MACROECONMIC TENDENCIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL TAXES IN

Reforms of environmental taxes in EU member states began to consolidate a strategic conceptual basis since the early '90s, when it was launched the idea of changing the tax burden from the tax factor of production, work to the environmental factors and use of environmental unfriendly activities and goods. The theoretical support of this view is represented by the corrective taxes Pigou situation justifying the optimal level of activity of producing goods and services from a social perspective, the collection of taxes imposed by the state of polluters, depending on the amount of damage and damage to third parties, the principle of "polluter pays". Despite the green fees start reforms of the EU member countries and their levels are not increased in recent years as a share of GDP. In the EU-27, 2008, revenues from environmental taxes represented a rate of about 2.8% of GDP and 6.1% of total revenues compared to 2.9% and 7.0% record share of GDP in 1999. Effects of environmental taxes on eco-efficiency must be seen not only in terms of their size or budget as income tax to GDP ratio, but also as a positive economic and social impact generated by larger beneficial effects of reducing pollution and preserving the quality natural resources and environmental factors.envoironmental taxes, eco-eficiency, green fees, corrective taxes Pigou

The Reasssesment of the Service Quality System within the Romanian Hotel Industry – a Premise for Increasing the Competition of the Tourist Offer

The main priority both at microeconomic and macroeconomic level is to provide high quality tourist services; more and more countries, as well as tourist enterprises are setting their own standards for services and quality. In spite of the many advantages granted by the standards and the management quality system, these instruments of ensuring the quality of services in the hospitality industry are limited in terms of coverage and action area due to the fact that they do not allow national level quality insurance. The new system should include: the total amount of criteria, the methods of the assessment, the designation of the institutions to be involved in the implementation of the system, the improvement of the system, as well as designating the staff that will evaluate the results and create the correcting measures. The proposed system requests: completion of the extra criteria as per the methodological norms of stars classification based on quality elements on one side and the implementation by the Ministry of Tourism of the good practice standards, through a specialised office who will be in charge with the implementation of a compulsory self-evaluation system, the use of the information provided by the“ mystery client” both by the Ministry and the organization to double check if the necessary and extra criteria are respected, the quality of services and the staff behaviour, in view of increasing the hotel services’ quality and food industry in Romania.quality management, standards of quality, extra-criteria of classification, hospitality industry, good practice norms, national quality system

Buyer-Seller Relationships in International Trade: Evidence from U.S. States' Exports and Business-Class Travel

International trade has become increasingly dependent on the transmission of complex information, often realized via face-to-face communication. This paper provides novel evidence for the importance of in-person business meetings in international trade. Interactions among trade partners entail a fixed cost of trade, but at the same time they generate relationship capital, which adds bilateral specific value to the traded products. Differences in the face-to-face communication intensity of traded goods, bilateral travel costs and foreign market size determine the optimal amount of interaction between trade partners. Using U.S. state level data on international business-class air travel as a measure of in-person business meetings, I find robust evidence that the demand for business-class air travel is directly related to volume and composition of exports in differentiated products. I also find that trade flows in R&D intensive manufactures and goods facing contractual frictions are most dependent on face-to-face meetings. The econometric identification exploits the cross-state variation in bilateral exports and business-class air travelers by foreign country and time period, circumventing any spurious correlation induced by cross-country differences driving aggregate travel and trade patterns.state exports; air travel; fixed export cost; face-to-face communication; relationship intensity; tacit knowledge

Are able fiscal advantages to promote the interest for insurance? - The situation of Romania versus the international one

At present, the insurance business has become a major industry of national savings, the turnover within the insurance domain continues to increase and almost everything is taken into consideration through insurance terms. The share held by the insurance area within the gross domestic product of each country, continues to grow, it may reach 16% in certain countries, its level corresponding to the economic development of the country. In other countries, like Romania, there are a lot of unfavorable conditions for development of insurance market, reason for introduction the fiscal advantages for the different categories of insured persons. In this paper we show the tax treatment for the insured person from Romania, at the present moment, as well as the existing ones on the international level. The analysis of the fiscal facilities effects proposed for certain insurance categories shows the growth of interest for its from potential insured persons, as tax contributories.fiscal advantages, fiscal facilities, tax system of insurance

