value in 6 bioeconomy sectors were used in a cross-country regression analysis. The econometric analysis of cross-country data shows a positive correlation between human capital in bioeconomy sectors and their gross output in 2015 in 26 European countries. It is found also that the correlation is stronger in the highly developed economies as in the central-eastern countries, as well as in the European economy.

The paper intends to provide evidence regarding the disparities on global competitiveness, human capital and inclusive development across the European Union economies. The values of Global Competitiveness Index, Inclusive Development Index and Global Human Capital Index provided by the 2017-2018 World Economic Forum reports are considered in a cluster analysis. The composition of clusters is mixed as regards the level of economy (developed or developing), geographical position (Western or Eastern and Central Europe) and old/new Member State; countries belonging to a geographical region (i.e. Eastern or Central Europe) or economic group (i.e.developed or emerging countries) are not grouped in the same cluster, emphasizing disparities among European countries at regional/economic group level. It is found also that high differences in accumulation of human capital can coexist with low disparities in inclusiveness or competitiveness and moderate levels of competitiveness and inclusive development can be associated with high level of human capital endowment.

The paper documents the impact of global competitiveness on economic growth in the EU Member States. In a panel data approach, for a time span of 10 years (2008- 2017), a validated influence of Global Competitiveness Index on annual rate of GDP in the EU countries was found. The impact is higher in the group of Eastern and Central European countries (ECE) than in the Western European (well developed) countries, as well as at European economy level.

The paper explores the association between economic competitiveness and inclusive development in 101 economies based on data provided by the 2018 World Economic Forum reports. Coefficients of ranks correlation and cluster analysis are used in this view. The values of Competitiveness Index and of Inclusive Development Index delivered by the 2018 World Economic Forum reports are considered. Economic competitiveness and inclusive development are positively associated in our sample of 101 economies and the correlation is stronger in the emerging countries as in the group of advanced economies. Among the advanced economies the mean scores of GCI and IDI are higher than in the group of emerging countries showing a better coordination of economic and institutional factors driving competitivity as well as inclusiveness. Countries belonging to a geographical region/continent/economic group are not grouped in the same cluster, emphasizing disparities among countries at regional/continental/economic group level. In the group of emerging economies, the disparities regarding competitivity and inclusiveness are lower than those among the advanced economies, the clusters are closer to one another and they are more homogeneous. Greater competitivity and economic performance can generate socioeconomic inequity that should be corrected through appropriate economic and social policy measures aimed to lead to wider distrbution of income and social inclusiveness.

The aim of the paper is to explore the association between environmental performance and income level in the world economy in 2016. Data from Yale University and World Bank are used in a cross-country regression analysis comprising 166 countries. The gross Domestic Product per capita (based in purchased power parity, constant 2011 international dollars) in these countries is positively associated with the environmental performance index (EPI) calculated by Yale and Columbia University in 2016. Furthermore, the causality of this relationship is from GDP per capita to Environmental Performance and both Environmental Health (EH) and Ecosystem Vitality (EV) are positively associated with GDP per capita. Environmental Health (EH) is stronger related to GDP per capita, meaning that investments in public health, sanitation and infrastructure are increasing as countries develop.

The paper has the aim to highlight the impact of innovation on sustainable development in Eastern and Central European countries. In this wiew, a sinthetic measure of sustainability in these countries is calculated, taking into account ten statistical indicators (related to socio-economic development, sustainable consumption and production, social inclusion, demographic changes, public health, primary energy consumption, share of renewable energy in final consumption energy, sustainable transport, official development assistance granted to these countries) from EUROSTAT database. A comparative analysis of the level of sustainability during 2005-2014 in Eastern and Central Europe is followed by an analysis of the impact of innovation (measured by eco-innovation index) on sustainable development, using panel data techniques. The findings show that eco-innovation had a positive impact on sustainability in these countries in the examined period.This result could be used as a rationale for policy makers from these countries in designing measures for eco-innovation stimulation, aiming in this way to move forward for achieving the planned national targets within the European Union Sustainable Development Strategy (EU-SDS).

The purpose of the paper is to give an overview of the changes in the structure of industries in Romania, specifically on the questions (1) whether the industrial structures become more similar or more different in the Romanian regions and (2) whether the Romanian industries become more concentrated or more dispersed. EUROSTAT regional data on Gross Value Added and employed population for the period of 2000-2013 are used in order to calculate several statistical indices of specialization and concentration (Krugman, Entropy, Hirschman-Herfindahl, Lilien Index and Gini coefficient). By comparing the values of these different measurements, the main finding is that Romanian regions become less specialized, while industries become slightly more concentrated. The speed of structural changes in all Romanian regions registered a noticeable slowdown of the speed of sectoral changes after the economic crisis. Our conclusions provide useful information for the economic policy makers in investment funds allocation or employment measures designing.

