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Business Aviation (BA) is an important segment of nonscheduled air transport, providing personalized solutions for business trips by air. Unlike scheduled air transport or holiday charters, BA has hardly been dealt with in the academic literature. This chapter gives insight into the structure and key economic effects of the European (EU28 + EFTA) BA sector. Hereby, we differentiate between the sector’s macroeconomic footprint, in terms of jobs or gross value added (GVA), and the generation of business efficiencies and connectivity benefits for the users. Based on our own data collection and input-output analyses using data from the World Input-Output Database and Eurostat, we find that the effect of BA over the EU28 GVA is almost 0.2%. Also, some 374,000 European jobs are directly or indirectly dependent on the sector’s activities, which is more than the total number of jobs in, e.g., Cyprus. More than half of these jobs stem from the operation of business aircraft and from closely related operational services like maintenance (“MRO”) and handling (“FBO”), while the remaining employment occurs in the production of business aircraft and parts. Comparing actual European BA flights against their fastest commercial travel alternatives, key efficiencies came to light, such as average travel time savings of 127 minutes per flight, annual savings of about € 15 million in overnight hotel costs and an average 150% increase in productive work time for the travelers. Furthermore, we find that BA can significantly improve connectivity, as it serves about 25,000 city pairs not connected by nonstop scheduled air services.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the profit efficiency of bioenergy industry and its determinants in EU28 region roadmaps for the transition towards energy efficiency which is increasingly perceived by stakeholders, researchers and the public as a pathway to bring dependency on fossil resources to a significant reduction. Many studies overlooked the importance of profit efficiency as a factor for bioenergy industry business improvement. More so, external environmental variables can play a key role in achieving profit efficiency in the industry.

This paper seeks to answer the questions on the following: (1) the profit efficiency level using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach in the EU28 region during the period between 1990 and 2018; and (2) to explore the impacts of external environmental variables on the profit efficiency level using panel regression model in the EU28 region during the period between 1990 and 2018.

Results revealed that gross domestic product, size of biomass and investment are essential for the development of the bioenergy industry and positively influence on profit efficiency level. The increase in temperature change decreased the profit efficiency level during 1990–2018.

For those profit-inefficient bioenergy industries in countries such as Cyprus and Ireland, participation in innovative programs, expanding a knowledge-based economic system and implementation of support policy for bioenergy technologies, by investing in biomass sources that are suitable for their respective renewable energy development will enhance specialization, resource efficiency and improved profitability can be expected in future.

Unlike other previous studies, this study investigated the profit efficiency by applying the DEA statistical method. Moreover, the authors have applied a second regression analysis to estimate the impacts of macroeconomic and microeconomic variables on the profit efficiency level. This study has focused on the EU28 region, including both developed and developing countries, to compare the level of profit efficiency levels in the selected sample. The authors have applied data panel analysis for the period from 1990 to 2018. No previous study has applied the methods, samples and periods as those used in this study. Therefore, this study contributes significantly to the bioenergy industry specifically and the renewable energy industry in general and to the associated extant research.

This research explores the effect of bioenergy use on carbon dioxide releases in 28 European Union (EU-28) affiliated members starting from 1990 to 2018.

Applying panels' fixed effect (FE) estimator and random effect (RE) estimator, the regressed findings are highly validated as they were robust by panel least square dummy variable corrected (LSDVC) and pooled ordinary least square (Pooled OLS) estimators.

The findings claimed that carbon dioxide releases decrease with an incline in bioenergy use and trade openness. On the other hand, fossil-fuel and economic growth indicators mounting carbon dioxide releases. The result implies that carbon dioxide releases in EU-28 region members can be mitigated significantly by mounting the quantity bioenergy use in generation channel. This will mostly participate in combating environmental pollution.

The study suggests for EU28 region members to enhance the portion of bioenergy in their fuel access to decrease emitted carbon dioxide. Governors in EU28 members should mainly encourage bioenergy expansion to raise its security and availability. The politicians of the EU28 members must assert on efficacy and productivity of bioenergy production to achieve energy accessibility and decrease dependency on conventional energy.

This research applies the recently improved model, the panel data analysis approach, which considered for the first-class impacts of estimators on the dependent variable and deals with the several problems of the common Pooled OLS estimator's manner and performance. Finally, this research contributes to the previous studies on ecological sustainability by examining the presence correlation among carbon dioxide emissions, bioenergy sustainability, trade openness, fossil fuel and gross domestic product in the EU28 region. Hence, it proves our research novelty, originality and contribution to the body of knowledge.

The last financial crisis opens the question of the level of debt sustainability in the developed countries. The majority of the EU member states faced the growing trend of public debt (while some countries are unable to service it on time, i.e. Greece) and some of the new members face the problem of external debt. Regarding there is no standard tool for measurement of public debt sustainability this analysis provides the statistical and econometric approach to find out bi-directional impact of public debt on GDP growth rate, unemployment, current account and interest rate spread. The research is performed on the five different groups of EU member states: EU28, Eurozone, new member states, GIIPS and EU-10-core countries. Results indicate the necessity to keep the public debt stable regarding the very slow post crisis recovery and low growth rates to avoid unintended consequences of debt burden on the EU economies.

