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Sustainable Development in the European Union in the Years 2004–2013

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Regional Studies on Economic Growth, Financial Economics and Management

Part of the book series: Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics ((EBES,volume 7))

Abstract

Implementation of sustainable development strategies is a policy prerequisite for all the European Union countries, which is a result of agreement to realization of such documents as Europe 2020 plan and other more specific international obligations such as agreements on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, the progress in creating the conditions for sustainable development achieved by all of the European Union member states should be constantly monitored. The international comparisons in the field should be made with the use of quantitative methods. Thus, the purpose of the research is to examine the progress achieved by European countries in implementing the concept of sustainable development. Special attention was given to the new member states that joined the EU after the year 2004. The research is conducted with the application of the Eurostat data at a macroeconomic level. It is assumed that sustainable development should be treated as a multivariate latent variable. Thus, it can be measured with the application of the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) methodology that includes confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis used in econometrics. In the article, a hypothetical SEM model for the years 2004–2013 was proposed. The model was based on nine observable variables suggested by the Eurostat for measuring sustainable development phenomena at a national level. The application of the SEM model enabled us to identify the usefulness of the observable variables proposed by the Eurostat. The conducted research showed that the new European Union member states have made significant progress in the field of building conditions for sustainable development.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Indicators are available in Eurostat’s database: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database

  2. 2.

    The determination of the impact of variables and their distribution was made arbitrarily by the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland

    Adam P. Balcerzak

  2. Department of Econometrics and Statistics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland

    Michal Bernard Pietrzak

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  1. Adam P. Balcerzak
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Correspondence to Adam P. Balcerzak .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Political Sciences, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin

  2. MUFG Union Bank, San Francisco, California, USA

    Hakan Danis

  3. Faculty of Tourism, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ender Demir

  4. Eurasia Business and Economic Society, Fatih, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ugur Can

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Balcerzak, A.P., Pietrzak, M.B. (2017). Sustainable Development in the European Union in the Years 2004–2013. In: Bilgin, M., Danis, H., Demir, E., Can, U. (eds) Regional Studies on Economic Growth, Financial Economics and Management. Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54112-9_12

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