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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation, energy consumption and patents on environmental technologies on the volume of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) recorded in European countries for a period of nine years (2010–2018).Design/methodology/approachTwo empirical methods were integrated into the theoretical approach developed based on the analysis of the current scientific framework. Multiple linear regression, an extended version of the OLS model, and a non-causal analysis as a robustness method, Dumitrescu–Hurlin, were used to achieve the proposed research objective.FindingsDigitalisation described by the number of individual Internet users and patents on environmental technologies determines the amount of GHG in Europe, and economic growth continues to have a significant effect on the amount of emissions, as well as the consumption of renewable energy. European countries are not framed in well-established patterns, but the economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation and renewable energy have an impact on the amount of GHG in one way or another. In many European countries, the amount of GHGs is decreasing as a result of economic growth, changes in the energy field and digitalisation. The positive influence of economic growth on climate neutrality depends on its degree of sustainability, while patents have the same conditional effect of their translation into environmentally efficient technologies.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has a number of limitations which derive, first of all, from the lack of digitalisation indicators. The missing data restricted the inclusion in the analysis of variables relevant to the description of the European digitalisation process, also obtaining conclusive results on the effects of digitalisation on GHG emissions.Originality/valueA similar analysis of the relationship among the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth, digitalisation, eco-innovation and renewable energy is less common in the literature. Also, the results can be inspirational in the sphere of macroeconomic policy.

Resilience is a concept that reflects the ability to cope with change; sustainability is the ability to preserve the beneficial aspects associated with economic activity. Regarding the last decades, we assess the extent to which the resilience of sustainable tourism depends on labour market, economic growth, energy consumption, and renewable energy consumption. We used Granger causality applied to indicators correlated with sustainability (number of international tourism arrivals, labour force, GDP, total energy consumption, renewable energy consumption) for the period between 1995 and 2014. The time interval could not be extended because of the lack of recent data. The main result is that for Romania, Bulgaria and Poland the resilience of sustainable tourism depends on the indicators we analyzed, all of which playing the role of generator or “cause” for the numbers of arrivals. Bicausality was noticed for Romania and Poland and partial bicausality for Bulgaria because labour force and economic growth are not the causes of total energy consumption and neither are the number of tourists, labour force and economic growth the causes of renewable energy consumption. The resilience of sustainable tourism is dependent on the situation in other fields of activity since the tourism sector does not have the capacity for self-regeneration.

This paper aims to analyse the concept of Heavy Work Investment (HWI) by studying the factors determining this phenomenon, as well as its outcomes (both negative and positive). According to the European Directive of 1993, Heavy Work Investment occurs when an individual works more than 48 hours per week. The aim of this paper is to study the factors influencing the occurrence of the phenomenon of Heavy Work Investment from the perspective of time invested, using the multiple regression model, as well as the outcomes of Heavy Work Investment, using the structural equation model (SEM). The study used the data of the countries included in the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), (37 countries and a total of 18,274 respondents) on employment status, the number of actual working hours, job and demographic characteristics. The results confirm the important impact of the cross-cultural differences on HWI behaviour as well as the outcomes of Heavy Work Investment according to the type of investor (dispositional / situational).

Tourism significantly increased in the EU-28 in recent years. In the present study, the 28 member states were analysed for the period between 2012 and 2018, depending on data availability. The authors tested empirically whether economic convergence took place from the perspective of three types of revenue from the tourism sector. The contribution of tourism revenue to economic growth varied across different countries. The analysis of b and r-convergence showed a low-intensity and slow process based on the revenues generated by accommodation, transport, and restaurant and coffee shop services. Contrary to expectations, the factors analysed did not strongly support the EU-28 tourism sector convergence. We argue the existence of a positive and direct relationship between tourism and economic growth. The convergence did exist but its pace was sometimes slow and of low intensity, preceded by periods of divergence. The three types of services generated tourism revenue but not decisively. The paper complements the literature using indicators that strictly describe the tourism sector and brings into focus findings that contradict those from other studies. Our conclusion is that convergence was not accelerated, but slow and it was not determined by tourism factors but by related ones.

