Suchergebnisse

As the economic and technological problems become more complex and require effective multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) tools for analysis thereof, there is a need for comprehensive MCDM techniques that would be capable to ensure robust optimization with minimum arbitrary assumptions. This paper proposes a new method for MCDM – the Kernel-based Comprehensive Aggregation PROMETHEE (PROMETHEE-KerCA). The proposed approach relies on the kernel density estimation which provides the bandwidths for scaling the differences in the performance of the alternatives. The kernel-based distances are aggregated to establish the performance measures thus following the principle of the outranking. Then, the measures of performance are aggregated in four different manners (additive, multiplicative, minimum and maximum values) to construct the comprehensive overall utility score. The proposed method does not require choosing the preference functions or parameters thereof. The empirical illustration is provided to show the feasibility of the proposed approach. The European Union Member States are ranked by the means of the KerCA method with regards to the objectives of the strategy Europe 2020. The isolated and pooled ranking allows comparing the progress of the countries compared with their initial situation and compared to the other countries in the sample.

This paper analyses the trends and sources of change in agricultural revenue for the new European Union (EU) member states, namely Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. These countries still lag behind the old EU member states in terms of profitability, productivity, and farm size. Thus, assessment of the patterns in agricultural revenue changes in these countries may provide evidence for reasonable policy making. The period covered is 2011-2019. The analysis is carried out for selected agricultural products (wheat, milk, poultry, potatoes). The logarithmic mean Divisia index is applied for the decomposition. The results indicate that the effects of scale, productivity, and price change varied across the countries and products. Therefore, dedicated policy measures and pathways are needed for each particular context.

Since the beginnings of 1957, the European Union has always been aimed at promoting the development and cohesion of the Member States. Competitiveness as well as sustainable development have therefore long been focal points among strategic goals of the European Union. These goals were therefore documented in some strategies, namely European Single Market programme, the Lisbon Strategy and the Europe 2020. The Lisbon Strategy was aimed at turning the European Union into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion by 2010. However, it was obvious that the Lisbon goals have not been achieved and a new strategy, Europe 2020, was hence initiated. Many Lithuanian and foreign authors analyzed (Tamosiuniene et al., 2007; Daugeliene, 2008; Grybaite, Tvaronaviciene, 2008; Melnikas, 2008; Tvaronaviciene et al., 2008; Martinkus et al., 2009; Kirch, 2010; Balezentis et al., 2010) the situation of Lithuania and other Baltic states in a global economic system during the processes of globalization and European Union (EU) integration. However, the need for the evaluation of the Lisbon Strategy's outcomes and proposal of guidelines for ongoing strategy Europe 2020 is still topical. Hence this study focuses on the improvement of the open method of co­ordination and thus the implementation of strategy Europe 2020 by integrating quantitative methods with respect to the experience gained during the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy. This study is aimed at proposing a framework for a strategic management model dedicated to successful implementation of the new strategy Europe 2020. This article is organized in four sections according to the following tasks defined in order to achieve the aim: 1) to overview main the strategies dedicated to promoting competitiveness of the European Union, namely the Lisbon Strategy and strategy Europe 2020; 2) to assess efforts of the EU Member States in seeking Lisbon goals ...

Purpose
The Green Deal strategy of the European Union (EU) as well as the increasing concerns over resource scarcity worldwide has put forward such concepts as the circular economy. This paper seeks to compare the progress of the development of the circular economy across the EU Member States. Such analysis is helpful in guiding the circular economy support policies.


Design/methodology/approach
This paper develops a quantitative framework for analysis of the implementation of the circular economy objectives in the EU Member States. The framework proposed includes three multi-criteria decision making methods representing reference point and outranking approaches. The use of multiple methods allows exploiting the differences in the underlying aggregation principles.


Findings
Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands appear as the most advanced in the sense of circular economy development. The results indicate that the water-locked small countries and the new EU Member States are among the lowest performing ones. The flows of the waste need to be monitored more tightly in order to increase the circularity. The development of recycling facilities can also increase circularity irrespectively of the economic development level (e.g. the case of Bulgaria).


Originality/value
The paper contributes to the discussion regarding the circular economy by proposing an indicator system and the multi-criteria analysis framework. The proposed indicator system covers input use (circularity), trade flows and recycling processes. The proposed framework can be applied to track the progress of different countries in implementing the targets of the circular economy.

This paper analyses the trends of final energy consumption in Latvia and Czech Republic. Analysis of final energy consumption during 2000-2013 period indicated the main driving forces of final energy consumption during and after world financial crisis of 2008. The paper aimed to evaluate the impact of economic activity and other factors on final energy consumption. The decomposition of the final energy consumption is assessed by analyzing effect of different drivers by the main end-users sector (industry, transport, households, agriculture, services), activity, demography, lifestyles, structural effects, energy savings etc. The results show that the reduction in final energy consumption in most EU memb ers states before and after year 2008 can be related to the decline in energy intensities within end - users sectors. At the same time, the increase in final energy intensity after the year 2008 is attributed to expansion of energy demand sectors. Comparison of final energy consumption trends and drivers in Latvia and Czech Republic indicated that Czech Republic implemented more policies and measures in industry and tertiary sector and this provided for final energy consumption decreased and huge energy savings in these sectors.