On the background of the exponential growth of the world’s population, doubled by the decrease of natural resources and the continuous, accentuated degradation of the quality of the environment, with global warming as its main effect, ensuring the sustainability of economic and social processes is becoming a growing concern. At the European Union level, it is important that all member countries adhere to and implement common measures on sustainable development, which involve, inter alia, ensuring the convergence of policies and their effects at EU level. The EU through detailed SDGs presents the structure of a system of indicators structured on 17 objectives, indicators taken over, implemented, and calculated by EUROSTAT. The study proposes, based on a Composite Index of Sustainable Development of EU Countries’ Economies (ISDE-EU), the analysis of the convergence of the sustainability of EU states’ economies, not so much at individual level, but at cluster level, each cluster containing EU countries with similar/close ISDE-EU levels and dynamics. The results of the analysis confirm the partial existence of the beta and sigma convergence of the sustainability of EU countries’ economies. Please note that, at the time when we processed data, the UK was an EU state, which is why it was included in the analysis.

The present study analyses the relationship between economic growth and tourism growth at the level of Central and East European countries, using the spillover indices approach. Based on the monthly data obtained for the period 2000–2019, the analysis of this paper presents certain empirical results. Firstly, the relationship economic growth-international tourism grow is not stable over time, both from the point of view of its size and its direction, which suggests that the specific activities of international tourism contribute to the economic growth and hypotheses according to which international tourism growth causes economic growth are time-dependent. Secondly, the relationship economic growth-international tourism growth is dependent on certain major events, such as the economic and financial crisis that started in 2008 and the debt crises from 2010. The results obtained show that the impact of these events influences the direction of the relationship between international tourism and economic growth which becomes more accentuated during the economic growth periods.

We examine how distinct equity sectors on the Warsaw Stock Exchange respond to inflationary shocks, extending the Fisher hedge hypothesis beyond aggregate market indices. Drawing on monthly data from October 2009 to September 2025, our analysis captures the effects of headline inflation, long-term inflation expectations, and cyclical inflation components on nominal and real returns. To address volatility clustering and asymmetric market conditions, we employ GARCH specifications alongside quantile regressions, while also controlling for Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) and Geopolitical Risk (GPR). The empirical evidence points to pronounced cross-industry heterogeneity. Banking stocks stand out by offering the strongest inflation protection, with the chemicals sector providing more modest benefits. Under traditional mean-based models, real returns across most industries appear disconnected from price level changes, which aligns with the Generalized Fisher hypothesis. Yet, quantile estimates reveal a highly state-dependent reality: equities successfully protect purchasing power during market expansions, but this capacity deteriorates under market stress. Interestingly, although elevated EPU and GPR directly depress real returns, the core inflation-hedging features of resilient sectors survive these macro-institutional shocks. Ultimately, inflation protection depends heavily on both the specific industry and the prevailing market regime.