Pollution and renewable energy consumption in the V4 countries.

Considering quite high levels of pollution in V4 countries, the aim of this paper is to assess if renewable energy consumption reduces CO2 emissions in the period 1996-2022. The time series approach based on autoregressive distributed lag models (ARDL models) for each state in the sample indicated that renewable energy consumption reduced CO2 emissions, while GDP enhanced pollution. Foreign direct investment had no effect on environmental quality. Political stability had no impact on pollution in Poland and Hungary, while it reduced CO2 emissions in the Czech Republic and enhanced them in Slovakia. The results are subject to policy proposals.

Financial development and natural resources for the top five gas exporters.

Given the recent preoccupations of scientific environment for "resource curse" in the context of financial development, the aim of this paper is to explore more the connection between financial development and natural resources abundance/dependence in the major five gas exporters in the period 1996-2021. The panel data models based on DOLS/FMOLS approach and mean group (MG) estimator suggest that the impact of resource abundance on financial development depends on the type of indicators used to assess the financial progress, as previous studies suggested. More coal per capita and the interaction between contract intensity and total natural resources, respectively oil per capita contribute to the development of financial markets, while economic growth supports the development of financial institutions. Even if natural gas per capita is causally related to financial development, it does not exert a significant impact on it in these countries. The new international context might be an opportunity for US, Canada, China and Saudi Arabia to achieve this target.

Public Debt in the Spanish Municipalities: Drivers and Policy Proposals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the local debt in Spanish municipalities with negative consequences on the macroeconomic financial stability at national and eurozone level. The main objective is to identify the causes of public debt per capita in four groups of Spanish municipalities according to size. It is based on a quantitative analysis based on correlational and causal-comparative approaches. It consists in the construction of panel quantile regressions (MMQ) and mean group (ME) estimators to explain public debt per capita in Spanish municipalities. Moreover, the Juodis test for causality analysis in panel data is applied. The research is constructed around various types of potential determinants related to economic factors (GDP per capita and unemployment rate), demographic factors (population under 15 and population over 65), and political factors (political party, ideology, and political strength). The results based on MMQR for the period 2011-2020 indicate common factors that reduce local debt (short-run economic growth), but also differences between clusters in what concerns factors that increase or decrease the debt. The Juodis et al. (2021) test shows that growth and unemployment are factors that influence the level of public debt in all groups of municipalities except one (5001-20,000 inhabitants) where political party affects debt. These empirical findings support policy proposals to reduce the local debt in Spanish municipalities. The main initiatives to reduce debt should be based on the promotion of economic growth and creation of new jobs, especially for young people.

Pollution and electricity price in the EU Central and Eastern European countries: a sectoral approach.

Pollution and energy crisis are actual issues in Europe, including the EU Central and Eastern European states. In this context, the objective of this paper is to assess the impact of economic growth and electricity prices for non-household consumers on pollution. The empirical findings reveal the U pattern for energy industry and inverted U pattern for manufacturing in the period 2007-2021 in the EU countries from Central and Eastern Europe. Renewable energy consumption reduces the CO2 and GHG emissions in energy industry. FDI and electricity prices determine the reduction in GHG and CO2 emissions in both sectors. These results are the basis for policy recommendations.

Renewable energy, economic freedom and economic policy uncertainty: New evidence from a dynamic panel threshold analysis for the G-7 and BRIC countries.

This study aims to demonstrate the impact of renewable energy consumption (REC) on environmental degradation using the EKC hypothesis testing for the BRIC and G-7 countries. Two EKC models were created and tested, with Model 2 including REC and other independent variables such as economic freedom (EF) and economic policy uncertainty (EPU), which affect the level of renewable energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Empirical findings indicate that the EKC hypothesis is verified faster in the REC-EF-EPU-based EKC model (Model 2) than in the EF-EPU-based EKC model (Model 1) for G-7 countries since the turning point takes place earlier in Model 2 than in Model 1 with REC. This suggests that renewable energy consumption accelerates the reduction of CO2 emissions. Moreover, this earlier turning point results in lower environmental cleaning costs, less time vesting, and saving resources and money for G-7 countries. However, the study found no evidence supporting the EKC hypothesis for the BRIC countries.

