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This paper represents a first approach to the acoustical regulations in some European Union countries. It is only considered the case of dwellings in Residential Buildings.The analysis is limited to the comparison of the different indexes used in the several countries. Some examples illustrate the enormous differences in philosophy and requirements of the different Regulations that were analysed.The conclusions emphasize the need to begin the preparation of a common code that could be used as a European Union Regulation in the field of Building Acoustics.

In the 1970s Islamic financial system based on religious belief emerged in some of Muslim countries. The purpose of the Islamic financial system is just like in the case of the conventional one, to facilitate the smooth flow of funds between savers and investors. However, what is distinguishable about the Islamic financial system is that it is based on principles of sharia, which is a religious law of Muslims. With the share of around 80% in total assets of Islamic financial institutions, Islamic banks play a dominant role in the Islamic financial industry. They operate in over 75 countries, not only Muslim ones, but also those, where Muslim minority live. The aim of the paper is to analyse the opportunities and challenges for development of Islamic banking in the European Union countries. The analysis should give an answer to the question whether Islamic banks can have more significant presence in the European financial market in the future, than they have today. The article consists of four parts, not counting introduction and concluding remarks. The first part of the paper is a descriptive analysis of the main principles of sharia, which have impact on operations of Islamic banks. They include: prohibition of interest (riba), avoidance of uncertainty (gharar) and prohibition of trading in illegal (haram) products. Because of the necessity to comply with those principles, the instruments offered by Islamic banks must be constructed differently than conventional ones. Islamic financial instruments are briefly described in the second part of the paper. In the third section of the article the evolution and the current state of Islamic banking in the EU countries is presented. The main focus is put on the United Kingdom, since in this country Islamic banking sector is the most developed. In the fourth part prospects for development of Islamic banking in the EU are discussed. First the factors that should contribute to the development are presented. Then challenges faced by Islamic banking industry in the EU are ...

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine Okun's Law in European countries by distinguishing between the transitory and the permanent effects of output changes upon unemployment and by examining the effect of labor market protection policies upon Okun's coefficients.


Design/methodology/approach
– Quarterly data for 13 European Union countries, from the second quarter of 1993 until the first quarter of 2014, are used. Panel data techniques and Mundlak decomposition models are estimated.


Findings
– Okun's Law is robust to alternative specifications. The effect of output changes to unemployment rates is weaker for countries with increased labor market protection expenditures and it is more persistent for countries with low labor market protection.


Originality/value
– The paper provides evidence that the permanent effect of output changes upon unemployment rates is quantitatively larger than the transitory impact. In addition, it provides evidence that increased labor market protection mitigates the adverse effects of a decrease in output growth rate upon unemployment.

In the 1980s and, in particular, in the 1990s the countries of the European Union experienced divergent developments of gross fixed capital formation. Estimating an investment function for a panel of ten countries and analyzing the paths of the determinants of investment in the countries under consideration reveals that the different development of final demand is the main factor responsible for the divergences in investment. Other factors are disparities in the decline of real interest rates and of relative prices for capital goods.

Purpose: The goal of the paper was to perform a literature study, to determine the state of the theory and practice of investment valuation in the countries of the European Union which should be the starting point for further research. Design/Methodology/Approach: In this paper, an analysis of literature sources was carried out about assessing the effectiveness of investments in European Union countries. The conducted review and description of the found scientific sources is aimed at determining the current state of investment valuation practice, a description of the research carried out so far, which will allow us to determine the starting point for a new study. Findings: During preliminary research found it profoundly surprising that despite the huge potential impact of better capital allocation, there are two main problems regarding investment appraisal practices in European companies. First and foremost, a large part of even the largest European corporations do not use advanced investment appraisal techniques or apply them only to a limited extent. Secondly, yet there has not been a research into practical applications of investment appraisal methodologies that would cover the entire Single Market, i.e., the European Economic Area and Switzerland. Practical Implications: Obtained conclusions allowed us to recommend a study of the relationship between investment appraisal practice and company performance for all the countries of the European Single Market. Originality/value: Further research should identify the differences regarding the use of investment appraisal methods between countries as well as sectors. It is expected that the conclusions from projected future research will considerably broaden the knowledge about a particularly important area of corporate activity – making decisions regarding resource allocation. ; peer-reviewed

