The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of corruption on the level of macroeconomic environment. We also investigate, reasoning in the opposite way, if in its turn, corruption is influenced by the level of macroeconomic environment development and to reveal that the relation between these two variables is a circular one, meaning that both impact each other. The analysis is performed on a series of countries grouped in three stages of development and confirms a positive correlation between the two variables, meaning that on average, corruption is related with the levels of development of the macroeconomic environment

The actual development challenges impose new criteria of national performance evaluation, the concept of wellbeing tending to be measured not just in terms of economic and social dimensions, but also vs. the environment. Accordingly, considering the national environmental performance among the EU countries in 2006–2019 period, we grouped them and concentrated on the clusters registering the highest and lowest levels, analyzing how the components of the human and economic dimensions influence it. Applying panel data models, our main results emphasized that, firstly, for the countries with a better environmental performance, sufficient drinking water, safe sanitation, education, gender equality, and good governance were significant; in the countries with the lowest levels of environmental wellbeing, sufficient food, sufficient to drink, education, and income distribution were insignificant, while the remaining components were relevant. Secondly, in both groups of countries, organic farming and public debt were significant; nevertheless, differences were observed for genuine savings and employment, for which the peculiarities of economic activities seemed to be materialized as different influences upon environmental wellbeing. Our study draws alarm signals regarding the development patterns applied in the EU, seeming to have results that strengthen the sustainable goals, but not sufficient for exceeding the traditional growth-oriented model.

The literature formed around the concept of sustainable development emphasizes that its achievement depends on how its dimensions evolve. Considering that the economic dimension is not an end in itself, but a means for achieving the other two dimensions, we concentrated on the relation between environment and society. Using the framework of Sustainable Society Index, we applied path analysis for identifying the effects of human wellbeing components on environmental wellbeing for 71 countries around the world in 2016. The countries were grouped into two groups—factor-driven and innovation-driven economies—according to Global Competitiveness Report. The main results revealed that once the society develops, the pressure upon the environment tends to move from the necessity of offering the basic human needs to the one regarding superior societal needs. While the least developed nations have to pay attention especially to population growth, safe sanitation and health as primary channels of better protecting the environment, in the case of the most developed countries, the main directions of environmental improvement may be education and good governance. Thus, a high environmental concern has to be cultivated in the development process, whichever its stage, but with distinct directions of action, as shown by this study.

Sustainable development aims at balancing the performances of economic, social, and environmental sectors, a key question in this regard remaining whether progress has been made. Accordingly, our attention was directed on the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) and on their wellbeing particularities, with focus on the environmental dimension. The aim of this paper was to analyze the dynamics of environmental wellbeing in relation to human and economic wellbeing. Using national data of CEECs registered between 2006 and 2016, pooled, fixed, and random effects panel models were applied. The main results revealed that, in the considered countries, the economic and social dimensions report different evolutions compared to the environmental one. The economic components register a negative influence on environmental wellbeing while the human dimension and its social components are positive in relation to it, good governance excepted. Our paper also intended to analyze the relationship among the three wellbeing dimensions in both the efficiency- and innovation-driven economies of CEECs. In the latter ones, the economic component plays a greater role in determining the level of environmental wellbeing while, in the others, priority has to be given to human wellbeing components, especially the ones related to basic needs, personal development and health.

Considering that sustainability is a relative concept, but also that this limitation could be avoided through continuous adaptation of the evaluation tools by taking into account the directions of change (such as time, space, application domain), the goal of the present study is to elaborate a matrix for measuring the level of sustainability for small vegetable farms. Thus, looking at what sustainability could represent under such circumstances, we divided its characteristics into four main dimensions (economic, social, environmental, cultural), while adding the private dimension. Inclusion of the private dimension may provide potential added value to this study, and thus enrich the general perspective of producers’ capacity to meet the sustainability goals in their entrepreneurial activity. To quantify these five dimensions of the sustainability matrix, a questionnaire was built up and used as support for face-to-face interviews conducted at the level of the North-East Development Region of Romania. Our results showed associations between diverse components of the dimensions considered, revealing their synergy in farm activity, along with the occurrence of some differences in the levels of sustainability dimensions and sub-dimensions, which differ as a function of the specific types of vegetable production (conventional, ecologic, natural, mixed).

The present study, centred on?customer online shopping behaviours, aims at?analysing the frequency of?vegetable acquisition and its main determining factors, while considering different methods of?payment, i.e. cash, debit card, and bank trans...