Pollution, political instabilities and electricity price in the CEE countries during the war time.

Pollution, war and energy crisis are the CEE countries' most important global actual issues. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of political stability and electricity price in 11 CEE countries in the period 2007-2021 to anticipate the effect of these factors on pollution in times of political and energy crisis. The common results based on DOLS/FMOLS and CCEMG estimations indicate that political stability enhances CO2 emissions, while higher electricity prices for non-household consumers reduce pollution. An inverted-U pattern was observed in the relationship between growth and pollution, while renewable energy consumption is the most powerful tool to reduce CO2 emissions. These results are the starting point for policy recommendations.

Renewable Energy Consumption-Growth Nexus in European Countries: A Sectoral Approach.

The renewable energy consumption plays a significant role in achieving sustainable development, but a sectoral approach is necessary to design the better recommendations for each sector. In this context, the main objective of this paper is to assess the impact of the use of this type of energy on economic growth in 23 European Union (EU) member states in the period 1990-2020. Besides overall renewable energy consumption, different utilisations of this energy are considered: in industry, transport, in commercial and public services, and for residential purposes. The methodological background is built around panel data models that start from a Cobb-Douglas function. The renewable energy consumption is considered an important factor that should generate economic growth. The panel data approach based on causality analysis and Augmented Mean Group and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimators suggests that renewable energy use in industry does not determine economic growth, but economic development is a cause for more utilisation of this energy in industry. In addition, more renewable energy consumption in transport enhances economic growth. A high level of economic development can promote the consumption of renewable energies in industrial sectors. In this way, industrial companies can allocate more financial funds to research in the field of renewable energies and can afford to adopt renewable energy sources. Investment in biofuels can contribute to achieving sustainable transport in the EU.

Determinants of local government deficit: evidence from Spanish municipalities.

Understanding the determinants of fiscal deficits is justified by the fact that persistent deficits rapidly lead to the accumulation of public debt. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze the factors that explained the fiscal deficits of Spanish municipalities in the period 2011-2020. The deficit at the municipal level for Spain is explained by considering several determinants covering socioeconomic and political dimensions, such as GDP per capita, unemployment rate, population, political participation, political sign of the ruling party or political force, among others. The method of moments quantile regression (MMQ) and mean group (MG) estimator are applied for the overall sample and for each group of municipalities. In addition, the causality between the deficit and the explanatory variables is analyzed using the Juodis et al. (2021) test. It is found that economic growth only has a long-term beneficial effect on the deficit as it reduces the deficit at all quantile levels except at the 10% quantile. Unemployment increases the deficit in both the short and long run. Political participation and right-wing political parties contribute to the growth of the deficit in the higher quantiles. To reduce the budget deficit, the analysis shows that unemployment should be reduced and economic growth should be boosted. The results are robust to those based on mean group estimators. With this paper, we contribute to the scarce literature on deficit determinants by analyzing the determinants for Spanish municipalities. Furthermore, our findings have important implications for politicians, citizens and stakeholders.

Cobalt Ferrite Particles Produced by Sol-Gel Autocombustion and Embedded in Polysilane: An Innovative Route to Magnetically-Induced Fluorescence Composites.

Fluorescence detection is currently one of the commonly used techniques worldwide. Through this work, the preparation and optical properties of an interesting composite material are discussed. It is shown that encapsulating cobalt spinel ferrite (CoFe2O4), obtained by the sol-gel autocombustion method, into poly[diphenyl-co-methyl(H)]silane matrix leads to fluoromagnetic particles (PSCo) with intriguing optical properties. Transmission electron microscopy, combined with energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, showed 500 nm large spherical structures containing a core (around 400 nm in diameter) composed of magnetic ferrite particles, surrounded by a thin layer of semiconductive fluorescent polymer. The as-obtained material exhibited ferrimagnetic properties. The FTIR spectrum confirmed that the Si-H functionality of the polysilane was preserved. UV spectroscopy combined with molecular modeling studies indicated that the magnetic core had a strong influence on the intramolecular electron transitions characteristic of the σ-conjugated polysilane. Further analysis by steady-state fluorescence spectroscopy revealed that the internal magnetic field strongly enhances the polysilane emission. This property will be further investigated in the future in order to develop new detection devices.

