Sustainable development is a concept strictly connected with basic needs of the individuals. During the last years a number of empirical studies have tried to discover and quantify the causal relations between economic growth and environmental consumption and degradation. The most widely used...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of the enlargement process of the European Union as a factor fostering international competitiveness of EU Member States. The paper argues that the economic integration process has reduced the technological gap between old and new EU...

Sustainable development is a concept strictly connected with basic needs of the poorest populations. Using a macroeconomic measure of sustainability such the World Bank's Genuine Saving and a measure of quality of life such the United Nations' Human Development Index, we build a model in order...

The increasing attention given to global energy issues and the international policies needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have given a renewed stimulus to research interest in the linkages between the energy sector and economic performance at country level. In this paper, we analyse the...

The achievement of positive environmental performance at national level could strongly depend on differences in local capabilities of both institutions and the private business sector. Environmental regulation alone is a weak instrument if the institutional and business environment cannot...

This paper aims to explore how the competitiveness of the EU economy, here captured by export dynamics over the medium run (1996-2007), has been affected by environmental regulation both on the public and private sector side. The strong and weak versions of the Porter hypothesis are tested by...