The former communist states experienced a period of turbulence in the transition to the market economy and then the accession to the EU, turbulences that also influenced the education sector. This article aims to analyze the impact of public spending on education on economic growth in 11 former communist Eastern European states, current EU members. The methodology used is ARDL with structural break. The results are consistent with those previously obtained The public education expenditure-economic growth relationship is mixed on long term; for five countries, there is no such thing; for six countries, there is one on a long term. On a short term, also, mixed results manifest for four countries are positive, and for two negative.

The work at hand assesses several driving factors of carbon emissions in terms of urbanization and energy-related parameters on a panel of emerging European economies, between 1990 and 2015. The use of machine learning algorithms and panel data analysis offered the possibility to determine the importance of the input variables by applying three algorithms (Random forest, XGBoost, and AdaBoost) and then by modeling the urbanization and the impact of energy intensity on the carbon emissions. The empirical results confirm the relationship between urbanization and energy intensity on CO₂ emissions. The findings emphasize that separate components of energy consumption affect carbon emissions and, therefore, a transition toward renewable sources for energy needs is desirable. The models from the current study confirm previous studies’ observations made for other countries and regions. Urbanization, as a process, has an influence on the carbon emissions more than the actual urban regions do, confirming that all the activities carried out as urbanization efforts are more harmful than the resulted urban area. It is proper to say that the urban areas tend to embrace modern, more green technologies but the road to achieve environmentally friendly urban areas is accompanied by less environmentally friendly industries (such as the cement industry) and a high consumption of nonrenewable energy.