Small and medium-sized enterprises in Romania, as well as those throughout the European Union, have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis has affected the HoReCa industry the most in the world, given that events and accommodations have been cancelled and restaurants closed. The main reason why this industry has suffered the most is the health regulations imposed by governments to limit the spread of the virus. This paper aims to make an analysis of 3 companies in this industry that are listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Thus, we will use time series data for the period 2009-2020 in the EViews econometric software. The purpose of the analysis is to highlight the economic shock caused by the pandemic, as well as the solutions found by these companies to overcome this crisis. Thus, we will use the net result as a dependent variable, and we will use income and expenses as independent variables. The paper indicates that small and medium-sized enterprises in the field of HoReCa in Romania have been severely affected by the pandemic crisis, due to lack of access to finance, high unemployment, and declining incomes.

Smart City’s role is to improve urban life through sustainable integrated solutions and address city-specific challenges in various policy areas, such as energy, mobility and transport, and ICT, which must also be effectively implemented. Smart City relies on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to sustainably develop urban spaces and limit the negative effects of urbanization. Globally, there is a trend to promote the concept of Smart City as a solution for urban areas in efficient and sustainable development, without affecting the environment.
In Romania, Smart City has become a concern for local, urban and rural administrations, in the context in which at European level there are non-reimbursable funds for such projects. In Romania, Smart City and the projects that have the role of making an administration to be Smart are in their infancy.
The purpose of this article is to highlight the advantages of Smart City development in urban administrations in Romania and the influence on the financial management of local authorities. Urban spaces in Romania face certain difficulties, both in terms of development (economic, infrastructure), but also pollution. The paper will highlight the stage of development of Smart City and how it influences the financial management of local governments, where such projects are implemented. The paper is descriptive, by correlating the information highlighted in the literature and data on projects submitted for Smart City by urban areas in Romania. The study analyzes the projects submitted by the main urban areas in Romania in 2020 for their development as Smart City, according to the website https://steinbeis-romania.com, thus highlighting the concern of local governments for their development as Smart City.

The paper aims to investigate the nature of the relationship between insolvencies or registrations and the wage cost in Romania. The study uses monthly / annual data covering the period 2014 – October 2019. In order to investigate the short and medium term dynamics of insolvencies, enrolments and the influence of wage costs, the data collected for the mentioned period will be examined, highlighting the causal links between the three concepts at the level of the country as well as in the field of constructions. This study highlights the existence of a relationship between the three variables, but it does not provide certainty regarding the information about the direction and meaning of this causal link. The subject deserves to be investigated from the perspective of the existence of a “long term equilibrium” property, for the pair of registration and insolvency variables.
The question we can answer by means of looking for actual relationships is whether there is a connection between the registrations and insolvencies of the entities in a certain field. The result of the study reflects a very similar evolution of the insolvency pairs – insolvencies in the field of construction, registrations – registrations in the field of construction, registrations – insolvencies.

In this article we use econometric methods to identify and analyze the intensity of potential causality links between the VAT gap and the ability or the performance of a state to collect taxes and, consequently, to finance public projects and programs. This capacity or performance is assessed by the share of tax revenues to GDP, which also reflects the degree of taxation of an economy. On the other hand, the determinants of the VAT gap were investigated. The data set used is of the panel type, consisting of values with an annual frequency, for the period 2014-2019, for 26 Member States of the European Union. The methods used in the analyzis are single and multiple linear regressions on panel data with fixed effects. Based on the results obtained for the mentioned sample, the existence of a statistically significant linear link between the mentioned variables is confirmed, but it was also found that, in general, the performance of tax revenue collection in a certain period depends on the performance of the previous period. Therefore, the influence of other exogenous, economic and non-economic variables is visible, which must be identified and analyzed. However, it was found that the level of government spending, confirming to some extent the Keynesian growth model, significantly influences the level of tax revenue. At the same time, the following variables were found to have an overwhelming influence on the VAT gap: the share of people exposed to the risk of poverty or social exclusion, the level of employees’ compensation, the final household consumption and the level of gross value added created in the economy. All these variables significantly determine the formation of the VAT tax gap, in a proportion of 95%.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the instruments utilized in agricultural risk management. The study’s goals are to highlight the hazards that Romanian farmers confront and to uncover strategies to mitigate these risks. In this regard, we present an analysis of agricultural risks, the role of agricultural insurance and the impact of risk management on the sustainability of agricultural holdings. The research methodology is based on various reports, official statistics, macroeconomic analysis, case studies, analysis of documents issued by organizations representing the SME sector and the agricultural business environment. After collecting the data, qualitative and quantitative methods were used to express the research results. The study emphasized the constraints that farmers face (depending on the size of the enterprise), the influence of climate change on agricultural output, the main financial risks (e.g., price risk, production risk), and suggested methods for implementing agricultural insurance (eg. production, income insurance). The study also shows that price and production risks such as price volatility and climate change have a significant impact on the sustainability of agricultural holdings. The main conclusion of the study shows that risk management tools encourage farmers to participate in sound risk management. Finally, the results of the research can provide important guidelines in substantiating the needs of risk management in the agricultural sector.