Capítulos en libros ; -- ; Public finance has been a matter of constant concern for the EU since its inception. Although this concern is not exclusive to the EU, successive enlargements and Community projects have led to regard public finance as one of the core elements of the economic policy in Europe. The main purpose of this chapter is, therefore, to shed some light on the situation of public finance in the EU Member States and its recent development. Moreover, all through the chapter, the relation between public finance and the economic reality in the EU is analyzed through variables such as development, growth and unemployment. Lastly, taxes distribution in European countries will enable to gain a better understanding of both the relative importance of the public sector in terms of revenues, and those economic concepts on which taxes are levied to a greater or lesser extent ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

This study utilizes the dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model by considering time to measure the energy environmental efficiency of 28 countries in the European Union (EU) during the period 2006&ndash ; 2013. There are three kinds of variables: input, output, and carry-over. The inputs are labor, capital, and energy consumption (EC). The undesirable outputs are greenhouse gas emissions (GHE) and sulfur oxide (SOx) emissions, and the desirable output variable is gross domestic product (GDP). The carry-over variable is gross capital formation (GCF). The empirical results show that first the dynamic DEA model can measure environment efficiency and provide optimum improvement for inefficient countries, as more than half of the EU countries should improve their environmental efficiency. Second, the average overall scores of the EU countries point out that the better period of performance is from 2009 to 2012. Third, the output variables of GHE, SOx, and GDP exhibit a significant impact on environmental efficiency. Finally, the average value of others is significantly better than high renewable energy utilization (HRE) with the Wilcoxon test. Thus, the EU&rsquo ; s strategy for environmental energy improvement should be to pay attention to the benefits of renewable energy (RE) utilization, reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHE), and enhancing the development of RE utilization to help achieve the goal of lower GHE.

Using real-time data, we examine whether fiscal policy has been counter- or procyclical in a panel of 27 European Union (EU) member states over the period 2000–2015. We also investigate whether fiscal rules and government efficiency improve the cyclical reaction of fiscal policy. Our results suggest that even though fiscal plans in EU countries have an acyclical stance, budgetary outcomes are procyclical. Government efficiency and fiscal rules seem to reduce fiscal procyclicality. Further analysis also reveals that fiscal policy seems to be more procyclical in non-euro area countries and in times of economic prosperity.

Despite the great importance of sustainable development for a country, it is possible to say, having reviewed the literature widely, that this research is the first to use a Multi-Criteria Decision Method (MCDM) to analyze the sustainability of EU countries, considering different dimensions and weighting the criteria with the help of a group of experts. This paper therefore sets out a Multi-Criteria Model for analyzing the development of sustainability in EU countries (and Norway and Iceland). This required prior filtering and analysis of the data from the Eurostat database. The model was built with the multi-criteria Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. Four experts in sustainability participated in the weighting process. The results of the AHP model are identified by areas of sustainability, with the highest value found in Norway, and the rest are found around it forming rings of sustainability, where sustainability decreases the further a country is from Norway. This research could be used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each country with regard to sustainable development, and by analyzing the measures taken by Norway and other countries with very high sustainability, by continuous improvement processes, reach similar levels of sustainable development.

The purpose of the presented research is to assess pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) in European Union countries in 2009 and 2019. The study used a synthetic measure developed using the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) benchmark method. This method enables distinguishing classes and ranks of countries depending on the adopted characteristics. Basic measures of descriptive statistics, i.e., average, standard deviation and the coefficient of variation, were used in the analysis of the data set. The main research question addressed in this study concerns the relationship between the level of PEB and economic, demographic, and educational factors—not only on a micro scale but also from the macroeconomic perspective. The research has revealed a wide variety throughout the European Union (EU-27) countries in terms of pro-environmental behaviour. Sweden, Finland, and Denmark top the ranking, while Malta, Greece, Spain, and Romania are at the bottom of it. Northern European countries can therefore be identified as a group that represents a positive benchmark in terms of PEB across the European Union (EU-27). The correlation between PEB and selected economic, demographic, and education-related variables was also investigated. Country-level PEB is correlated with demographic and economic variables, but it is not correlated with education-related variables.

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of democratic European countries. One of his goals was and is to equalize living conditions in all countries. Unfortunately, it is not. Today, still, there are clear disparities both economic and social. It is worth a closer look, how does the situation in the UE at the national level. The aim of this study is to analyze the most current size selected macroeconomic and social at the EU member states to show that, despite the common policy of these countries are different.