In this article, we analyze the correlation between GDP/capita variation, primary and renewable energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions on the one hand, and green taxes on the other. Green taxes are the main instruments used to limit activities that have a negative impact on the environment. These consist of taxes paid by producers and/or consumers for any activity that generates pollution. The results of dynamic regressions, validated by the applied robustness tests, indicate a significant and positive correlation between primary energy consumption and total environmental taxes, respectively energy taxes. At the same time, this shows that variation in GDP/capita significantly and positively influences transport taxes and pollution taxes. In contrast, net greenhouse gas emissions and the supply, transformation and consumption of renewable sources and waste do not significantly influence the total green taxes and their components. This finding is useful to both academic research and government policies for the realistic substantiation of the levels of green tax revenues and for establishing appropriate measures meant to reduce CO₂ emissions.

The methods that a country's central bank uses to control the total amount of money in circulation and affect trade, consumption, and economic growth are collectively referred to as monetary policy. A monetary expansionary policy entails a reduction in interest rates. As borrowing costs decrease, customers are encouraged to borrow more money and spend more, which boosts consumer spending and promotes economic growth. On the other hand, when interest rates rise during contractionary monetary policy, saving becomes more appealing while borrowing becomes more expensive. As a result, consumers may cut down on spending, which has an impact on aggregate consumption. Businesses are encouraged to invest by lower interest rates brought on by expansionary policies. They may borrow money more cheaply, which boosts imports, company expansion, and capital expenditures. Trade can increase if expansionary measures cause the home currency to weaken and become more appealing to export. In contrast, exports can be hampered by a rising currency. In conclusion, trade dynamics, corporate investment, and consumption patterns should be all greatly impacted by monetary policy measures. In order to find out some evidence about the monetary policy and its impact on consumption and trade in Romania, the paper uses statistical information from the National Bank of Romania between 2003 and 2023 for the monetary policy interest rate. This is going to be assessed base on its impact upon: Final consumption expenditure of general government; Final consumption expenditure of households; Gross capital formation; Exports of goods and services; Imports of goods and services; all of this taken from Eurostat. The results should point out if an increase or decrease of monetary policy interest rate is going to produce an impact upon consumption and trade, or the contrary is going to take place.

Even Africa boasts some of the greatest water resources in the world with large rivers, they are unevenly distributed on the continent, some countries being well endowed with water resources, other being forced to make difficult choices in order to get sustainable access to water; in the same time, precipitations’ regime has the same feature: too much during specific part of the year, lower (or missing altogether) precipitations doubled by high evaporation rate due to high temperatures. Overlapping these natural elements, there have been engineering actions and urban planning – both, during colonial period and after Africa’s countries gained independence – influencing the access to this vital resources in a discriminatory manner. Climate changes doubled with the dynamic population trend on this continent are newcomers, influencing in a negatively way the possible evolution on the continent. Water commodification is another element hitting hard the poor in Africa; as wealthy parts of African cities are well connected to urban water pipes and facilities, poorer parts of the same city totally misses access to water facilities. The poorest people must buy bottled water to get through daily challenges, large part of their incomes being diverted to gaining access to water. The paper intends to bring to East-European audience the problems and challenges the most dynamic continent is going to face, and how can it influence the evolution there, and in other parts of the world, due to migration. Poor access to water, and when available its dubious quality, are other components of African water landscape with great medical consequences and costs at both personal and state level.

Romania’s accession to the EU was a difficult task, but doable. However, the results of this accession are only now taking shape in the form of export orientation and competitiveness. This paper thoroughly analyses the aspects regarding Romania’s foreign trade, based on the classification used by Lall (2000), with the data provided by the National Institute of Statistics on the Combined Nomenclature XXII sections, covering the 1991 – 2012 period. Furthermore, the paper addresses the concept of comparative advantage based on the Lafay indicator of Romania’s foreign trade during 1991 - 2012. The indicator is calculated based on the statistical data offered by the National Institute of Statistics of the combined nomenclature with its XXII sections combined with Lall (2000) classification. The conclusions based on prior results try to assess whether the accession to the EU has had a beneficial or harmful effect on Romania’s international trade and its comparative advantages.