Search Results (40)

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic evolution of the European Union member states that have adopted the Euro, compared to those that continue to use national currencies, with a specific focus on the Central and Eastern European countries during the period 2018–2024. Using a quantitative and exploratory approach and data provided by Eurostat, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, we examined a series of key indicators: interest rates, inflation, GDP per capita, public debt, and foreign direct investment. The results highlight several macroeconomic advantages for Eurozone countries, including lower interest rate volatility and a quicker recovery from inflation, largely due to access to monetary tools such as PEPP and TPI. Non-Euro countries have experienced more severe inflationary episodes and higher financing costs, which have negatively impacted FDI inflows. Although some of these countries, such as Romania and Poland, have recorded solid GDP growth, they remain exposed to structural vulnerabilities and political and economic uncertainties. Correlation analyses confirm significant negative relationships between interest rates, inflation, and FDI levels. Full article

Icing disasters can significantly reduce the reliability of overhead transmission lines, while limited budgets of power grid enterprises constrain the scale of investment. To improve investment efficiency, it is essential to balance the reliability and economic performance of anti-icing strategies. Most existing studies on the performance evaluation of anti-icing strategies for transmission lines focus primarily on reliability, neglecting their economic implications. To address this gap, this paper proposes a time-evolution-based performance evaluation model for overhead transmission line anti-icing strategies. First, a lifetime distribution function of transmission lines during the icing period is constructed based on the Nelson–Aalen method and metal deformation theory. Subsequently, a quantitative risk model for iced transmission lines is developed, incorporating the failure rate, value of lost load, and amount of lost load, providing a monetary-based indicator for icing risk. Finally, a performance evaluation method for anti-icing strategies is developed based on the risk quantification model. Implementation cost is treated as risk control expenditure, and strategy performance is assessed by integrating it with residual risk cost to identify the optimal strategy through composite cost analysis. The proposed model enables a comprehensive assessment of anti-icing strategy performance, improving the accuracy of strategy selection and achieving a dynamic balance between implementation cost and transmission line reliability. The case study results demonstrate that the proposed method effectively reduces the risk of failure in overhead transmission lines under ice disasters while lowering anti-icing costs. Compared with two existing strategy selection approaches, the strategy based on this method achieved 46.11% and 32.56% lower composite cost, and 60.26% and 48.41% lower residual risk cost, respectively. Full article

This study examines the evolution of public debt among the 27 EU member states using Graph Theory tools; the Threshold Weighted–Minimum Dominating Set (TW–MDS) and the k-core decomposition method, alongside a standard network quantitative metric, the density. By separating the data into three distinct periods, pre-crisis (2000–2007), European sovereign debt crisis (2008–2015), and post-crisis (2016–2023), we examine the potential synchronization of the debt ratios among EU countries through cross-correlations of the public debts. The findings reveal that public debt correlation was at its highest level during the 2008–2015 period, reflecting the universal impact of the crisis and the subsequent synchronized fiscal and monetary policy measures taken within EU. A significantly lower network density is observed in both the pre- and post-crisis periods. These results contribute to the overall debate on fiscal stability and policy coordination by showing how EU countries tend to align their fiscal behaviors during periods of crisis while behaving more independently during stable times. In addition, we yield a deeper insight into how economic shocks reorganize public debt interconnections within the crisis period. Finally, this analysis highlights to what extent European economic integration strengthens connections between the fiscal positions (through public debt) of the European Union member countries. Full article

The transition to sustainable transport poses significant challenges for urban mobility, requiring shifts in fuel consumption, emissions reductions, and economic adjustments. This study conducts a scenario-based analysis of Budapest’s transport energy consumption, emissions, and monetary implications for 2020, 2030, and 2050 using the Budapest Transport Model (EFM), which integrates COPERT and HBEFA within PTV VISUM. This research examines the evolution of diesel, gasoline, and electric vehicle (EV) energy use alongside forecasted fuel prices, using the ARIMA model to assess the economic impact of transport decarbonisation. The findings reveal a 32.8% decline in diesel consumption and a 64.7% drop in gasoline usage by 2050, despite increasing vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT). Electricity consumption surged 97-fold, highlighting fleet electrification trends, while CO₂ emissions decreased by 48%, demonstrating the effectiveness of policies, improved vehicle efficiency, and alternative energy adoption. However, fuel price forecasts indicate significant cost escalations, with diesel and gasoline prices doubling and CO₂ pricing increasing sevenfold by 2050, presenting financial challenges in the transition. This study highlights the need for EV incentives, electricity price regulation, public transport investments, and carbon pricing adjustments. Future research should explore energy grid resilience, mobility trends, and alternative fuel adoption to support Budapest’s sustainable transport goals. Full article