Energy Poverty and Personal Health in the EU.

The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of energy poverty on health in the EU-27 countries for the period from 2003-2020 using Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag models and generalized ridge regressions. Arrears on utility bills exerts positive long-run effects on capacity to keep the home adequately warm, current health expenditures, and self-perceived health as bad or very bad, but a negative long-run influence on energy import dependency. In the long-term, the population being unable to keep their home adequately warm positively affects self-perceived health as bad and very bad and negatively influences number of cooling days. Current health expenditure has a long-run influence on self-perceived health as bad and very bad and the number of heating days. Positive short-run impacts were observed for energy import dependency, arrears on utility bills, and number of heating days on current health expenditure and the population unable to keep their home adequately warm. People at risk of poverty or social exclusion in different zones had a significant impact on energy poverty indicators. A separate analysis is made for those EU states with the highest energy import dependency and the implications of the results are discussed.

Convergence behaviours of energy series and GDP nexus hypothesis: A non-parametric Bayesian application.

With the EU Green Deal initiatives, European members seek to launch the first climate neutral continent by 2050. This paper assesses the stochastic convergence of per capita energy consumption series for an illustrative sample of 15 EU countries with memberships prior to the 2004 enlargement, using data spanning the 1970-2018 period. Results from the confidence interval subsampling (asymmetric and equal-tailed) highlight that 11 out of the 15 EU series exhibit a long-run memory behaviour, while a diverging pattern was observed for the UK, Germany, Portugal, and Italy. Finally, per capita energy use series persist but fail to reveal one of the above dynamics for Ireland and Spain. Also, findings from the non-parametric Bayesian application (ANOVA/linear Dependent Dirichlet Process (DDP) mixture model) show how economic growth operates as a converging energy consumption-enabler over the long-run, from which the EU membership cannot be excluded. In particular, we highlight how the nature of energy-GDP hypotheses vary with the stochastic properties of energy use (converging behaviour with temporary shocks, converging pattern with permanent shocks, and diverging dynamic). Finally, our conclusions overcome the well-established development stage argument as we claim that countries with similar energy convergence patterns may need to adopt similar energy policies.

Forecasting National and Regional Youth Unemployment in Spain Using Google Trends.

In Spain, the youth unemployment rate is one of the highest in the European Union. With the pandemic caused by Covid-19, young people face high unemployment rates and are more vulnerable to a decrease in labour demand. This paper analyses and predicts youth unemployment using Google Trends indices in Spain for the period between the first quarter of 2004 and the second quarter of 2021, being the first work to carry out this study for Spain and the first to use the regional approach for the country. Vector autoregressive Bayesian models and vector error correction models have been used for national data, and Bayesian panel data models and fixed effects model for regional data. The results confirm that forecasts based on Google Trends data are more accurate in predicting the youth unemployment rate.

How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the stress vulnerability of employed and non-employed nursing students in Romania?

In the light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, being considered a present challenge for public health, the main purpose of this work is to analyze the vulnerability to stress of a sample of nursing students in Romania considering their status on labour market (employed students in the medical system and non-employed students) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employed students were more vulnerable to stress comparing to non-employed ones during the pandemic. In addition to this, the nursing students working in the medical system experienced medium vulnerability to stress during the pandemic comparing to those working before the pandemic who experienced a low vulnerability to stress. Excepting the non-employed students before the pandemic, the females were more vulnerable to stress comparing to the males in the sample and the students living in the country experienced a higher level of stress comparing to those living in the urban area. During the pandemic, most of the employed nursing students expressed their fear of getting infected with COVID-19, this representing the most stressful factor for them, while most of them mentioned the self-control as being the most proper strategy for them to cope with stress. These empirical findings have practical implications for stress control among present and future nurses, for management of medical units and for higher education nursing.

