EU countries to measure human development incorporating the ambient PM2.5 concentration effect. Using a principal component analysis, we extract the information for 2010 and 2015 using the Real GDP/capita, the life expectancy at birth, tertiary educational attainment, ambient PM2.5 concentration, and the death rate due to exposure to ambient PM2.5 concentration for 29 European countries. This paper has two main results: it gives an overview about the relationship between human development and ambient PM2.5 concentration, and second, it provides a new quantitative measure, PHDI, which reshapes the concept of human development and the exposure to ambient PM2.5 concentration. Using rating classes, we defined thresholds for both HDI and PHDI values to group the countries in four categories. When comparing the migration matrix from 2010 to 2015 for HDI values, some countries improved the development indicator (Romania, Poland, Malta, Estonia, Cyprus), while no downgrades were observed. When comparing the transition matrix using the newly developed indicator, PHDI, the upgrades observed were for Denmark and Estonia, while some countries like Spain and Italy moved to a lower rating class due to ambient PM2.5 concentration.

In recent years, the research area around environmental decision-making has drawn more and more interest, driven by a really big global push to achieve net-zero emissions. Significant investments in areas such as electric vehicles and renewable energy, coupled with increasingly limited access to natural resources, have intensified research efforts in this field. New and emerging research is aimed at shifting consumer behavior to make more sustainable decisions. Building on this context, the purpose of this paper is to explore academic publications related to decision-making and behavioral shifts in the context of sustainability. Using an advanced bibliometric tool such as Biblioshiny, the authors analyze an Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science dataset to identify the main authors and affiliated journals and map the academic and thematic evolution of this interdisciplinary field, including the key topics and countries involved. The analysis reveals a 6.68% annual growth rate. Through thematic maps, three field plots, word clouds, and a review of the top 10 most cited papers, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the evolving domain of environmental decision-making.

The emerging economies that do not face fiscal, monetary and foreign debt pressures can use the savings generated by lower oil prices for investments in order to generate economic growth. Hence, there is no doubt that the oil price affects the economy’s resilience to shocks. The importance of this impact derives from the magnitude of the price change and its diffusion within the economy. Moreover, the sustainability of any company and of the economy as a whole is subject to the availability and the price of the energy resources. The cost of these resources is an important variable used in the majority of the models regarding the assessment of sustainable development. Therefore, this article examines the impact of the oil price changes on industrial production in Romania. We found that, similar to other countries, in Romania, the growth rate of industrial production responds more strongly to a rise in oil prices. Thus, the oil Brent price has an asymmetric effect on the production evolution. This finding suggests that macroeconomic stabilization is more difficult to achieve when the oil price rises.

The main objective of the paper is to provide a general overview on Romania’s ability to attract European funds for research, development and innovation. The paper compares the participation of the former communist countries of Europe in FP7 and H2020. The main conclusions of the analysis are: EU12 presents cumulative participation in the research framework programs far below Western Europe; the productivity of EU12 research staff, measured by the ability to attract European funds, has increased significantly, but there are large gaps between the countries analysed; Romania has seen an improvement in the participation in the two European programs, but remains on the last place in terms of EU contribution per inhabitant.