The three states that border the Black Sea benefit from an important potential for tourism and consider the development of this sector to be a major objective. Nonetheless, they face environmental risks. Tourism does not have a neutral impact on the ecosystem. We evaluated tourism sustainability for three states bordering the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. We used a longitudinal data analysis applied to five variables for the period between 2005 and 2020. The data were taken from the World Bank website. The results show that tourism receipts significantly influence the environment. For all three countries, the total receipts from international tourism are unsustainable, while the receipts for travel items are sustainable. Sustainability factors are different for each country. The international tourism expenditures for Bulgaria, the total receipts for Romania and the receipts for travel items for Turkey are sustainable. In Bulgaria, the receipts from international tourism contribute to higher greenhouse gas emissions, i.e., negative environmental impact. In Romania and Turkey, the number of arrivals has the same impact. No sustainable tourism model could be identified for the three countries. Tourism activity was found to be sustainable only due to the receipts for travel items, that is, indirectly, from tourism-related activities.

This paper aims to analyse the nexus between tourism activities, including tourists’ circulation, accommodation or entertainment, and environmental degradation. Consequently, the conceptual framework captures the complexity of the nexus between tourism and the environment, given that tourism activities can be performed by tourists or for tourists and that tourism depends on the environmental quality, and, consequently, we highlight the impact of tourism activities on biodiversity loss through the pollution effects that they generate, i.e., air pollution, water pollution, or noise pollution, as well as their contribution to waste increase or to the depletion of natural resources. To achieve this goal, we apply structural equation modelling based on partial least squares analysis (PLS). The results based on tourists’ opinions highlight the existence of a direct and significant nexus between tourists’ activities and environmental degradation, with many implications and consequences.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to activities in many fields, including education and lifestyle. Major changes have taken place in the education system, where specific activities migrated suddenly from onsite to online. As a result, this period has witnessed an increased interest in impact studies that analyse the perceptions of the actors involved in the educational process. Based on the survey data (N = 665), the perceptions of the students in Romanian universities with regard to the effects of online education during the pandemic on their wellbeing were analysed. The empirical apparatus—SEM analysis—reached the following conclusions: the students’ wellbeing was increased under the traditional education system, the economic crisis has caused concern, and a decrease in their wellbeing, their contamination fear is moderate to low, and does not influence their wellbeing, they have been discouraged in terms of their personal development during the pandemic, and their wellbeing has suffered as a result, the role of institutions is extremely important, given that the students’ ability to study online depends on the universities’ efficiency in implementing the online system.

The current importance of tourism leads us to analyze the extent to which the receipts from international tourism, and tourism in general, influence the capacity of European countries to reduce the development gaps of this sector in the European context and the extent to which the economic growth is sensitive to changes in tourist arrivals, tourism receipts and expenditures. Studying the GDP per capita and the receipts from international tourism for the period 1995-2017, we find that the European tourism has an important role in economy but secondary to capital stock and exports. The methodology used is a sensitivity analysis and a multiple linear regression with two models. The results show that, on short term, the gap in the European tourism sector is explained by the ability to attract income from the international tourism. The European growth of the tourism sector depends to a large extent on the amount of expenditures that tourists are making, on tourism receipts and, to a lesser extent, on tourist arrivals, but in all cases, the connection is a direct and positive one but, even so, the capital stock and the exports continue to play a very important role for the European economy. The analysis suggests that tourism is not a panacea for growth. On the contrary, it is one of the activities that stimulate growth along with investments, technology, or any other form of capital, together with exports and labor market conditions.

