While the positive economic impact of tourism cannot be denied, it has also a number of negative side effects. The article focuses on the residents’ perception regarding the tourist activity and on identifying the factors influencing their acceptance for the tourist activity, in Constanta (Romania). A questionnaire based quantitative research was employed, creating several indexes, subsequently included in econometric models in order to reveal the factors which determine residents’ acceptance and support for tourism. The results reveal that residents are highly in favour of tourism activity and support tourism expansion and further development. Most respondents considered that tourism contributed to the improvement of the city image and identified a fairly positive economic impact, while tourism was accountable for the increase in several negative phenomena. The impact of tourist activity on the sustainable development of the city was perceived as medium positive, while most respondents considered that the number of tourists should increase. The residents’ acceptability toward tourism was revealed to depend on several variables and computed indexes: city development index, impact on residents’ quality of life index, sustainable development index, and perceived intensity of contact with tourists.

The tendency to implement diverse environmental tools and promote the adoption of environmentally friendly practices in tourism activities is relatively new. One such tool is the EU Ecolabel used in the hotel industry as a voluntary European initiative meant to attest to the responsible attitude towards the environment. Since holding the ecolabel by the Romanian accommodation units is rather an exception, our aim was to investigate the views of industry managers on environmental issues, focusing on the EU Ecolabel, and get a glimpse of the challenges and prospects of ecolabelling within the seaside hotel industry. To this end, the study was designed and conducted on 60 hotel managers. The research results gave evidence to the measures already implemented, those pending implementation, reasons for not applying for the EU Ecolabel, and the most challenging criteria. The potential impact of the EU Ecolabel on the economic activity efficiency, and its role in customer decision processes and in marketing communication, was highlighted. Subsequently, a mathematical model was proposed, revealing that the intention to meet the criteria and obtain the EU Ecolabel depends on the managers’ level of knowledge of the EU Ecolabel, their opinion on whether holding the EU Ecolabel represents a competitive advantage, and the current efficiency level of the hotels’ economic activity. Considering the research findings, it is obvious that the industry would benefit from ampler and more sustained information campaigns on the EU Ecolabel.

Lately, the global banking services industry has faced numerous challenges: the digitalization, increased competition, the instability of monetary and foreign exchange markets, and the volatility of exchange rates. However, at present, banks are facing the greatest challenge of all that is, placing the customers at the centre of business and the systematic follow-up of customer satisfaction. The present paper aims at assessing the influence of a series of determinants and socio-demographic factors on customer satisfaction with banking services in Romania, using the probit and logit models. The research focused on the Romanian banking market due to its distinctiveness within the European context – performance indicators above the European average during the past five years and a concentration level that discloses a significant growth potential. The results of the two models employed revealed similar results, with the most influential variables on customer satisfaction being convenience, e-banking, quality, and revenues. First published online 14 March 2022 Keyword : customer satisfaction, banking industry development, banking services, satisfaction determinants, socio-demographic factors, probit and logit models

Consumers are reluctant to change immediately their consumption patterns when confronted with budgetary changes, in spite of fluctuating economic conditions. Their reluctance evokes the notion of hysteresis used by economists to describe the persistent influence of past economic events. The importance of hysteresis in economic research represents a natural consequence of the development of economic sciences and of the pursuit of understanding economic systems’ evolution by taking into account their ‘memory’, their conscience of the past. The present paper represents an attempt to review some of the most relevant approaches to hysteresis in economics and to emphasise the impact of the phenomenon on macroeconomic consumption in Romania. The paper aims at reviewing the application of hysteresis to economic models, and subsequently at constructing a two-phase research on households’ individual final consumption in Romania during 1990 and 2016, employing both the unit root and the so-called ‘true’ approach to hysteresis. The research results indicated the existence of hysteresis at the macroeconomic consumption level, thus revealing several implications for economic policy, inaccessible through the standard economic models.

This paper analyzes the volatility relationship between the Romanian BET index and the U.S. SFT-500 index during the period 2019–2024, with a particular focus on the impact of political and geopolitical shocks. The study investigates whether financial markets in emerging economies react symmetrically or asymmetrically to external shocks originating from mature markets, especially during periods of political uncertainty. The research period includes four major systemic events: the COVID-19 pandemic, the military conflict in Ukraine, the 2024 U.S. presidential elections, and the 2024 Romanian elections, all of which generated significant volatility in global markets. The methodological approach combines time series econometrics with the Impulse Indicator Saturation (IIS) technique to identify structural breaks and outliers, without imposing exogenous assumptions about the timing of events. The econometric model includes autoregressive and lagged exogenous variables to estimate the influence of the SFT-500 index on the BET index, while IIS variables capture unanticipated political and economic shocks. Additionally, a Fractionally Integrated GARCH (FIGARCH) specification is applied to model the persistence of volatility over time, capturing the long-memory behavior often observed in emerging markets like Romania. The results confirm a statistically significant but partial synchronization between the two markets, with lagged and contemporaneous effects from the SFT-500 index on the BET index. Volatility in Romania is markedly higher and longer-lasting during domestic political episodes, confirming that local factors are a primary source of market instability. For investors, this underscores the need to embed political risk metrics into emerging market portfolios. For policymakers, it highlights how stronger institutions and transparent governance can dampen election- and crisis-related turbulence.