A bridge between sentiment indicators: What does Google Trends tell us about COVID-19 pandemic and employment expectations in the EU new member states?

The sentiment indicators tend to reflect better the social tensions caused by COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, the aim of this paper is to reflect the relationship between employment expectations and tensions related to new coronavirus. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on employment expectations is assessed using the data collected by Google Trends in Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (panel ARDL) models and Bayesian multilevel model. The results indicated that COVID-19 searched on Google had a negative impact on employment expectations in the EU New Member States on the period March 2020-May 2021. The unemployment and inflation rate had also a negative effect, while improvement in economic sentiment indicator has increased the employment expectations. These results are the support of economic policies to reduce labour market tensions and improve employment expectations.

The Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Stress Vulnerability of Nursing Students According to Labour Market Status.

Nursing has always been a stressful job affecting the physical and mental health of the nurses, but the new medical context of the COVID-19 pandemic has enhanced this issue. The objective of this paper is to study differences between non-employed and employed nursing students in the medical system of Romania before and during the epidemic using matching methods and a sample of 526 nursing students. Stressors and strategies for coping with stress were also identified during the pandemic. The results indicated that employed students were more vulnerable to stress compared to non-employed ones before and during the pandemic. Females registered significantly higher stress scores compared to males in the period of the epidemic. The analysis of the overall sample suggested that gender and environment were significant stress factors during the pandemic, but living conditions were not relevant. The most effective coping strategies against stress for nurses during the COVID-19 crisis were based on self-control and the spiritual dimension, unlike the previous period when other colleagues' support helped most nurses to overcome difficult working conditions. The implications of this study might help medical management in ensuring a less stressful environment for nurses during the epidemic.

Revised environmental Kuznets Curve in CEE countries. Evidence from panel threshold models for economic sectors.

The recent environmental debates in the European Green Deal to reduce pollution determine the reconsideration of the relationship between economic development and environmental quality. In this context, this paper explains the GHG emissions in few Central and Eastern European countries (CEEs) (Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic and Romania) in the period 1990-2019 and proposes suitable economic policies to reduce pollution. Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and renewable energy Kuznets Curve (RKC) are considered in a methodological framework based on panel threshold and dynamic panel models. The analysis based on GHG emissions from all economic sectors and GHG emissions from agriculture indicates similarities and differences related to the impact of economic indicators on pollution. The results of estimations indicated an inverted N-shaped relationship between GDP and GHG emissions and an N-shaped pattern between value added in agriculture and pollution. The U-shaped RKC was confirmed for overall economy and for agriculture. The policy proposals based on empirical findings promote sustainable development in the analysed states by reducing pollution.

Health Policies in Romania to Reduce the Mortality Caused by Cardiovascular Diseases.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the main cause of death in Romania. The objective of the paper is to explain the number of deaths caused by the diseases of circulatory system in relation to health expenditures per capita, the number of public hospitals with cardiology sections and the number of cardiologists. The analysis in the paper is based on panel data models and Bayesian linear models. A panel data approach for Romanian macro-regions in the period from 1995-2016 was used to show that an increase in the number of cardiologists would reduce the number of deaths caused by the diseases of circulatory system. The Bayesian approach to national data indicated that the increase in expenditures per capita would alleviate the incidence of deaths caused by CVD. The public health policies in relation to patients with CVD should focus on the future on higher expenditures per person, but the number of public hospitals and doctors treating these diseases should also continue to grow. Future healthcare policies should be also focused on reducing the number of specialists migrating to wealthier countries.

Polydiphenylsilanes bearing photosensitive azocrown groups.

This work presents the synthesis and particularities of the reversible trans-cis UV light induced photoisomerization process of a polydiphenylsilane bearing (propyl-oxyphenylazo)dibenzo-18-crown-6 side groups.