The Impact of Circular Economy on Economic Development A Review of EU's Countries

Over time, the concept of economic development has been the cause of debates in the research environment. Some of the researchers consider the level of economic development of a country to be characterized by high levels of the main macroeconomic aggregates, while another part supports the idea of uniform economic development with a high level of social inclusion. Regardless of the definition of the concept of economic development, it has been proven that a major positive impact is generated by the sustainable development strategy, especially in the light of the concept of circular economy. Therefore, the study addresses the level of economic development of the member states of the European Union based on the impact generated by the circular economy. In addition, based on the analysis carried out, the paper aims to identify the dependency ratio between the variables associated with the circular economy concept and the level of economic development. In order to achieve these goals, a panel regression model was estimated, for all member states of the European Union, on the time horizon 2011-2020. The model used as dependent variable “the level of economic development”, and the independent variables were made up of variables associated with the circular economy. The results of this analysis reveal that there are individual effects on both dimensions associated with the analysis (cross-sectional, time series), which leads to the idea that each country is influenced in the process of economic development through the circular economy by its own specificities.