The aim of the paper is to compare the employers' and employees' insights on human capital quality defining and human capital development at organisational level, based on a survey carried out in the county of Satu Mare, Romania. Our findings show that as human capital buyers, employers understand by human capital quality professional background and skills, professional behaviour and efficiency and productivity for the organisation. As human capital sellers, for employees human capital quality means health and the ability to learn and to be suitable to the job requirements. Regarding the opportunities to develop the organisational human capital, the views of employers and employees are very different when the level of discussion is international (macro-level). Employees consider that the international environment has a greater impact on human capital development in their organisation as the employers.

From the birth of the human capital theory, economists were interested to find evidences showing the impact of the human capital on the economic output, discussing and debating more or less the effect of economic growth on the accumulation of human capital in the economy and the association between education and health. The paper aims to test several econometric models to explain the relationship between human capital and economic output. Using World Bank data, 17 countries with the fastest economic growth rate during 1960-2010 were selected. Four econometric models are tested to explain the accumulation of human capital as input and as effect of economic output. Correlation coefficients were calculated to highlight the association between education and life expectancy. The paper demonstrates that human capital, in his two components (education and health), in countries with a fast growth rate, are positively and strongly related to the economic output, in both senses, human capital being input and output of the economic growth. On the one hand, the economic growth adds to the resources available in the economy for improvements in health and education and, on the other hand, human capital is influencing significantly the economic output. Education and health are interrelated, being positively and strongly associated.

There is a general consensus that human capital is a major determinant of economic growth. Reflections on how human capital is related to growth can be extended by viewing on the market value of the human capital. The concept of the market value of human capital reflects the efficiency of allocation and utilisation of the human capital in the economy. To measure this efficiency the concept of the market value of human capital is explained and developed in the present paper. The aim of the paper is to introduce the concept of market value of human capital and the specific objectives are targeted to define his content, to propose a method for estimating it and to provide calculations of it for OECD countries. The concept of human capital is complex and multifaceted one, consisting of: native human capital (biological), educational capital, health capital and social skills (Neagu, 2010). Clearly, human capital is intangible, a stock that is not directly observable as physical capital. Therefore, the estimation of human capital must be constructed indirectly. The stock of human capital in economy creates economic value, expressed through the economic output per capita. In order to estimate this economic value we have to find an appropriate proxy for the human capital stock producing that value. In the purpose of our paper, we consider that the economic value of human capital can be estimated by calculating the aggregate value created by the active human capital in the economy. In this view, GDP per person employed is a relevant estimation of value created by the employed labour force. The aggregate value is created by the employed persons with different educational level. The market value of human capital is calculated by dividing the GDP per person employed to the human capital stocks active in the economy. The human capital stock depends on educational costs ( on primary, seconadry, tertiary education) as a the share of GDP per capita weighted by the employment rates. For OECD countries, the market value of their human capital was calculated for 1999-2008, showing their efficiency on utilisation of the human capital stock. The most efficient OECD countries are Australia Austria and USA and the less efficient are Mexico, Czech Republic and Hungary.The market value of human capital has a ascending trend in all OECD countries, reflecting the results of their efforts to valorise their human capital in employment. The originality of the paper consists on introduction the concept of the market value of the human capital, defining his content and providing estimates for OECD countries.As a concept, the market value of human capital of a country shows the ability of the economy to use the existent human capital to produce economic output. The market value of human capital reflects an aspect of the economic efficiency, by relating the economic output per person employed to the human capital per capita employed in the economy. It expresses the economic output per one unit of human capital, reflecting the aggregate perfomance of that economy.