The paper aims to analyze the entrepreneurial intention determinants in nine post-transition economies of European member states. To achieve our stated goal, the study focused on the influence of fear of failure and networking on individuals&rsquo, inclination towards entrepreneurship. Additionally, gender, income, education, and work status were also considered control variables. The data were collected using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) database. We included responses collected from nine former transition economies, giving us a total of 13,494 observations, for 2015. Logistic regression models were employed to measure the influence of perceptions on the propenisty of individuals to create a new venture. The results indicated that fear of failure is significantly and negatively correlated with entrepreneurial intentions for all groups of countries. The results also indicated that people who have entrepreneurs in the family have a higher propensity for entrepreneurial intentions than people who do not have family members with such a status.

Economic and social progress is directly and closely related to energy consumption. In the latest decades, there is a higher need to reduce energy consumption from conventional sources, replacing it with energy obtained from unconventional sources. The environmental concern is one of the objectives of the European economic policy, with a particular focus on renewable energy consumption and energy efficiency in order to lower the environmental impact. In this context, we analyzed energy consumption per capita and renewable energy consumption per capita in the EU with the help of parametric methods, using the β-convergence model, and semiparametric methods, using the σ-convergence model. In this research we proposed to study six analysis models of the period 1960–2015, based on the availability of data. We concluded that the EU states went through a convergence process in a slow pace of energy consumption per capita and renewable energy per capita, showing a convergence pattern. The results of the study show that there is a relationship between the convergence of conventional energy consumption and the convergence of renewable (unconventional) energy consumption. The study covers a long period of time in which EU member states had different economic and social systems, implicitly different degrees and rates of development. In addition, the interest in renewable energy is relatively recent in the whole world. There is a possibility that future research will provide more optimistic results, in terms of accelerating the convergence rate, as appropriate measures and technologies are applied to renewable energy production in all EU member states.

The economic stability is the main goal of every country’s administration, contributing to the decrease of uncertainty, creating an attractive business environment, attracting foreign direct investment and contributing to economic growth, which increases the standard of living, reduces income inequalities, represents a sustainable development for the country and puts an end to the migration process. Migration flows lower the demographic resources of the states going through this process and consequently they compromise the possibility for future generations to support a sustainable economic growth. Migration is a process with an aggressive and alarming manifestation in Romania and Bulgaria, raising the problem of the future capacity of these countries to ensure long-term economic and social sustainability and requiring an analysis framework from a scientific perspective. The current study proposes a comparative study to identify the important determinants of international migration in the EU28 and analyses the impact of remittances on economic growth/stability and income inequality in Romania and Bulgaria—Central and Eastern Europe countries—for the period between 1990 and 2015. The main contribution of the present study consists in emphasising the common determinants of the two countries regarding the migration process and at the same time providing solutions to improve government policies to contribute to the economic and social sustainability. The authors employed a multiple regression model and the correlation analysis, and tested 8 hypotheses for Romania and Bulgaria. The results indicated that the main determinants of the migration process in Romania and Bulgaria are the inflation rate, the income inequality and household consumption expenditure. Furthermore, the results indicated that there is not a direct relationship between the remittances received/capita and GDP/capita growth rate in Romania and Bulgaria. In addition, there is a direct relationship (negative and with average intensity) between the remittances received/capita and price inflation rate in Romania but not in Bulgaria. In the case of Romania and Bulgaria, the results indicate that there is a direct relationship with a similar intensity between the remittances received/capita and the unemployment rate, the household final consumption and income inequality.

In the present paper, we are going to analyse the concept of economic growth as a factor in the revitalization of the knowledge-based society. Although the whole economic and human development occurred under the auspices of knowledge, making progress possible in all its aspects and particularities, nowadays, its dynamics has changed the priority order of the factors of economic and social growth and development, or has brought forth modifications in their structure, in order to make easier their adaptation to the new realities. Though we are witnessing now some obvious changes in the economic and social pathology, growth remains a phenomenon that is both fundamental and systematically analysed, being regarded as the engine phenomenon for the future progress.