New evidence suggests that air services do boost regionaleconomic growth

Airports have become a familiar presence both in and near many U.S. cities in recent decades, but are they actually beneficial to a region’s economic growth? In new research which takes advantage of 1978’s Aviation Deregulation Act to study air services’ effects, Bruce Blonigen and Anca Cristea find that a 50 percent increase in air traffic leads to a 7.5 percent rise in a region’s real GDP over 20 years. They also find that this growth occurs almost exclusively in the service and retail sectors

EU Structural Funds Absorption in Romania: Obstacles and Issues

Romania’s absorption capacity of EU structural and cohesion funds is based on the degree of implementation of Sectoral Operational Programmes (SOP) 2007-2013 within SOP Environment and plays a central role in view of its complex relationships (horizontal and vertical) with other SOPs.The present paper analyses the absorption capacity of SOPs in Romania, paying a special attention to SOP Environment, which can be considered an important tool for improving eco-efficiency standards and greening the economic growth. The research is focusing on cases and factors of weak absorption of Structural Funds in Romania under the current economic crisis circumstances as well as on some ways of improving the situation in the future

Oustanding Aspects of Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Challenges for Entrepreneurship in Romania

AbstractTaking into consideration the increasing role of entrepreneurship for the sustainability and competitiveness of an economy, the paper highlights the main characteristics of entrepreneurs in Romania from the demographic, economic and social viewpoints, age, labour skills, education, urban and rural areas gender, income levels etc. Based on a set of specific indicators, our research try to identify the main obstacles and difficulties the entrepreneurship in Romania is confronted with as well as to find out the solutions for solving them by adequate policies, instruments, economic and financial mechanisms. In this context, it is revealed the importance of promoting the mentality in favor of entrepreneurship behaviour of Romanians as well as of a better financial support for SMEs

The Effect of Communication Costs on Trade in Headquarter Services

Communication is a real barrier to organizing international production as it hinders knowledge transmission. This paper provides evidence to suggest that a way in which multinational firms economize on costly information transfers is by using skilled foreign workers, since local talent can substitute for knowledge inputs from the headquarters. Combining U.S. data on headquarter service exports with information on communication costs and skill endowments by country, I find that while communication costs decrease the export of headquarter services to foreign affiliates, the effect becomes weaker in the average educational attainment of foreign workers. The sensitivity of headquarter service exports to communication barriers at low levels of skill endowment has important implications for the geography of multinational production, as well as for policies aimed at improving communication infrastructure

The Effect of Communication Costs on Trade in Headquarter Services

Communication is a real barrier to organizing international production as it hinders knowledge transmission. This paper provides evidence to suggest that a way in which multinational firms economize on costly information transfers is by using skilled foreign workers, since local talent can substitute for knowledge inputs from the headquarters. Combining U.S. data on headquarter service exports with information on communication costs and skill endowments by country, I find that while communication costs decrease the export of headquarter services to foreign affiliates, the effect becomes weaker in the average educational attainment of foreign workers. The sensitivity of headquarter service exports to communication barriers at low levels of skill endowment has important implications for the geography of multinational production, as well as for policies aimed at improving communication infrastructure

Buyer-Seller Relationships in International Trade: Evidence from U.S. States' Exports and Business-Class Travel

International trade has become increasingly dependent on the transmission of complex information, often realized via face-to-face communication. This paper provides novel evidence for the importance of in-person business meetings in international trade. Interactions among trade partners entail a fixed cost of trade, but at the same time they generate relationship capital, which adds bilateral specific value to the traded products. Differences in the face-to-face communication intensity of traded goods, bilateral travel costs and foreign market size determine the optimal amount of interaction between trade partners. Using U.S. state level data on international business-class air travel as a measure of in-person business meetings, I find robust evidence that the demand for business-class air travel is directly related to volume and composition of exports in differentiated products. I also find that trade flows in R&D intensive manufactures and goods facing contractual frictions are most dependent on face-to-face meetings. The econometric identification exploits the cross-state variation in bilateral exports and business-class air travelers by foreign country and time period, circumventing any spurious correlation induced by cross-country differences driving aggregate travel and trade patterns