GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE. EVIDENCE FROM EU COUNTRIES
GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE. EVIDENCE FROM EU COUNTRIES

Author(s): Adina Dornean, Ada-Iuliana Popescu, Dumitru-Cristian Oanea
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, National Economy, Public Administration, Public Finances, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: Editura Universităţii »Alexandru Ioan Cuza« din Iaşi
Keywords: government expenditure on environmental protection; environmental protection; environmental performance index; sustainable development;
Summary/Abstract: During the last few years, environmental protection has become a much-debated topic at international, continental, and national level. The necessity of a green recovery is justified because such as COVID-19 virus had spread across borders, in the same way, the impact of climate change will be felt across the world. Thus, a green recovery is much needed based on policies that will simultaneously support economic recovery and environmental protection through investments in green projects. In this context, in December 2019, European Union (EU) launched the European Green Deal (EGD). In accordance with the EU’s environmental policies, one of the EGD goals is for Europe to become the world’s first ‘climate-neutral’ region, with net zero GHG emissions by 2050.As a result, every EU member state has to make efforts to first accomplish this objective at national level. In this article, we want to investigate if, at this time, the EU member states and their governments allocate more funds and spend more money for environmental protection. Furthermore, we will investigate if there is a correlation between the government expenditure on environmental protection and environmental performance, measured according to the environmental performance index (EPI). For this purpose, we will apply the sigma-convergence approach to highlight the evolution over time of the cross-national dispersion in environmental spending for the period 2012-2021. Also, we want to identify if there is correlation between governmental expenditure and EPI. The results show that countries with higher government expenditure on environmental protection recorded a higher environmental performance index (EPI).

• Details
• Contents