Public awareness about renewable sources can contribute to social acceptance of sustainable development projects. The purpose of this study was to determine attitudes and level of awareness of the population of rural regions of Serbia about renewable energy sources. The research method included the random sampling of 400+ respondents in Southern, Eastern and Central Serbia. A questionnaire with closed-ended questions for expressing attitudes (Likert scale) was used. Collected data have been analyzed with SPSS. The results of this study clearly show that the citizens of rural regions of Serbia are relatively poorly informed not only of general aspects of energy production and consumption, but of specific aspects related to the use of renewable energy sources. This investigation emphasizes the need for intensive public information campaign about the advantages and benefits of renewable energy in order to have broader public support for the implementation of this form of energy into energy sector of Serbia.

This paper investigates the existence of convergence clubs and asymmetric crisis dynamics across European Union and Western Balkan economies over the period 2004–2023. Using the Phillips–Sul log-t methodology, we reject overall income convergence and identify three distinct convergence clubs characterized by persistent structural heterogeneity. A multinomial logit framework reveals that institutional quality emerges as the strongest predictor of convergence club membership, indicating a clear governance hierarchy across European economies. We further estimate fixed-effects growth models with crisis interactions to examine asymmetric responses during major macroeconomic shocks (2008–2009, 2012–2013, and 2020–2021). Results indicate significant negative crisis effects, with middle-income club economies experiencing disproportionate contraction. These findings remain robust to Driscoll–Kraay corrections for cross-sectional dependence, alternative crisis definitions, and sigma-convergence analysis. Overall, the results suggest that European income dynamics are characterized not by uniform convergence, but by club-based adjustment patterns associated with institutional capacity and crisis resilience. The findings contribute to the literature on nonlinear convergence and institutional heterogeneity in integrated economic areas.