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.

Economic and social progress is directly and closely related to energy consumption. In the latest decades, there is a higher need to reduce energy consumption from conventional sources, replacing it with energy obtained from unconventional sources. The environmental concern is one of the objectives of the European economic policy, with a particular focus on renewable energy consumption and energy efficiency in order to lower the environmental impact. In this context, we analyzed energy consumption per capita and renewable energy consumption per capita in the EU with the help of parametric methods, using the β-convergence model, and semiparametric methods, using the σ-convergence model. In this research we proposed to study six analysis models of the period 1960–2015, based on the availability of data. We concluded that the EU states went through a convergence process in a slow pace of energy consumption per capita and renewable energy per capita, showing a convergence pattern. The results of the study show that there is a relationship between the convergence of conventional energy consumption and the convergence of renewable (unconventional) energy consumption. The study covers a long period of time in which EU member states had different economic and social systems, implicitly different degrees and rates of development. In addition, the interest in renewable energy is relatively recent in the whole world. There is a possibility that future research will provide more optimistic results, in terms of accelerating the convergence rate, as appropriate measures and technologies are applied to renewable energy production in all EU member states.

Purpose: As satisfaction is one of the most important conditions for loyalty, this study aims to investigate the main factors affecting online satisfaction for buying clothes from the internet. In this research, the authors followed two main objectives: (1) to identify factors influencing online satisfaction and (2) to determine the importance of the main determinants that explain online satisfaction in the retailing clothing sector.Design/methodology/approach: The research combines qualitative and quantitative research methods. The authors used the focus group technique and a survey based on a questionnaire. For the first exploratory phase of the research, we conducted four focus groups with 21 women, 18–39 years old, who have at least two years experiences as online buyers and who made at least two acquisitions for clothing products in the past six months, from the same website. The purpose of this qualitative method was to understand the young women's perception about online satisfaction and to collect items to be included in the questionnaire. For the second quantitative phase of this study, the sample consisted of 241 participants. To analyse the data, two different types of inferential analysis were used: factor analysis (for identifying the factors that compose online customer satisfaction) and analysis of regression (to determine the most important factors that determine and predict online buyers' satisfaction).Findings: The main results indicate that the significant factors determining a satisfactory experience in an e-retailing market are: good deal (savings), product expectations, customer service and website reputation.Originality/value: The study is more relevant in the current pandemic context, when the consumer’s behaviour has changed and online shopping has substantially increased. The research can be used by companies that sell clothing on the internet and are interested in increasing their financial results and also their customers' satisfaction.

In this article, we explore the causal relationship between wage share and economic growth for 11 Eastern European countries. The methodology used was wavelet coherency for the period between 1995Q1 and 2020Q4. Our results reveal that economic growth acts as the leading role for wage share increase for most Eastern European countries, and only for certain periods, wages can determine economic growth. Furthermore, we find that GDP increases cause wages to increase at different frequencies; there is a positive correlation between GDP growth and wage growth; the effects of wage-led growth policies were weak and only on short periods. Our estimations cast a high degree of uncertainty on the effectiveness of wage increase policies promoted by some national authorities to achieve economic growth.

This paper is based on an analysis of the content of management reports (annual, integrated), on the activity of European multinational companies (listed on the Stock Exchange). For this purpose, we conducted a content analysis of company management letters which open integrated and annual reports of European multinational listed companies. The data comprised a corpus of letters and statements of chairmen and/or executive directors in five environmentally sensitive industries that were analysed using Wmatrix4 software. The identified key words, the preferred semantic domains and the tone of emotional register from the letters of managers provide significant evidence on what kind of information they contain and how these managers want to share it with their stakeholders. Our results show that managers are interested in the optimistic presentation of the mission, results and future plans of their companies. We found that words such as like, confidence, proud or trust are common on the emotional map of these letters, but the preferences in use are unequally distributed among the five analysed sectors. We also report that the word “sustainability” is among the key terms found in letters and statements of managers. Finally, for each of the five corpuses, our study proved that, beyond common issues, different economic domains prefer different topics, using a significantly different lexical register both in terms of relative frequency of common key-words and diversity of words within the same semantic domain. The study systematizes a set of key-words and semantic domains used to convey positive emotions, avoiding those with negative connotations, in order to provide an image of a company that acts in a sustainable manner. This could be successfully used by corporate communicators of a wide range of companies who want to comply with the best practices of integrated reporting.

This paper takes a free-market approach to the idea of welfare. That is, the analysis does not reject the role of the welfare state to fight against poverty and inequality but underlines the perils of the welfare mentality’s proliferation. Sustainable development requires more individual responsibility and less dependence on the state and its redistribution function. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims at showing that welfare mentality imposes challenges on sustainable development. The second aim is to identify the factors associated with welfare mentality. We use data from several international databases and apply correlation, principal components, and multiple regression analyses on a sample of 28 European countries. The results of our study show that welfare mentality negatively influences sustainable development by being positively correlated with the risk of poverty and the percentage of young people not in employment, education, or training (NEET). At the same time, countries such as Sweden, Denmark, and Luxembourg, widely acknowledged as welfare policy heavens, register low values in terms of preference for redistribution. The main determinants of welfare mentality are found to be a high level of NEET and a low level of economic freedom. This result points to the role of youth inclusion and free-market institutions in diminishing people’s welfare expectations and encouraging them to take better control of their own lives to reach prosperity and not depending on state support.