Lithuania is one of the EU Member States, where the rate of energy consumption is comparatively low but consumption of electricity has been gradually increasing over the last few years. Despite this trend, households in only three EU Member States consume less electricity than Lithuanian households. The purpose of this research is to analyse the impact of socio-economic factors on the domestic electricity consumption in Lithuania, i.e., to establish whether electricity consumption is determined by socio-economic conditions or population’s awareness to save energy. Cointegration analysis, causality test and error-correction model were used for the analysis. The results reveal that there is a long run equilibrium relationship between residential electricity consumption per capita and GDP at current prices as well as the ratio of the registered unemployed to the working-age population. In consequence, the results of the research propose that improvement of living standards for Lithuanian community calls for the necessity to pay particular attention to the promotion of sustainable electricity consumption by providing consumers with appropriate information and feedback in order to seek new energy-related consumption practices.

Sustainable consumption is becoming an increasingly important aspect of our consumer society. The scarcity of natural resources is a growing concern in many countries. Considering the recent developments related to the promotion of sustainable production and consumption, as well as the introduction of the Climate Action Plan and the Green Deal at the EU level, it is vital to understand the trends of sustainable consumption in individual countries, which may influence overall consumption trends in Europe. The purpose of the article is to analyse the trends of sustainable consumption in small economies with limited natural resources and facing the problem of resource allocation priorities. Sustainable consumption reflects the demand side of sustainable consumption/production. Demand is the most important factor to focus on when planning economic activities, so its trends, in this case, sustainable consumption trends, must be constantly analysed. Exponential smoothing was used to forecast sustainable consumption trends. The research results show that favourable and unfavourable trends in decoupling environmental impact from economic growth and waste generation and management in small economies are forecasted. While resource and energy productivity increases show that small economies have begun to use their resources more efficiently, the demand and consumption of materials (and the associated environmental impact) continue to increase.

The problem of income inequality is globally relevant, receiving the attention of both scientists and pol- iticians. Lithuania as a small country has made significant progress in approaching the standard of liv- ing in Western Europe. However, there are still differences in economic growth between separate popula- tion groups. Thus, the problem of income inequality remains very acute. Currently, researchers are widely discussing the risk of income inequality to the country’s society by analysing its causes and proposing var- ious solutions. Although scientific debates address income inequality across regions, such studies are often limited to examples of large countries. Meanwhile, there is a lack of studies on regional income inequality in small countries, so the question of whether a small country is characterised by regional income inequal- ity remains open. This research aims to examine the level of regional income inequality in Lithuania. We hy- pothesised that Lithuania has a high level of regional income inequality and this is one of the causes of the high income inequality in the whole country. To estimate regional income inequality, we used the most com- mon measures: Gini coefficient, decile ratio, and the coefficient of variation. The analysis was performed at level 3 of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), according to which Lithuania is divided into 10 administrative counties. For this research, we chose the indicators illustrating income per capita on various levels, i.e., gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, average disposable household income per cap- ita, and gross hourly wages, as the various types of income can be used. For the estimation of GDP per cap- ita and average disposable household income, we analysed the data provided by the Lithuanian Department of Statistics (Statistics Lithuania) for 2014–2017. Due to a lack of data to estimate gross hourly wages, we examined the statistical data from the Lithuanian Department of Statistics for 2014. The results show that the hypothesis has not been confirmed. According to the research results, there is a small distribution of in- come between different regions of a small economy, although the level of economic development of different regions differs. The study findings are important not only from an academic perspective for identifying the causes of income inequality and raising questions for further research, but also for regional economic policy makers. The obtained results show that decisions related to a more equal distribution of income in Lithuania as a small country are determined not only by the specificity of its regions but also by the general trends of the country.