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.
Teleworking is known as a way of the future that enhances economic growth as an accumulation of physical as well as human capital. Using digitalization that increase the procedures and services efficiency and reduce the repetitive work of employers by using technology, teleworking improves firm performance by enhancing efficiency, motivation, and knowledge creation. This paper aims to analyze the influence of teleworking, based on its characteristics and determinants under the influence of financial and pandemic crises, on economic growth as measured by GDP growth; this was performed using econometric models from the literature and fuzzy logic. The econometric analysis included a two-step approach regarding the years 2008–2020 (including COVID-19 pandemic period) for the 27 member states of the EU. The research results suggest that access to the Internet, employment ratio, and average wage significantly influenced the teleworking ratio of the employees. Furthermore, the access to the Internet made a significant difference in using teleworking, given the infrastructure that was already created in the first COVID-19 pandemic wave. Employees took advantage of it and continued, at a lower scale, to maintain social distancing, although the measures taken in the second wave were not perceived to be as tough as in the first one.