Through fiscal policy, the government can influence businesses and individuals in order to regulate their behaviour. The research used panel data from all 27 EU countries covering the period 2008–2020 to investigate the impact of direct taxation on economic growth at the level of two main clusters of countries concerning fiscal efficiency. Therefore, the analysis employed cluster methods to classify the main EU countries in both groups of countries with a high level of fiscal efficiency and those with a rather limited level of fiscal efficiency. The study employs fixed effect models and dynamic GMM methods to investigate the effect of direct taxation components (personal and corporate income taxes) on economic growth. The analysis also considers the informal economy’s role in relation to the official economy. The empirical results revealed that corporate income taxes significantly negatively impact economic growth for both clusters of high- and limited fiscal efficiency countries. Additionally, personal income tax was associated with lower economic growth for countries in the limited fiscal efficiency group. Thus, from the perspective of policymakers, lowering direct taxation can increase disposable income, stimulate consumption and economic growth, encourage investment leading to job creation, increase competitiveness, and reduce tax evasion and avoidance, thereby leading to a more efficient tax system.

The metaverse is a controversial concept, hyped by some but viewed as a marketing strategy by others. Although the first mentioning of the metaverse dates back to 1992, it has gained attention in the last years, especially after Facebook changed its name to “Meta” in 2021. Based on immersive technologies such as AR and VR, digital interactions and commerce within the virtual world, the metaverse is expected to grow along with its enabling technologies. This article aims to discover the status of the adoption of the metaverse concepts in Romania, among people with digital skills. The analysis was performed based on an online questionnaire, posted on public social media accounts. The results of the study have shown that few people have tried applications within the metaverse, and even fewer have invested in metaverse tokens. People who played RPG or virtual world games seem to have used metaverse applications more than those who have not, thus, this could be a good driver for metaverse adoption. Awareness of the metaverse concept was not a driver of metaverse adoption. However, results show that people who purchase cryptocurrencies and NFTs would also be interested in the metaverse, more than people who have not transacted these digital assets.

The pandemic caused an increase in the use of, and demand for digital public services, accelerating the digital transformation, which necessitated rapid development and deployment of various ICT systems. The Authority for the Digitalization of Romania in partnership with Code for Romania developed a number of six digital platforms for better management of the COVID-19 pandemic. They firstly created stirioficiale.ro, a platform that was used by the Romanian government to give Romanian residents trustworthy, up-to-date information about pandemic measures, guidance, and other important information. Following that, another 5 platforms were developed with the help of over 420 volunteers in order for the government to better manage the COVID-19 pandemic, with a total of six platforms forming an ecosystem that would be used by over ten million citizens across the country to access reliable information. The main objective of the article is to observe and interpret the analytics of the official platform datelazi.ro. After a formal request to the Authority for the Digitalization of Romania, the official recorded data was received and analyzed by the authors. The main results of the study show us that the visibility of the platform is low compared to the country’s population. However, due to the consistency of users in the fifth wave of the pandemic, it is reasonable to assume that there is a core use of roughly 10,000 residents who find this platform beneficial for information at this time.