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The purpose of our study is to identify the nature of the link between government spending and economic growth, in order to test the two theories of Wagner and Keynes, in the case of Romania. On the one hand, Keynes argues that public spending is an important tool to stimulate growth. On the other hand, Wagner says that increased public spending is a result of economic growth. We analyzed the long-term dynamics of the two time series through Johansen’s cointegration approach and, in the short term, with the help of Granger’s causality test. The obtained results do not indicate the existence of long-term cointegration vectors, but they support the double causality relation in the short term. Therefore, not only does GDP represent a Granger cause for government spending but also vice versa. Our results validate the liberal criticism of the state’s involvement in supporting economies. As the critics of the monetarist school said, the effect of multiplying government spending on national income is short-term. The long-term effect appears under the action of inflationary macroeconomic bottlenecks.

The current financial crisis and the lack of resources made imperative the analysis of the efficiency for managing public money, both at the central and at the local level. The general objective of the research is constituted by the estimate of the technical efficiency of all counties in Romania, as well as the analysis of its implications in local development. The originality and novelty of the study are supported by the research of a subject that has in the center the efficiency of the public authorities, current research direction for the public sector, in view of achieving a complex study. In order to reach the objective proposed, we will perform calculations on the basis of the Data Envelopment Analysis mathematical model and of the Tobit non-linear econometric model. At the same time, we reach the conclusion that in Romania, as in other states, there is a causality link between the efficiency of the local authorities and the level of corruption.

In the decision-making process investors need quality financial information based on reported accounting numbers. Such numbers are present in financial statements and must meet a series of fundamental characteristics, such as relevance and faithful representation. The present paper aims to analyse and assess the value relevance of financial information on the financial market in India under the influence of the main country risk components (i.e. economic risk and freedom to set up businesses, corruption control, financial, fiscal, monetary and investment freedom). The research was carried out on a sample of companies listed on the regulated market in India between 2006 and 2014. The results of applying general linear models have shown that, over time, the country risk can have a significant influence on the value relevance of the financial statements reported at the financial market level.

Health Systems’ efficiency is one of the most sensitive topics in Health Economics. Therefore, the importance of how resources are used to provide the maximum satisfaction attainable is crucial. This paper aims to assess the European Health Systems in terms of efficiency. In achieving the goal of the research, a set of relevant variables was selected from Eurostat database. A Data Envelopment Analysis has been applied to evaluate the efficiency of the Health Systems. There were used immunization rate and health expenditures as input variables, and survival rate for adults and tuberculosis rate as output variables. The study emphasizes that Romania has an inefficient Health System and even though the Romanian Health System has known different types of reforms and improvements in the last two decades, certain areas still fall below the European average and the system is still failing to provide proper services to its citizens.

Energy poverty, or the inability of households to afford adequate access to energy services, is an issue that can have a significant effect on the quality of life and even the state of health of individuals and even the overall development of a nation. Since it was first brought into focus more than two decades ago in the UK, this topic has gradually gained the attention of academics and policy makers all across the EU and beyond. The current paper addresses the topic by providing not only a renewed discussion, but also an improved energy poverty indicator (with clear and relevant results at the EU level): the Compound Energy Poverty Indicator (CEPI). Moreover, knowing that the risk of poverty and social exclusion, efficiency of heating systems, total consumption of energy per household and rising energy prices tend to increase the severity of this problem in some countries, CEPI is then included into an econometric model so as to determine some possible factors that tend to put pressure on an already existing issue of energy poverty. The results of this research are expected to be relevant not only for academics (as it offers insights into the structure and severity of this topic within the European Union), but also for national and EU policymakers who are confronted in the field with the problem of sustainable development.

The present paper will present the migratory trend of the eight development regions of Romania and its effect on the human capital endowment. The strong inter-regional migration generates huge development gaps, disfavors the lower developed regions in attracting foreign investments and forces the public authorities to make additional efforts in order to insure the social protection. We will determine these correlations, suggesting some public policy measures useful to reestablish the equilibrium. The importance of such measures is higher in the context in which, in future, Romania will have to obey the European Agreement of Fiscal Union and to reduce the exceeding budgetary expenditures.

