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Article history: Received: May 15, 2024; Reviewed: June 14, 2024; Accepted: June 21, 2024; Available online: June 30, 2024. As highlighted by Pop & Georgescu (2024), the Romanian academic literature concerning municipal bonds is sparse, while the investigations regarding the factors that can influence the sub-sovereign bond trading at Bucharest Stock Exchange is quasi non-existent, to the best of authors’ knowledge. The present paper continues the work of Pop & Georgescu (2024) by trying to identify which of the public available information regarding various interest rates and Bucharest Stock Exchange (henceforth BVB) indices returns influence the trading activity of municipal bond market segment. The correlations presented within this paper imply that the modest profile of municipal bond segment at BVB is related to a relative small number of individual investors that dominate the transactions, using mostly observed data to decided when to trade and what to trade. The scarce correlations that appear in relation with the trading volume and trading value point toward the idea that only a small portion of the listed municipal bonds are owned by individual investors. JEL Classification: G12

The current paper continues the work of Pop et al. (2019) and Pop & Georgescu (2020) concerning the drivers (factors) that might influence the rural accommodation development in Romania. The present study introduced 13 new factors/drivers. The research question remains the same as formulated in the previous study: which are the drivers of the accommodation development in rural areas in Romania? The findings of the present analysis are in line with the findings of Pop & Georgescu (2020), which show that lodging development in rural areas is related to a certain extent to tourist attractions, while the 2008 rank and 2012 rank have a rather mediating influence. The newly added endogenous factors/drivers Romanian rural localities add relative little to the explanatory power of models used to assess the rural lodgings development. While in some cases (see Table 1) R squared doubles its value compared with the findings of Pop & Georgescu (2020), the relationship among the dependent variable and the selected factors, though significant, remains weak. JEL Classification: L83, Z30, Z32

The present paper continues the work of Pop et al. (2019) on what concerns the drivers of rural accommodation development in Romania. The study covers the same period: 2005 to 2019. This study introduces a new factor / driver: the accessibility of communes via the national and county road network. Similar to the findings of Pop et al. (2019), the 2008 and 2012 ranks were established based on the existing tourist attractions. The 2012 rank is strongly influenced by 2008 ranks and, under the present study, by accessibility. Though, the influence of both ranks on lodgings (both under NIS and MoT data) remains weak to very weak hence suggesting the need to introduce new factors in order to explain the lodging development in rural areas. JEL classification: L83

Modern rural tourism is an umbrella concept, including a wide range of (niche) type tourism related to the countryside/rural areas. The central attractions of rural tourism are induced by the closeness to nature and new cultural experiences related to (local) history and intangible heritage. The interest for a rural destination being increased by an environment considered appealing from natural and aesthetic viewpoints, allowing for various forms of recreation. This preliminary study answers the following question: which are the drivers of the accommodation development in rural areas in Romania? taking into consideration only the potential tourist attractions that could be identified based on official records (e.g. historic monuments, the status of resort for a given locality, the registered vineyards, the two rankings from 2008 and 2012). The overall conclusion of the study is that the potential tourist attractions have a relatively small influence on the development of Romanian rural lodgings. Therefore, more factors should be added in order to understand the accommodation development in rural areas in Romania. JEL Classification: L83