Although organic farming is an important topic for society, at the European level there have been few achievements so far. Despite its constant increase, the demand for organic food in Europe is outweighing the development of this sector. As such, we aim to assess the interaction between conventional and organic agriculture, as well as their impact on the value of agricultural production at the European level. The main objective of this article is the assessment of the impact of organic farming, as compared with conventional agriculture, on sustainable development of European countries. Therefore, we used panel models based on data collected from the Eurostat database. We found that an increase of 1% of the organic farming areas will generate a contraction in agricultural production of 0.278%, whereas a 1% increase in the production of fertilizers would generate an increase of 0.260% in agriculture production. Moreover, an increase of 1% in the production of plant protection substances and in gross capital formation would generate increases of 0.1190% and 0.0933%, respectively, in agriculture production. The obtained results depend mainly on the characteristics of work on land, as some agricultural engineering methods (crop rotation, pest control, use of fertilizers etc.) influence productivity and production.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) play a central role at the European level because it fosters innovation and increases productivity through an enlarged access to information. As such, the main objective of this work was to assess the impact of various ICT core indicators at the European Union level on two of their sustainable development goals: economic growth and reduction of inequality. To this purpose, we used panel data models based on data collected from the Eurostat database. We proposed two panel data regression models, according to which we found a positive statistically significant relationship between the variable measuring level of internet access and change in GDP per capita. We also found a negative relationship between the transition towards a digital society and the dependent variable INEQ_INC, namely an increase of 1% of ICT sector share in GDP will lead to a decrease of 0.27% of income inequality distribution. This result showed that the progress made in implementing a digital society may decrease societal income inequality.

Shadow banking is a topical, debated issue on the agenda of national and European macro-prudential regulatory and supervisory authorities. It is generally accepted that shadow banks and the traditional banking system have some core functions in common, such as credit and maturity transformation, and the exposure to similar risks. However, the tight banking regulations and the decreasing trend recorded by interest rates in the post-crisis period create prospects for shadow banking sector growth. Against this background, the present paper aims at investigating the particular impact that shadow banking activity exerts on macroeconomic fundamentals. The analysis covers 15 European Union countries, including Romania, during the period 2008 – 2015, using quarterly data. Shadow banking system is used as a proxy by monetary funds, due to breaks in the series or unbalanced number of observations across selected countries. By employing panel regression, it was found that the shadow banking total assets’ variation is negatively influenced by the GDP growth, short term interest rates, M2/GDP ratio and the ratio of investment funds’ assets in GDP, and positively determined by stock index dynamics and long term interest rates. The findings sustain the literature’s point of view