Although organic farming is an important topic for society, at the European level there have been few achievements so far. Despite its constant increase, the demand for organic food in Europe is outweighing the development of this sector. As such, we aim to assess the interaction between conventional and organic agriculture, as well as their impact on the value of agricultural production at the European level. The main objective of this article is the assessment of the impact of organic farming, as compared with conventional agriculture, on sustainable development of European countries. Therefore, we used panel models based on data collected from the Eurostat database. We found that an increase of 1% of the organic farming areas will generate a contraction in agricultural production of 0.278%, whereas a 1% increase in the production of fertilizers would generate an increase of 0.260% in agriculture production. Moreover, an increase of 1% in the production of plant protection substances and in gross capital formation would generate increases of 0.1190% and 0.0933%, respectively, in agriculture production. The obtained results depend mainly on the characteristics of work on land, as some agricultural engineering methods (crop rotation, pest control, use of fertilizers etc.) influence productivity and production.
Information and communication technologies (ICT) play a central role at the European level because it fosters innovation and increases productivity through an enlarged access to information. As such, the main objective of this work was to assess the impact of various ICT core indicators at the European Union level on two of their sustainable development goals: economic growth and reduction of inequality. To this purpose, we used panel data models based on data collected from the Eurostat database. We proposed two panel data regression models, according to which we found a positive statistically significant relationship between the variable measuring level of internet access and change in GDP per capita. We also found a negative relationship between the transition towards a digital society and the dependent variable INEQ_INC, namely an increase of 1% of ICT sector share in GDP will lead to a decrease of 0.27% of income inequality distribution. This result showed that the progress made in implementing a digital society may decrease societal income inequality.
This paper aimed at establishing a Corporate Entrepreneurship diagnosis model within public R&D institutions. We based our analysis on empirical identification of a generalized set of organizational factors, perceived as intrapreneurship vectors. The quantitative research targeted 50 experienced public entities and was based on validating one of the most popular psychometric instruments in the entrepreneurial literature: the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI)—originally intended for the North American economic environment. As recent literature questioned the cross-cultural portability of psychometric instruments, this study intended to validate the five-factor intrinsic structure of CEAI. The five factors deduced by our statistical analysis were: support for opportunity investigations and reinforcement; dynamic environment and recognition; decreased formalization; knowledge sharing; time availability and strategic awareness. Next, the factor scores were used as input variables for a logistic regression procedure, with the output variable being the intrapreneurial value of the respondents’ institutions. Two factors contribute considerably to the predicted intrapreneurial value: support for opportunity investigations and reinforcement and decreased formalization. The validity of the whole approach is supported by the relevance of the original CEAI questionnaire, able to reveal intrapreneurial characteristics, and by the prediction power of the logistic regression model over the intrapreneurial propensity of public institutions.
The analysis of public attitudes towards nuclear energy represents an issue that is commonly investigated, especially considering the new context of classifying some nuclear power plants as green investments under the European Green Deal. The importance of this topic is critical to the future of nuclear power generation. The purpose of this study is to identify the relationships that exist between the different factors and the attitude of the public towards nuclear energy in the context of the European Green Deal. The article identifies and analyzes the main factors that influence this relationship. In this context, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted regarding the identification of the relationship between public knowledge, degree of cooperation, perceived risks, trust and attitude towards nuclear energy. The sample was chosen using the snowball method. The analysis was made up of 578 respondents from different segments of age, gender, place of residence, field of activity, work experience and income. Following the survey, the main conclusion was that over 30% of the respondents do not want nuclear energy and are adamantly opposed to it. At the same time, the results indicate that the respondents’ attitude is not directly influenced by the risks they perceive in relation to nuclear energy.
1 October 2019 in Proceedings of the International Conference on Applied Statistics
The European Pillar of Social Rights proclaimed the people’s right to access to healthcare facilities and services, irrespective of the geographic residence. Currently, the health system in Romania has a number of major deficiencies, ranging from the lack of state-of-the-art equipment in some hospitals, inadequate medical staff in many hospital units, to the lack of essential, vital medicines needed for treatments prescribed to the sick. The paper aims to analyze the differences in the public health care system between the eight development regions in Romania (Northwest, Center, North-East, South-East, South-Muntenia, Bucharest-Ilfov, South-West Oltenia and West) and to identify the reasons that led to their appearance. The paper presents a detailed examination of the main statistical indicators of the public health care system in Romania using a series of statistical analysis techniques. We founded significant differences amongst the eight development regions in Romania, regarding the functioning of the public health care system. Some regions (such as Bucharest Ilfov) is found to outperform others; these regional gaps are analyzed attempting to highlight the main reasons of the regional disparities.