This study introduces a novel approach for analyzing the dynamic interplay among key economic indicators by employing a Caputo Fractional Fisher Information framework combined with partial information decomposition. By integrating fractional derivatives into traditional Fisher Information metrics, our methodology captures long-range memory effects that govern the evolution of monetary policy, credit risk, market volatility, and inflation, represented by INTEREST, CDS, VIX, CPI, and PPI, respectively. We perform a comprehensive comparative analysis using rolling-window estimates to generate Caputo Fractional Fisher Information values at different fractional orders alongside the memoryless Ordinary Fisher Information. Subsequent correlation, cross-correlation, and transfer entropy analyses reveal how historical dependencies influence both unique and synergistic information flows between indices. Notably, our partial information decomposition results demonstrate that deep historical interactions significantly amplify the informational contribution of each indicator, particularly under long-memory conditions, while the Ordinary Fisher Information framework tends to underestimate these synergistic effects. The findings underscore the importance of incorporating memory effects into information-theoretic models to better understand the intricate, time-dependent relationships among financial indicators, with significant implications for forecasting and policy analysis. Full article

Urban watersheds undergo significant ecological change due to increased imperviousness, flashy hydrologic processes, channel evolution, the loss of riparian zones, and the fragmentation of movement corridors. Watershed restoration seeks to address these challenges simultaneously through site-scale actions coordinated at the basin scale. Ecological benefits, social outcomes, and monetary costs represent common metrics to inform decision-making on these programs. However, decision-making at the site and watershed scale may differ, and the accuracy and resolution of benefit and cost data should vary as project needs dictate. This paper presents a case study of urban stream restoration in Utoy Creek, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, where multiple partner organizations are planning a portfolio of stream restoration projects. Analyses were conducted to assess ecological benefits, social outcomes, and monetary costs at the watershed scale to inform site selection, at the site scale to guide restoration design, and then again at the watershed scale to identify an effective portfolio of sites. These scales each presented unique technical challenges and required the adaptation of analytical methods to suit decision-making needs. This case study is not presented as a comprehensive approach applicable in all urban systems, but instead a template for urban restoration practitioners to adapt to their unique watershed and planning contexts. Full article

The rise of cryptocurrencies over the past decade has promised to challenge the dominance of fiat money systems and reshape monetary policy. However, recent developments, including market volatility and the collapse of key exchanges like FTX, have eroded public trust, raising skepticism of a feasible transition to a crypto-based monetary system. This paper explores why cryptocurrencies have not met the expectations of their proponents, particularly those who saw them as a step towards Friedrich Hayek’s vision for competitive currency issuance. While cryptocurrencies reflect some aspects of Hayek’s model, their instability—especially in Bitcoin-like assets—undermines their role as a reliable alternative to fiat money. The paper also considers how central bank independence and regulatory gaps further hinder the development of a robust cryptocurrency framework. Despite the continued relevance of Hayek’s ideas in today’s monetary landscape, the entrenched structures of modern central banks and the rise of Central Bank Digital Currencies suggest that a decentralised currency order remains unlikely in the near future. Full article

Greece’s entry into the Eurozone was regarded as a unique opportunity to reform the country’s inefficient growth model. These hopes were dashed as the decade-long crisis of the 2010s wiped out a substantial part of the wealth accumulated during the previous decades and threatened the stability of Greece’s political system. The crisis highlighted the weaknesses of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU); the economic governance agreed upon at Maastricht was inadequate to support a monetary union comprising many, widely diverse economies. On the other hand, given the EMU’s economic and institutional architecture, Greece was ill-prepared and unwilling to undertake the necessary adjustments to survive in the Eurozone. Understanding the economic and political aspects of this dual and mutually reinforcing failure is crucial for analyzing the challenges facing the Greek economy. In this article, we take a long-term view of the evolution of Greece’s political economy, adopting a framework inspired by the recent literature on comparative political economy. The aim is to determine whether Greece’s EMU membership affected its growth model and, if so, in what ways. The analysis shows that EMU membership has been crucial for the performance of the Greek economy during different periods but less so for the transformation of its demand-led growth model, which exhibits remarkable stability. This is because neither the ex ante nor the ex post conditionality imposed on Greece in the run-up to EMU entry and during the 2010s crisis, respectively, focused on the structural features of the Greek growth model. Full article

