Volume 31 (2021): Edizione 1 (March 2021)

According to several recent studies, energy is seen as a commodity, due to the fact that energy sector markets are more like commodity markets. Essentially, it serves as an enabler of social and economic development and so cannot be neglected. This study, therefore, estimated the impact of cooking energy cost on energy demand in Nigeria using the ARDL model and quarterly data spanning from 1990-2018. The result from the study showed that in the long-run both liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) price and kerosene price has a negative impact on energy demand. In the short-run, the result remained the same for kerosene while it reversed for LPG. The study, therefore, recommended that government should enact policies that will moderate or minimize the cost of cooking energy and enhance the removal of all forms of barriers in making cooking energy affordable to users in the country.

At the present time, a great attention is paid to the ecological innovation, which represents innovation characterization to any ecological change with a positive impact on consumers. Such innovations increase the comfort for consumers and concurrently they represent more effective, more economic, ecological, healthier and safer solutions. Ecological innovation represents any innovation aimed at significant and visible progress towards the goal of sustainable development. This is done by reducing the impact on the environment or achieving a more efficient and responsible use of natural resources, including energy and Zero waste. The aim this paper is evaluation to the perception of Zero waste in the context of ecological innovations in Slovakia. The research is carried out using the Kano model. The results point to the importance of addressing the issue of ZeroWaste, encouraging friends to buy in non-packaging stores and creating a stimulation of advertising to buy products in a non-packaging store. Other attributes of the given issue are perceived by Slovak respondents in the opposite way or have no influence on them. Therefore, it is important to provide sufficient information on this issue and to educate the population in order to increase their interest in this issue and to start behaving responsibly towards waste management.

The aim of the paper is to provide empirical evidence in support of the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in eleven Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries over the period 1995-2015 within a multivariate panel data analysis. Based on World Bank data, the panel cointegration analysis reveals that renewable energy consumption and economic growth are positively associated in the long run in CEE countries. The heterogeneous panel causality test indicates a bi-directional causality relationship in support of the feedback hypothesis between economic growth and renewable energy consumption in Central and Eastern European countries.

This study assessed the nonoil taxation effect on foreign direct investment and economic services from 1994 to 2019 in Nigeria. This study further evaluated the causality bearing amid foreign direct investment, economic services, value-added tax, company income tax, capital gain tax, custom and excise duties, and education tax, devotedly hiring Units root, VECM, Johansen co-integration, and Granger causality tests. Outcomes uncovered that value-added tax has a positive significant effect on economic services but a negative influence on foreign direct investment. Furthermore, value-added tax granger- cause foreign direct investment and economic services. It is also exposed that company income tax and capital gain tax possessed short-run and long-run negative significant influence on foreign direct investment but positive influence on economic services. More so, custom and excise duties upsurge economic services and foreign direct investment positively and significantly. Conclusively, taxation has negative significant impacts on foreign direct investment but upsurge economic services positively in Nigeria. It is recommended that since company income tax impacted foreign direct investment negatively both in the long run and short run, the government should lessen company income tax and upsurge capital allowance bestow on foreign direct investment in order to improve and attract foreign direct investment which will perpetually decrease poverty rate in Nigeria. Also, the government should employ taxation to realize more improvement in economic services and minimize all barriers to foreign direct investment attraction such as import duties and other levies to inspire investors.

The paper investigates the major trends and business models of the new reality after the Covid-19 crisis. Due to the vastness of the theme, the research will be focused on the areas of supply chain and entrepreneurship. These sectors are probably the most affected today, but, also, the ones that will experience a major change in the future. Building on insights and data from top management consultants, the findings revealed some commons trends, like digitization, transparency, localization, the rising of e-commerce and the contact-less economy. In conclusion, the author proposes a model based on a virtuous cycle of elements that will shape the business models of the future as a contribution to the research in the selected sectors.