Developing people’s interest towards starting a business plays a vital role in the former socialist countries in which, for a very long time, private property and free initiative were almost completely annihilated. Therefore, countries like Romania cannot design a sustainable growth model without taking into account the necessary improvements in the human capital factor, through the entrepreneurial education specific to the market economy, and in the social capital, which leads to stability and enhances the economic activity. The main objectives of this paper are to analyze how much the entrepreneurial intentions are influenced by certain psycho-behavioral traits of the individual (creativity, locus of control, need for achievement and risk taking propensity) and to evaluate the influence of different types of education on these intentions, in order to see if the entrepreneurial education significantly influences the entrepreneurial intentions of Romanian young people. By analyzing the specialized literature, we have developed six research hypothesis that were tested on a sample of 600 students from the undergraduate (bachelor) and master programs within the large state universities of Romania who have entrepreneurship courses in the content of their curricula, with the help of a questionnaire-based survey. Depending on the research hypothesis, several data analysis approaches were used, including Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and General Linear Models (GLM). The main results of this study clearly illustrate that the need for achievement and the propensity towards taking risks play an important role in determining the entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, graduates of the high schools with an entrepreneurial field are less inclined to engage in businesses compared to the graduates of the high schools that offer general education.

This paper examines the impact that e-books and ecommerce have on the current and future evolution of the book industry, by focusing on its various stakeholders: authors, publishers, online and traditional distributors, and readers. This is an explo ratory research, based mainly on qualitative methods and analysis of secondary data. The developments in the US and several European markets are examined in order to generate hypotheses about the changing roles of the various actors. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are affected as their customers increasingly prefer to shop online for both regular and electronic books. The publisher- author relationship is also transformed, as the writers are now able to publish their works directly to the website of a dist ributor. Although printed books will probably continue to exist, publishers and bookstores need to investigate the changing preferences of their target market and revise the way they produce and deliver content to their customers

Conceptual and methodological divergence in defining the issue of energy poverty (i.e. the inability of households to afford adequate access to energy services) has made it difficult to assess the problem at a European level using a standardized approach. Moreover, existing research raises concerns with regard to socio-economic and environmental differences between European states that may have a significant impact on this phenomenon. The current paper builds upon a set of newly proposed econometric methods for the trans-national measurement of energy poverty and for the study of its determining factors – the Compound Energy Poverty Indicator. The research shows that Southern and Eastern European countries present peculiar socio-economic traits that distort the impact of predicting variables, such as the tenure status of households. The results imply that a cautious approach is needed when attempting to measure and predict energy poverty at a trans-national level based on macroeconomic indicators. Regionally specific policy measures and indicators may be needed in order to assess the problem in a truly functional, accurate and more efficient. Keywords: energy poverty; Compound Energy Poverty Indicator; sustainability; tenure status

For more than a quarter of a century, China has experienced a significant economic growth. Yet, this rapid growth has brought on many economic, social and environmental challenges, which might negatively influence the future development of the country. The objective of this paper is to analyse the Chinese economic evolution in order to determine if its growth model is sustainable over time. The research methods consisted in an investigation of the specialized literature, which helped us formulate four research hypotheses, and in a statistical analysis of secondary data, which allowed us develop four models, in order to test the hypotheses. The conclusions show that, to sustain the growth rate, China needs to increase its human capital stock, to keep the pace of attracting the foreign investments, to reduce the size of the government, to diminish the public consumption and to invest in the renewable energy, for increasing the energy efficiency.

The specialized literature offers relevant support for the idea that the entrepreneurship and the private initiative represent the foundation of the economic growth. Despite this evidence, there are a lot of debates regarding the influence of the different religious orientations on the intention to become an entrepreneur. The purpose of the present paper is to analyze the impact that religion has on the entrepreneurial intentions of the Romanian students. To achieve this objective, the research methods consisted in an extensive investigation of the specialized literature and in empirical research, conducted on a sample of 682 Romanian students. Our results underline that the young Orthodox individuals are more optimistic regarding their future ability to develop businesses than the Roman-Catholics. Yet, this optimism has not been proven by the assessment of their personality traits, which may be very important for the business success.