Our paper examines the potential effect of different types of entrepreneurship (in particular, early-stage entrepreneurship, opportunity-driven entrepreneurship, and necessity-driven entrepreneurship) on economic growth at a national level and aims to identify whether the contribution of entrepreneurship to economic growth differs according to the stage of economic development of a country. Our empirical analysis is based on the panel data, which covers 17 years (2002–2018) and 22 European countries, classified into two groups. The results suggest that all three types of entrepreneurship have a greater impact on economic growth for the entire sample of European countries, and some types of entrepreneurship are more important than others. We find that opportunity-driven entrepreneurship and early-stage entrepreneurship would be key factors in stimulating economic growth across the sample of European countries. Our estimations also show that opportunity-driven entrepreneurship would have a greater impact in transition countries, while necessity-driven entrepreneurship would have a stronger influence in the innovation-driven countries. The results of our research could be of interest to policymakers, as it can help in identifying and implementing the most appropriate measures to eliminate the obstacles in the macroeconomic environment that entrepreneurs face, and measures to support innovative entrepreneurial activities.

The accelerated development of information and communication technology (ICT) over the past two decades has encouraged an increasing number of researchers to examine and measure the impact of this technology on economic growth. Our study aims to identify and evaluate the effect of using ICT infrastructure on economic growth in European Union (EU) countries for a period of 18 years (2000–2017). Using panel-data estimation techniques, we investigate empirically how various indicators of ICT infrastructure affect economic growth, proxied in our study by GDP per capita. Within the estimates, we have included some macroeconomic control variables. Our results indicate a positive and strongly effect of using ICT infrastructure on economic growth in the EU member states, but the magnitude of the effect differs depending on the type of technology examined. Regarding the impact of macroeconomic factors, our estimates indicate that inflation rate, unemployment rate, the degree of trade openness, government expenditures, and foreign direct investments would significantly affect GDP per capita at EU level. The findings are broadly similar to the theoretical predictions, but also to the findings of some relevant empirical studies. Our research reveals that ICT infrastructure, along with other macroeconomic factors, is an important driver of economic growth in EU countries.

Entrepreneurship plays a major role in national economies, being considered one of the main engines of economic growth, and an important contributor to creating new jobs and innovations. Identifying the main determinants of entrepreneurial activity is important for helping the decision makers in adopting adequate measures to support the creation and development of new businesses. The turbulent economic environment in recent years dominated by economic and financial crises, resulting in a reduction in economic growth but also in an increase in unemployment, has led decision makers to turn their attention again to the determinant factors of entrepreneurship. Starting from those stated above, through this paper we aim to investigate the impact of some macroeconomic, individual and business environment-related factors on the dynamics of entrepreneurial activity in 18 European Union (EU) countries for a period of 14 years (2002–2015). We use three regression models and we apply panel data fixed effect model approach. The results of our study highlight that inflation rate, foreign direct investments, access to finance and total tax rate are the main macroeconomic determinants of entrepreneurship. Also, we find that all individual business-related factors considered in the analysis have a significant impact on total entrepreneurship rate.

The profound negative effects of the current pandemic crisis on firms, especially small and medium-sized ones, have forced them to rethink their business models. In order to survive and compete, many businesses have focused on adopting and using digital technologies. Several studies have shown that digital technologies could facilitate business continuity and increase their resilience to shocks. Starting from the fact that SMEs are an important source of innovation and the predominant form of business organization, the European Commission has repeatedly emphasized the importance of digital business transformation and the need to support the digitalisation of SMEs. Our study aims to analyse the degree of digitalisation of SMEs in EU countries and the obstacles they face in digitizing their business. In addition, we aim to examine the extent to which the use of various forms of digital technology could stimulate the growth of SME performance. The analysis covers the 27 EU member states and is mainly based on data provided by the European Commission and the OECD, as well as information provided by European Investment Bank surveys. Our paper complements the literature focused on the digitization of SMEs, especially by highlighting the gaps between EU countries in terms of digitization of the SME sector, but also by empirically examining the impact of digital technologies on the performance of SMEs in EU countries. Through its content, our study emphasizes the crucial importance of digitizing SMEs so that these companies are drivers of economic growth and development of countries. The results of our research may be of interest to both researchers concerned with business digitalisation and decision-makers at various levels, who should prioritize the identification of appropriate measures to stimulate digital innovation and investment in information and communication technology infrastructure.

This paper analyses the main economic factors that are influencing the competitiveness of Central and Eastern European (C.E.E.) countries. The research was carried out on a sample of ten countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia), over the period 2004–2016. These countries were grouped by their stage of economic development, respectively: efficiency driven economies, in transition between efficiency and innovation and innovation driven economies. An econometric analysis on panel data was used, considering as a dependent variable the competitiveness of a country, quantified by the Global Competitiveness Index. As independent variables, we took into account a set of seven macroeconomic and business environment indicators which could have an impact on a country’s competitiveness. The results obtained show important differences between countries, but also some resemblance. Although all the considered countries are emerging ones, the factors that have a significant influence on the competitiveness differ significantly. Thereby, if for efficiency-driven countries, G.D.P., inflation rate, trade, labour productivity and costs are important determinants of competitiveness, for innovation-driven countries the determinants of competitiveness are: G.D.P., inflation rate, tax rate, F.D.I., trade and costs. As regards the C.E.E. countries in transition only G.D.P., inflation rate and labour productivity are determinants of competitiveness.

This study aims to highlight the role of access to finance as one of the determinants on the decision to enter into entrepreneurship of students regarded as potential entrepreneurs. For achieving our main objective, we created a questionnaire. As a method of analysis, we run the least square logistic regression, with entrepreneurial intentions as a dependent variable and knowledge, education and availability of financial resources as predictors. We also included gender, university and locality as control variables. The sample is formed of 181 students from two universities from the North-Eastern region of Romania. The results reveal that access to finance is a significant determinant of the decision to enter into entreprenenruship for young people. Moreover, we show that the relation between access to finance and entrepreneurial intentions changes according to gender, university and locality of origin. Female students’ entrepreneurial intentions are influenced by the availability of bank loans and personal savings, while in case of male students - only by the availability of funds coming from family and friends. The funds coming from family and friends also determine students' entrepreneurial intentions coming from rural or urban areas. Entrepreneurial intentions are negatively related to education for male students and those coming from an economic profile university, and positively related to business knowledge only for students from rural areas. The results obtained could be important for financial resources providers (because they offer insight into how easy access to finance stimulates the entrepreneurial intentions of youth), for education providers (who can adapt their training programs and extracurricular activities to strengthen entrepreneurial intentions), and for decision makers (which may adopt appropriate policies to stimulate the economic development of an area).