The role of the interest and exchange rates in sustaining economic growth has been a highly researched subject. Therefore, this study examines the influence of the monetary policy interest rate, the real exchange rate and the business climate in the Euro area on the economic growth in Romania. For this purpose, we have applied a pre-test for structural breaks to identify the existence of structural breaks, followed by the traditional unit root tests and the unit root tests with structural breaks to verify the stationarity of the variables. The results of the Bound cointegration test led to the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) short-run model that measures the short-run impact of the interest rate, exchange rate and the business climate in the Euro area on the economic growth of Romania. Our findings show that in the short run, the economic growth is negatively influenced by the interest rate, and positively by the exchange rate. We also indicate that the business climate in the Euro area has mixed effects on the economic growth. Finally, considering the growing interdependence between the internal and external (European) business environment, the results are highly significant for handling the interest and exchange rates in sustaining economic growth.

The current health crisis has several socioeconomic influences that could be compared to those experienced during the 2008 economic and financial crisis. Governments around the world are making great efforts to sustain markets as there are signs showing that the health crisis will be followed by an economic crisis. In this study, we aim to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the Romanian stock market. For this purpose, we considered the influence on the Bucharest Exchange Trading (BET) index of such variables as the number of new cases and the number of new deaths caused by COVID-19, measures taken by authorities, and the international economic context. The collected data covered the period between 11 March 2020 and 30 April 2021. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bound cointegration test was used to measure the impact of COVID-19 on the stock market. The results showed a significant long-term negative impact of the pandemic on the BET index for Romania, while the European economic context had a positive influence. Therefore, these results could be used by authorities as a good guideline for the efficient management of measures that aim to reduce the negative effects of the healthcare crisis.

Economic activities are directly supported by the natural environment, and in this context, it has become crucial to analyse the phenomenon of decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation. The negative effects of economic activities on the environment are clearly visible, and understanding how to separate economic growth from environmental harm is of utmost importance. This paper aims to study the degree of the decoupling of economic growth, measured by GDP, from environmental degradation, quantified through CO₂ and HFCs emissions, at the level of each EU27 country in the periods 2008–2012 and 2013–2020. In the analysis, graphical representations and statistical tests were utilised. In the first period, most of the EU27 countries registered negative levels for the variables considered, placing them into the negative coupling stage. In the second period, the evolution of the decoupling process was visible in all the countries, enabling them to make a significant transition to the relative or absolute stages. Overall, the Nordic countries could be observed as examples of best practices, managing to achieve the most desired stage of decoupling, i.e., the absolute one. These results are important for a wide range of stakeholders implicated in the preparation of programs, projects and policies dedicated to achieving economic growth in a sustainable manner.

The activity of enterprises has a major impact on the quality of the environment. Deterioration and abusive exploitation of resources, with no concern for environmental protection, bring the need for a higher level of corporate environmental responsibility (CER). Consequently, CER has become a sine qua non concern of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study aims to estimate the importance of drivers for CER. It was conducted on a sample of SMEs from two groups of EU countries characterised by a different level of social and economic development backgrounds. The authors applied statistical analysis to estimate the importance of the effect of drivers for CER using the logit model and the nomogram. The logit model shows that the most important effects of drivers for CER correspond to the company’s core values, the impact of resource efficiency actions on the production costs, and the return on the investments made on resource efficiency. The magnitude of these effects is different for the SMEs from the two EU groups. Also, the study underlines the significant effect of SMEs’ size for CER. The differences for the two groups of countries call for policies stimulating environmental responsibility, differentiated by the two types of SMEs.

Economic growth is one of the most studied topics in the literature in the field due to its significant role in the development of each country. Studies divide economic determinants into two categories based on their influence on economic growth: endogenous and exogenous. The study aims to estimate economic growth against two types of determinants for Romania and Central and Eastern European countries using data for 1995-2017 in order to compare the two cases. For Romania, we used time series specific methods (e.g. stationarity checking using Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, OLS model). In case of Central and Eastern European countries, we employed methods specific for panel data (e.g. estimation of the OLS general model, fixed effects model, random effects model, and feasible generalized least squares model). The results showed that in Romania, in the studied period, only the exogenous determinants (e.g. high technology exports) have a significant influence on economic growth, while Central and Eastern European countries were influenced by both types of determinants (e.g. life expectancy, foreign direct investments). In case of Romania, foreign direct investment did not represent a significant determinant for economic growth during 1995-2017 due to slower transition from communist regime to market economy.