In this paper we want to present, in both a succinct and a theoretical way, the possible relation between economic liberalization, human development and standard of living in the present society based, more than ever, on knowledge.It is known that economic liberalization is one of the phenomena that have manifested themselves in increasingly active manner in recent decades so, nobody can deny its benefits especially on human development - economic and social main objective of all states, regional and global formations. Actually, the progress in human development translates into improved population standard of living. A better life, a decent standard of living for the greater share of people is the real proof of the effectiveness of economic and social processes including liberalization, economic growth and development and the motivation for future efforts to be made in this direction. Our theoretical approach is made on the basis of some specific indicators characteristic to the analyzed processes, indicators compiled and made available by various international organizations in the field. These statistical figures shall enable a comparison between the situation of some representative countries, including Romania.

The world economy has been greatly affected by the current recession. All countries have suffered regardless of their level of development. Given that global problems require global solutions, world powers have met at summits of the G-20 forum, in order to determine the causes of the recession and adopt the most relevant measures to overcome the crisis and to correct other imbalances (e.g. environmental issues, hunger) existing in the world.

Tourism is an extremely complex phenomenon marked by major factors like the terrorist attacks and the refugees’ invasion (the recent waves of migrants). This paper tests by empirical analyses if in the European Union countries, the gross domestic product in tourism reacts to the situations of crisis caused by the terrorist attacks and by the waves of refugees. The techniques used are s and s convergence tests, combined with the deterministic sensitivity analysis. The sample consists of 26 European Union countries studied between 2000-2015 and 2000-2016, according to the available data. The results prove the prevalence of divergence, explicable by the existence of some countries, in the structure of the groups analysed, which have different contributions of gross domestic product in tourism to their overall economic growth. At the same time, a higher reaction of gross domestic product in tourism per capita is identified under the influence of the number of terrorism victims, compared to the incidence of the variation of the number of refugees. However, it cannot be stated that the two phenome n a lead to the general tendency of decrease of the gross domestic product in tourism per capita. On the contrary, there are occasional regressions of this indicator, which can be correlated only subsidiary with the crisis situations caused by terrorism and the waves of refugees.

The world economy has been greatly affected by the current recession. All countries have suffered regardless of their level of development. Given that global problems require global solutions, world powers have met at summits of the G-20 forum, in order to determine the causes of the recession and adopt the most relevant measures to overcome the crisis and to correct other imbalances (e.g. environmental issues, hunger) existing in the world.

The current society has brought in the foreground of its preoccupations the foreign trade as a factor of recovery and development, especially in the case of the emergent states. Starting with Adam Smith and David Ricardo, theories of the foreign trade have been built to demonstrate the advantages that trades might bring to the partners. There are “voices” that support the idea of the inferiority of emergent economies in the international trade plan, so in the present papers we aim, without condemning this opinion, at arguing that in nowadays society foreign trade remains the major and most direct way, for the emergent economies, of access to knowledge and to its results.

This paper presents overview on cultural tourism in Croatia from 2003 to the present days. In this period of time the Development Strategy of Cultural Tourism in Croatia has been created, accepted and implemented, as well as the new Tourism Development Strategy of the Republic of Croatia until 2020 was adopted and the overview of both of the strategies is given. The role and the results of the ministries and other state institutions involved in the implementation of the Development Strategy of Cultural Tourism strategic priorities are shown. Then the research results of visitors’ attitudes and consumption on the attractions and cultural events in Croatia are presented, and problems, current conditions and directions for future development of cultural tourism in Croatia are listed.

Board diversity is an important mechanism of corporate governance in order to ensure the efficacy of the management and monitoring actions. A large number of empirical studies and the European Commission identify board diversity as an important indicator of success for international corporate practice. Although many indices have been proposed, no universally accepted measure for diversity has yet been established. A possible solution is the diversity profile because it displays a family of indices in a single graph. In this paper we propose to extend this concept, largely used in ecology, in the economic field. In particular, we apply functional data analysis to the beta diversity profile. The proposed approach inspects the complex concept of biodiversity, highlighting its multidimensional aspect. More in detail, our research focuses on functional data analysis of variance in order to quantify the effects exerted on functional diversity by regional environment in Italian medium-large firms.