Since we are living in a time of multiple crises and geopolitical unrest, it is important to look at how monetary aggregates affect the real economy. This will help us figure out how uncertainty affects the economy and come up with more stable financial and monetary policy measures, especially for EU member states that are not in the euro area. This study aims to determine a dynamic structured monetary policy model, using information from the literature and the study of the evolution of financial elements of macroeconomic aggregates in a non-euro area Member State (Romania). The methods consist of an empirical study of causality in the monetary aggregates in the literature and an analytical approach to the consolidation of dynamic databases over a period of 16 years (2007–2022) and its statistical modeling. This research will examine the impact of uncertainty on Romania’s monetary policy over the period and how this uncertainty alters the dependence relationships between monetary policy indicators and derivatives of the GDP deflator. The results of the two-step modeling, respectively, for the periods 2007–2019 and 2007–2022, will highlight via a comparison the vulnerabilities induced by periods of uncertainty and pandemics on the evolution of monetary policy indicators and will be useful to financial decision makers in correcting monetary policy elements based on the vulnerability picture instrumented as a result of analysis and modeling. The novelty of this study lies in the multidisciplinary and dynamic approach to the evolution of monetary policy indicators and the construction of the dynamic structured model, which is a useful tool for assessing the vulnerability status of a EU Member State economy outside the euro area under uncertainty. Full article

To improve the efficiency of a diesel internal combustion engine (ICE), the waste heat carried out by the combustion gases can be recovered with an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) that further drives a vapor compression refrigeration cycle (VCRC). This work offers an exergoeconomic optimization methodology of the VCRC-ORC group. The exergetic analysis highlights the changes that can be made to the system structure to reduce the exergy destruction associated with internal irreversibilities. Thus, the preheating of the ORC fluid with the help of an internal heat exchanger leads to a decrease in the share of exergy destruction in the ORC boiler by 4.19% and, finally, to an increase in the global exergetic yield by 2.03% and, implicitly, in the COP of the ORC-VCRC installation. Exergoeconomic correlations are built for each individual piece of equipment. The mathematical model for calculating the monetary costs for each flow of substance and energy in the system is presented. Following the evolution of the exergoeconomic performance parameters, the optimization strategy is developed to reduce the exergy consumption in the system by choosing larger or higher-performance equipment. When reducing the temperature differences in the system heat exchangers (ORC boiler, condenser, and VCRC evaporator), the unitary cost of the refrigeration drops by 44%. The increase in the isentropic efficiency of the ORC expander and VCRC compressor further reduces the unitary cost of refrigeration by another 15%. Following the optimization procedure, the cost of the cooling unit drops by half. The cost of diesel fuel has a major influence on the unit cost of cooling. A doubling of the cost of diesel fuel leads to an 80% increase in the cost of the cold unit. The original merit of the work is to present a detailed and comprehensive model of optimization based on exergoeconomic principles that can serve as an example for any thermal system optimization. Full article

As in many parts of Italy and Europe, the Sicilian Trazzera regional property has been for a long time the main land infrastructure supporting the agro-pastoral economy. Throughout its slow evolution, this land heritage has been affected by transport transformations and illegal appropriations by neighboring landowners, which have reduced its potential public function in the current renewed prospects of sustainability and a new balance between territories concerning the issue of the inland areas. A further issue concerns the management of the relationship between private interest and prospects for public reuse in progressively urbanized territorial contexts where this infrastructure takes on considerable economic and real estate interest. The current regional legislation suggests some measures for inter-municipal planning that also include the legitimization of illegal appropriations. From this twofold prospect, according to the wide-spread information and communication technologies (ICTs), and also including the geographic information systems (GIS), this work provides the application of two assessment tools based on a GeoDatabase of the current heard roads in the two areas of quantitative–monetary and aesthetic–qualitative assessment. The first shows the extent to which the fair compensation to be charged for legitimizing land parcels is underestimated today, to the detriment of urban social fixed capital development. The second demonstrates the way that common awareness of landscape value can be nurtured for the benefit of land and ecological–environmental rebalancing. Full article

