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Abstract The empirical environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) literature is vast but far from conclusive. Many authors have analysed the existence of an EKC for various pollutants. Others have used the EKC framework to identify country characteristics that help to explain the income–environment relationship. In this framework environmental degradation is analysed using a second or third order polynomial in income and a limited number of control variables. Some authors question whether this standard framework is appropriate. This paper proposes an alternative to study the specific characteristics of countries that have experienced economic growth and an improving environment at the same time. We estimate a binary response model and find an EKC-like relation between the probability that a country's environment improves with economic growth and per capita GDP. Our evidence further suggests that the level of environmental damage is an important explanatory variable. We also confirm the importance of an open political system. These results indicate that the binary response model could be a valuable alternative to test which country specific characteristics are associated with a negative IER.

Given the current integration processes of the world economies, the issue of economic security of the state is extremely acute. The openness of markets facilitates the free flow of resources but also threatens the rapid transfer of crisis phenomena from one economy to another. There is a need to develop an innovative methodological tool for assessing the level of economic security in the country based on the calculation of a generalized indicator that will serve as a benchmark in the formation of state economic policy in the context of ensuring its sustainable growth and countering internal and external threats. The methodological tools of the study are methods of normalization, Fishburn’s rule, multiplicative model. Assessment of economic security level in the article is carried out in the following logical sequence: formation of an extended list of indicators characterizing the economic security of the state; characteristics of indicators in terms of opportunities and risk; determining the priority of indicators in the summarizing indicator; bringing indicators to a single measurement system; calculation of the integral indicator of economic security by constructing a multiplicative model; qualitative interpretation of the integral indicator of economic security. The results of the selection of relevant factors influencing the economic security of the state revealed that the selected determinants confirm the hypothesis of financialization of all economic processes in Ukraine and the need for state regulation of the financial system in order to ensure economic security. Empirical calculations have shown that during 2008–2018, Ukraine's level of economic security can be assessed as medium or low, and its dynamics correlate with crisis processes in the financial and economic sector and exacerbation of political instability in the country. Taking into account the low level of economic security in Ukraine, the authors elaborated a set of measures to improve the state regulation of economic security within the institutional, procedural and functional elements of it, as well as substantiate the impact of the proposed innovations on the economic security of the state. The results of the research can be useful for governments in order to adequately respond to destabilizing factors in the national economy. Keywords: economic security, integral indicator, innovation, money laundering, state regulation

Producción Científica The estimation of future energy demand is a key factor for the development of effective alternative policies towards a low carbon economy. This paper describes a novel method to estimate the energy demand in the new integrated assessment framework MEDEAS based on the projection of sectoral final energy intensities. The dynamic of each of the sectoral final energy intensity is broken down into (1) improvement in energy efficiency and (2) substitution of the final energy. The speed of changes in these factors depend on physical supply-demand unbalances in the market, climate mitigation and other energy saving policies and the perception of scarcity of the different economic agents. The simulated case studies in MEDEAS-World under the narrative of the Business-as-usual (BAU) scenario have allowed validating the model's robustness and showing the potentiality of its application. European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 691287 Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project FJCI-2016-28833)

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of oil price movements on unemployment in Central and Eastern Europe. We do this by disentangling oil prices movements by their sign and from there we analyse the separate effects of positive and negative movements of oil prices on unemployment rates. We find that, although oil prices and unemployment are not correlated very much in the short run, the effect of oil price shocks on the natural rate of unemployment goes in the same direction, so that increases or decreases in oil prices increase or decrease the natural rate of unemployment. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of Eesti Pank or the Eurosystem. The authors gratefully acknowledge comments by Jaanika Meriküll, Karsten Staehr, the editor and two anonymous referees on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimer applies. Juan Carlos Cuestas gratefully acknowledges financial support from the MINECO (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain) research grant ECO2014-58991-C3-2-R and the Generalitat Valenciana project AICO/2016/038. Luis A. Gil-Alana gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (ECO2014-55236).

4 p. In the last decade, a few papers have analysed the consequences of achieving the greenhouse gas concentration levels necessary to maintain global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Most models and scenarios assume that future trends in global GDP will be similar to the growth experienced in the past century, which would imply multiplying current output nineteen-fold in this century. However, natural resource and environmental constraints suggest that future global economic growth may not be so high. Furthermore, the environmental implications of such growth depend on how it is distributed across countries. This paper studies the implications on GHG abatement policies of different assumptions on global GDP growth and convergence levels. A partial equilibrium model (POLES) of the world´s energy system is used to provide detailed projections up to 2050 for the different regions of the world. The results suggest that while low stabilisation is technically feasible and economically viable for the world in all the scenarios considered, it is more likely to occur with more modest global growth. Convergence in living standards on the other hand places greater pressures in terms of the required reduction in emissions. In general we find that there are major differences between regions in terms of the size and the timing of abatement costs and economic impact.

The EU-28 is one of the largest emitters of CO2 in the world and the most committed to reducing emissions. However, the national environmental strategies of the Member States are still diverse. This study is aimed at evaluating the environmental performance of European economies by analysing the fluctuations of CO2 emissions and their links with economic activity over the period 1950e2012. The methodological framework is based on a dynamic factor analysis to determine an index of the EU fluctuation of CO2 emissions in parametric form. This index can be used to monitor the progress towards common behaviour across Member States, with a time-varying recursive method. Following this approach, we also track the efforts made to decouple CO2 emissions from GDP. Based on these analyses, we develop a CO2 emissions-GDP linkage matrix to attain useful information on the EU Member State environmental performance.

Abstract To investigate heat demand, one can usually base the estimation on sales data for the energy carriers or even use the data directly. This works for companies, regions, towns and sectors (e.g., industry or domestic sector). But for the waste heat produced by the industry it is not that simple: waste heat is an output value, which neither costs nor earns any money and it is therefore seldom measured or reported. In this paper, different methods to estimate the excess heat of industrial production within a region are categorized and compared. Besides the obviously necessary distinction between theoretical, technical and economic potential, the authors suggest categorization of the methods in three dimensions: study scale, data collection and approach/perspective (bottom up vs. top down). Following this schematic, previous regional waste heat studies are reviewed. Studies focusing on single sectors or companies are not considered in this review, as well as studies estimating the heat demand. As a result it can be seen that the available data are the driving force in the choice for the used estimation method. For general factors, the resulting waste heat potential ranges between 5 and 30% of the energy demand of the industrial sector of a region. Once derived, key figures are often reused in other studies for other countries. Therefore, more data and a thorough meta study of the available figures are desirable.