The idea according to which human capital is the main engine of growth has a large support in the specialized literature. In this context, the analysts have argued that sustainable growth and development of a country relies not on a large number of people but on a large amount of human capital. The explanation is simple: a healthier and better educated society involves more productive people, who are able to efficiently evaluate the opportunities and to take the right decisions, a higher social cohesion and more “green skills” that raise the environmental awareness. Considering all these aspects, the main objective of this paper is to identify the way in which human capital, through its qualitative dimensions, influences the sustainable development in the EU states. In order to reach this purpose, we have collected, tabulated and analysed the secondary data offered by various statistical yearbooks, reports and by different empirical investigations. The conclusions of this study may offer valuable information for the EU policy makers regarding the importance of investing in human capital in order to ensure a sustainable development. Keywords: human capital, sustainable development, economic growth, social cohesion, environment protection

Developing people’s interest towards starting a business plays a vital role in the former socialist countries in which, for a very long time, private property and free initiative were almost completely annihilated. Therefore, countries like Romania cannot design a sustainable growth model without taking into account the necessary improvements in the human capital factor, through the entrepreneurial education specific to the market economy, and in the social capital, which leads to stability and enhances the economic activity. The main objectives of this paper are to analyze how much the entrepreneurial intentions are influenced by certain psycho-behavioral traits of the individual (creativity, locus of control, need for achievement and risk taking propensity) and to evaluate the influence of different types of education on these intentions, in order to see if the entrepreneurial education significantly influences the entrepreneurial intentions of Romanian young people. By analyzing the specialized literature, we have developed six research hypothesis that were tested on a sample of 600 students from the undergraduate (bachelor) and master programs within the large state universities of Romania who have entrepreneurship courses in the content of their curricula, with the help of a questionnaire-based survey. Depending on the research hypothesis, several data analysis approaches were used, including Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and General Linear Models (GLM). The main results of this study clearly illustrate that the need for achievement and the propensity towards taking risks play an important role in determining the entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, graduates of the high schools with an entrepreneurial field are less inclined to engage in businesses compared to the graduates of the high schools that offer general education.

The social political environment has a strong impact on the human capital stock. Therefore, the major political changes that occurred in Romania during the 20th century significantly contributed to the disturbance of the normal forming cycle of human capital, both quantitatively and qualitatively. This paper aims at following, by means of a comparative study and qualitative analysis, the evolution and dynamics of the human capital stock under the two elements of influence, education and healthcare. The objective is to carry out an analysis on the changes occurred at the level of the human capital stock in different social political contexts, by means of the available statistical data and for the purpose of providing a database to be used in taking the right political decisions for its protection.

The formal and informal education have a significant impact on human capital accumulation, which is strongly influencing the growth and development of a country. While the formal education is acquired especially through the learning system, the informal one is correlated to the professional experience at the workplace, both of them being considered a long-term investment. Because the educational effort is indirectly related to the preference rate in time and directly related to the school efficiency, people have to rationally choose between the time spent working and the period spent with education, giving up on one of these activities. Yet, there is an alternative that reduces the necessity of the substitution through the factor time and which leads to an endogenous knowledge accumulation, into the productive act: the learning-by-doing process. Unfortunately, in Romania this is a concept very vague defined and applied, even in the case of the multinational corporations' subsidies.

The present paper analyzes the way in which the formal education, acquired especially through the learning system, can influence the Romania's stock of human capital. Unfortunately, in our country this type of education is free of charge at almost all the levels, fact that diminishes the marginal utility and the value that a person gives to each additional school year. Moreover, the resource allocation is made according to principles hard to identify. The primary and the secondary education has been neglected long time because it was wrongly considered that a greater importance given to the tertiary education would increase the human capital stock.