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) will cause turbulence in the pharmaceutical market and the stagnation of market liquidity, leading to a deep recession in the pharmaceutical economy. After the COVID-19 outbreak, the pharmaceutical economic recession and the rising pharmaceutical financial crisis caused by the closure and control of the COVID-19 outbreak in China were important reasons for the accumulation of systemic financial risks in China. To realize the pharmaceutical economy and financial stability, this paper studies the weakening mechanism of the stabilization effect in systemic risk scenarios and analyzes how the evolution of systemic risk under the COVID-19 shock affects the stabilization effect of monetary policy. Under the COVID-19 shock, in the stage of falling China Financial Stress Index (CFSI), the systemic risk is relatively low, and the impact of traditional policy on macroeconomic stability is more significant; in the rising stage of CFSI, the systemic risk is relatively high, and the impact of traditional policy on macroeconomic stability is limited. This paper develops a Time-Varying Modified CRITIC weighting method and constructs a Time-Varying CFSI. This paper identifies systemic risk scenarios under the COVID-19 shock based on the Markov-Switching Mean Heteroskedastic Vector Auto-Regressive (MSMH-VAR) model and evaluates the stabilizing effects of monetary policy in different economic and financial regional systems (normal times and systemic risk scenarios). The results show that in normal times, loose monetary policy increases price levels, and tight monetary policy reduces price levels with a time lag. In systemic risk scenarios under the COVID-19 shock, the easing effect of policy on output growth is relatively small, and tighter policy increases output growth and prices in the short run and increases volatility in output growth and price levels in the long run. That is, under the COVID-19 shock in systemic risk scenarios, it is difficult to achieve stable growth and stable prices with monetary policy, and the stabilization effect is weakened. This paper focuses on the relationship between systemic risks, monetary policy, and output stability under the COVID-19 shock, analyzes the weakening of stabilization effects after the crisis, and expands the theoretical path of monetary policy stabilization and enriches the research scope of the new framework. Full article

In this study, we explore the evolution and formation mechanism of urban housing investment resilience from three perspectives: theoretical analysis, model construction, and empirical testing. Based on the three-element theory of investment decision making and urban resilience system theory, a theoretical framework of urban housing investment resilience is constructed. Spatiotemporal analysis and qualitative comparison methods are used to divide 35 large and medium-sized cities into two categories, first-tier and non-first-tier cities, and their spatiotemporal characteristics and differences in terms of formation mechanism differences then explored. The results show that (1) the overall housing investment resilience of the 35 investigated cities is low, with the characteristics of periodic evolution, and there are obvious differences between the first-tier and non-first-tier cities as well as unbalanced development problems. (2) The three internal investment decision factors of returns, costs, and expectations and the five external support factors of economic growth, infrastructure development, labor market, policy regulation, and monetary policy do not, by themselves, constitute the necessary conditions for high levels of urban housing investment resilience, and there are three paths for the development of high levels of housing investment resilience in both first-tier and non-first-tier cities. (3) The twos types of cities have the same conformational path of "return- and cost-driven" but different dedicated conformational paths, including "cost-driven", "expectation- driven", and "return- and expectation-driven", and the core conditions in their driving paths are different, with real estate policy being the core condition in the path of first-tier cities and infrastructure development and labor markets being the core conditions in the path of non-first-tier cities. (4) There is a potential substitution relationship between the three configuration paths of first-tier and non-first-tier cities, and the substitution relationship between the two types of cities is also different. The findings of this study reveal that the complex interaction between the urban resilience system, represented by infrastructure construction, and multiple factors, including the three elements of investment, can have an impact on the resilience of real estate investment. Full article

The global financial crisis of 2008 proved that what initially appeared to be relatively small losses in the financial system can be magnified to systemic ones. The European Union debt crisis has thus revived interest in the interdependence across different markets, especially sovereign debt markets and the banking sector, and in the interlinkages among idiosyncratic and common shocks. This paper analyzes the evolution over time of the incidence of common shocks on the main Italian banking groups starting from the period of European Central Bank’s Quantitative Easing program. Results show that the banking sector is no longer perceived by the markets as a common risk source, overcoming the negative picture coming from the financial crisis of 2008–2009. The analysis also suggests that the common risk is broadly affected by the ECB monetary policy, and the idiosyncratic risk is linked to the recapitalization processes. Full article

In China’s bank-centered financial and economic environment, bank risk attitudes have an important impact on the effective implementation of structural monetary policy, and monetary policy can have an impact on the corporate ecosystem through risk taking by banks. To make an economic assessment of the evolution of the banking ecosystem and empirically explore the correlation between targeted Reserve Requirement Ratio (RRR) cuts and banks’ risk-taking levels in the context of financial supply-side structural reforms, this paper uses multiple regression analysis and a fixed-effects model to analyze the causal impact of targeted RRR reduction on the risk taking of Chinese commercial banks. In addition, it uses the mediation effect model to analyze the mechanism. Results show that targeted RRR cuts have significantly increased the level of risk taking of commercial banks. The findings are pronounced in urban commercial banks. However, the leverage ratio regulation has a restraining effect on the level of risk taking of banks. This study provides an effective economic evaluation for the benign development of the banking ecosystem under the environment of government policy supervision. Future research needs to expand the bank sample and further examine the changes in bank credit scale and credit investment. Full article