Undoubtedly, internal communication in public administration is the most sought after point of good management practices. The activity of public institutions based on principles such as the principle of face-to-face or online communication, the principle of information, the principle of motivation and the principle of unity of success are an integral part of public administrations. The implemented principles have the role of improving the activities of civil servants, which can increase the level of efficiency. The lack of an efficient communication within the public institution will lead to unproductiveness, misunderstandings, frustrations and non-fulfillment of work tasks, implicitly of the job description. Time, planning work tasks, clear setting of priorities; self-discipline, punctuality, perseverance, are an essential pillar in labor productivity.
This study aims to reflect and understand the nature of communication as an activity and as a process in the context of the present transformations and how important the principles of communication are in the performance of employees.

Financial contagion represents a very controversial concept in international finance being one of the most frequently referenced subjects and yet least understood. The literature highlights that shocks and crises can spillover from a country to others through various channels. Although it is hard to determine exactly the cause and channel that lead to the transmission of the initial shock, it is more than clear that these events are encouraged when economies are integrated or in the process of global integration. The core of this study is to capture evidence of financial contagion based on a sample of daily closing prices from 17 different market indices, for the period January 1st, 2007 – October 15th, 2021. We employed the shortfall method for estimating the risk and we built a model within the framework of Bayesian Neural Networks (BNN). Given the results, evidence of contagion was sensed between some of the 17 markets within the sample, however the causality between them differed from the full sample period to the sub-samples periods. Nevertheless, we found that for the sub-sample corresponding to January 1st, 2020 – October 15th, 2021, period that encompasses the global exogenous shock triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic that appeared in Romania at the beginning of 2020, the relationships between global markets were decoupled, contagion being sensed mostly regionally, at the level of the European countries.

As education is the foundation of a prosperous and sustainable society and given the increasingly visible gap between urban and rural, the aim of the research undertaken in this paper is to present the level of education and labour market integration in Romania, in a comparative urban-rural approach. The dataset compiled for Romania is organized in two sub-panels, urban and rural, including indicators of the education system, but also fundamental credentials of the labour market, for the period 2000-2020. The research methodology is based on the application of two advanced econometric models, namely spatial models (lag and error) and Gaussian graphical models (GGMs). The results highlight the coordinates of the Romanian education system in the two areas of residence, urban-rural, but also the link between education and the labour market outcomes. Based on our findings, we propose adequate strategies to mitigate the gap between rural and urban and enhance the labour market performance.

Performance management is becoming a widely analysed topic in the literature. With this research we aim to analyse the impact of the topic using quantitative research methods. In the same context we will identify existing trends and possible implications of accounting for the performance of entities. In order to achieve the aim of the research we will analyse internationally quoted articles. Data will be collected from the Web of Science database. In the actual analysis of the articles we aim to identify general aspects such as the geographic organisation of the publications, the evolution of interest in the topic for 2010-2020 period. At the end of the research we will come up with conclusions in which we will analyse possible ways of developing the topic through the lens of published articles and research.

This paper aims to expose the evolution of investor relations among companies listed on the main market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange through the VEKTOR qualitative indicator. For this purpose, both economic and financial analysis tools were used, such as the dynamic analysis of the VEKTOR score between 2019 and 2021, by using multiple grouping criteria, namely share type, field of activity and structure of majority shareholding, but also econometric tools, respectively a regression model that aims to correlate the evolution of the VEKTOR indicator obtained by the companies in the sample analyzed with three of the most relevant stock market and financial indicators, in this case market capitalization, stock price and return on equity. Thus, significant increases of the average value of the researched indicator were observed in the period 2020-2021, as well as a strong, direct link between the independent variables and the dependent variable, the analyzed phenomenon being explained in a proportion of 30,05% by the dynamics of the indicators used in the analysis.