The role of the human capital in the economy is highlighted in several studies of human capital, endonegneous growth and macroeconomic literature. A special part of this literature is dedicated to the mechanism and the various channels through wich human capital influences economic growth. As expression of the macroeconomic performance, the labour productivity depends on the accumulation of human capital in the economy. To analyze and discuss this dependency is essential for appropriate human capital policies aiming to stimulate the human capital accumulation in the economy and the enhancement of the labour productivity. The paper explores the link between labour productivity and the estimates of the human capital stock in the EU countries. Human capital theory explains the labour productivity level by the workers' level of educational attainment level. Four different effects of human capital on labour productivity can be found in economic literature: worker, allocative, difusion and research. Other researchers used a production function to estimate the productivity impact of changes in educational attainment. Research on the impact of human capital on productivity at the country level encountered many difficulties over the years. The main methodological issue is how to measure skills and human capital investment and to model possible channels of skills of influence the economic performance. The UNESCO attainment levels and enrollment series and other data sets, constructed by researchers, have been used in a large number of empirical studies of the link between education and productivity. What is innovative in the present study is the estimation of human capital stock based on educational costs by level(primary, secondary, tertiary) weighted by the proportion of labour force with corresponding educational attainment and the testing of linear regression model for the dependency of labour productivity on human capital stock. The assumption of the study is that the labour productivity is strongly and positively correlated with the human capital stock in the european economies. In order to confirm this, the following steps were completed: First, the appropriate method to estimate the human capital stock in the economy was identified and then, the estimations were calculated for the EU's countries, based on EUROSTAT data. Second, the correlations between statistical indicators of labour productivity and estimates of human capital stock, for each european countries were identified and discussed. Third, a regression linear model was tested for each of 22 european countries included in the study. A strong correlation between labour productivity and human capital stock, statistically tested through regression equations with data from EUROSTAT, was found. The variation of labour productivity can be explained in proportion of 85-95% by the variation of human capital stock, considering all other factors as constant. The added value of the paper consists of: (i) the estimation of human capital stock using the educational costs method for the european countries; (ii) the use of these estimates to show the correlation with the labour productivity levels and (iii) testing econometrical models of the dependency between labour productivity and human capital stock in 22 european countries. An interesting and useful task for future research is to explore the details of the institutional and incentive structure that best allocates a fixed amount of educational expenditures.

It was marked out that the investors should be prepared for permanent changes of the forms in which the risk can manifest itself from the evolution of market economy grounded in the industrialized countries: operational, financial, strategic risks are also added to the traditional exposition to chance, caused by a series of factors, as legislation modifications, certain standards and European codes, the risks imposed by the evolution of the new economy, pressures that emerge in the personnel policy domain, the new needs for technical equipment, the costs efficiency, the spontaneous (unexpected, unplanned) economical events. It is interesting to analyze in what measure one can talk about the risk management in the strategies to attract the foreign investors in this context. This supposes an additional effort of the authorities to identify and subsequently eradicate the risk that could emerge in the case of some direct foreign investments in Romania.

The larger context of our research is the impact of the Romanian transportation infrastructure development on the nation's economy. In this paper we focus on presenting the inland waterways, canals and maritime transportation infrastructure, the volume of goods transported and some economic implications. The scope of the present study is to analyze data regarding the volume of goods transported on the inland waterways and maritime transportation infrastructure. The considered time-frame for this paper is from 1990 to 2019 and the data was collected from sources such as annual reports of Governmental Agencies, Eurostat and the National Institute of Statistics. We found that there is severe lack of reported data or even data inconsistency between authorities. As economic policy implications we mention the need for investments in maintenance, development, and modernization of infrastructure to stimulate the positive trend in volumes of goods transported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable development essentially depends on natural capital or environment assets and conceiving a sustainable development strategy at local level means first to evaluate it, through inventorying all types of natural resources: vegetable, animal, protected areas, forest and water resources, crops and farming resources, land and pastures and meadows. The area called Ţara OaŞului, located in the north-eastern part of Satu Mare county has some particular features: a wealth of natural resources (such as forests, stone, mineral water, wild flora and fauna), population with a high level of income and luxurious but uninhabited houses, a high level of migration for work abroad (from the very beginning of nineties), a lack of labour force and active population, a reduced life expectancy, and specific popular traditions (costume, events) and culture. We carried out a field reseach, by applying a questionnaire to local population, authorities and experts in order to obtain an estimation of natural resources, as volumes and ways of exploitation (for own consumption or market selling) and the main trends in local traditional employment. The research conclusions are valuable in order to conceive the sustainable development strategy of the area, taking into consideration the local capabilities to use the existing natural resources by protecting the environment, to build an appropriate social capital and to attract the required for economic growth human and financial resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its efforts to faces the challenges of emerging from the crisis, the EU tries to put the European economies on a sustainable growth path through the 2014-2020 Common Strategic Framework (CSF), sought as an instrument for implementing the Europe 2020 Strategy. According to the CSF thematic objectives, the European Commission proposed for 2014-2020 a new Multiannual Financial Framework, through which thematic concentration and performance incentives are expected to result in more effective spending. The CSF Funds will provide an important source of public investments not only in growth and jobs but in areas supporting them, such as environment protection or resource efficiency. The paper offers a insight of the financing of environmental projects in Romania in the frame of the new Programming period and according to the EU Cohesion Policy objectives for 2014-2020. According to the learned lesson from the previous programming period, for a successful implementation of CSF Funds, with an optimal impact, an appropriate policy and a legal and administrative framework in place are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]