SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT'S IMPACT ON GDP PER CAPITA IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Abstract

United Nations Member States adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in autumn 2015. The SDGs are a series of 17 goals, each one including several targets and indicators. This paper implies that the evolution of GDP per capita is influenced by many indicators, which have already been analysed in various scientific studies. In this research, the authors focused primarily on the influence of indicators in the SDG4 and SDG8 groups to evolution of GDP per capita in EU member countries. The purpose of the article is to identify whether SDGs indicators have a significant influence on the evolution of GDP per capita in EU member countries and to develop models dividing countries into two groups: euro area countries and non-euro countries. Our study covers all EU member states during the period 2008-2021. The results of the study are multiple: we note that in all three models there is no change in the independent variables behaviour (in terms of signs + or -) in the long term; the influence of the variables chosen in our model is significant in all 3 models, explained by very high value of R-squared; EU-19 group represents dominant group in EU-27; it is noted that in all three models there is an inverse correlation between the NULCG and the GDP per capita; of all the determinants analysed, ELEd (which has the lowest negative value) and ER (which has the highest positive value) overwhelmingly influence GDP per capita.

Keywords

• sustainable development goals; gdp per capita; regression analysis; euro-zone countries; non-euro countries.