The purpose of the paper is to provide estimation results for feasibility of renewable energy source (RES) deployment in Turkey, the Western Balkans and North Africa. From these results, the potential for cooperation in renewables production between the countries and the European Union (EU) is assessed and evaluated, in a mid- (2030) and long-term (up to 2040) perspective.

The authors focus on the quantitative assessments undertaken on the extent to which RES cooperation can create mutual benefits, identifying costs and benefits for both sides, but in particular with respect to RES target achievement (2020 and 2030) at EU level. The potentials for RES generation in Turkey, North Africa and the Western Balkans are calculated under different policy pathways, taking into account different levels of economic and non-economic barriers that could occur.

Overall, the authors found that increasing RES deployment in the three analysed regions and initiating or intensifying cooperation with EU28 Member States leads to mutual benefits. Concretely, these benefits become apparent in terms of the EU Member States importing renewable energy sources for electricity with a good resource quality and adding on to their targets for RES deployment. At the same time, substantial savings occur for the EU, in turn leading to income and investments in the cooperating regions.

The assessment underlying this paper is the first of its kind to the authors’ knowledge that opens up the geographical spread in comparison to merely assessing cooperation between Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. Furthermore, the multitude of policy parameters analysed provides detailed and robust insights concerning a broad variety of different possible scenarios.

In recent years, there has been a concern that employers are falsely classifying employees as self-employed to evade collective agreements and labour laws (e.g. minimum wages, working time legislation and protection in case of redundancy), and the result is that these dependent self-employed suffer poorer working conditions. The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive evaluation of the working conditions of those in dependent self-employment compared with the genuine self-employed.

To do so, data are reported from a 2015 European Working Conditions Survey of 35,765 workers in 28 European Union member states.

Of the 4.3 per cent of the working population found to be in dependent self-employment, the finding is that they have similar working conditions to the genuine self-employed in terms of their physical and social environment and intensity of work. However, they have poorer job prospects and less ability to use their skills and discretion than the genuine self-employed. In terms of the working time quality, meanwhile, the finding is that they have better conditions than the genuine self-employed. Therefore, this analysis uncovers the need for a more nuanced understanding of the relative working conditions of the dependent self-employed.

If the working conditions of the dependent self-employed are to be tackled, evaluation is now required of whether the current policy approaches, such as developing a hybrid category of employment with legal rights attached, address the specific working conditions that are worse for the dependent self-employed.

This is one of the few papers which provides an extensive evaluation of the working conditions of those in dependent self-employment in the EU28.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research questions: Is the knowledge of a city environment a stimulus for entrepreneurship? Which knowledge profiles of cities are more propulsive in order to stimulate entrepreneurship?

In order to answer the aforementioned research questions, two multidimensional indexes have been created: Knowledge-Based City Developing Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship (ENT). The sample includes all capital cities in the EU28. The presence of cities from EU28 countries is important to foster the entrepreneurial attitude in each European Country. The authors have also included 32 non-capital cities in the EU that are important hubs, contributing to a sample formed of 60 cities.

The empirical results show that the social and cultural environment may significantly improve the entrepreneurship in EU cities, more than others factors that are usually connected to economic development.

The work tries to contribute to the debate on urban economic development and entrepreneurship, providing implication for academics and urban policy makers.

Applying a computable general equilibrium model to assess the impact of tariffs between the US and China, Taiwan stands to gain from trade diversion of the trade war between the two largest world economies in the short term.

Initially, Taiwan suffered a minor loss from the sector-specific tariff on steel and aluminum imposed by the US. However, its loss is mitigated after counting counter measures from foreign countries. The cumulated US tariffs and China's retaliations led to trade diversion effect. Taiwan's initial loss from the steel and aluminum tariffs was over compensated by a series of trade war between the US and China.

Under the scenario of the cumulated tariffs of $250 billion of US imports and China's retaliations of $110 billion on US goods, the social welfare, exports, import and trade balance in Taiwan increased. Its terms of trade improved as well. Real wage increases slightly more for unskilled labor than for skilled labor. The short-term effect of the trade war has positive effect on all macro indicators of Taiwan's economy.

On sectoral shift, Taiwan's export will gain the most in precision engineering products ($2,941.6 million), followed by electronics ($310.7 million) and agricultural products ($31.3 million). The negative effects are in sectors such as business services ($58.323 million), other services ($46.9 million), transportation service ($36.6 million), trade service ($25.3 million), and finance service ($24.5 million). Taiwan's total imports will increase by 0.59%, whereas its total export will increase by 0.33%. However, total trade balance still increases by $451.1 million.

The study also finds that Taiwan has a high degree of overlapping export commodities with China in the US market, much higher than most major trading partners for the US, yet its market share for those products in the US is ranged from 1% to 5% only. Moreover, more than 60% of Taiwan's export to the US is in intermediate goods which have less product differentiation than those in final consumption goods. These two factors will provide an opportunity for Taiwan to exploit the US market.

Though the short-term effect of trade war is positive, Taiwan needs to have a long-range planning amid the external shocks. Policy implications for Taiwan are to map out a cosmopolitan view of its geo-strategy by diversifying outward foreign direct investment and trade destinations. It needs to reduce the “systemic risk” of relying on single market in China which is vulnerable to the uncertainty in the US–China relations. If the trade war lasts too long, Taiwan would need to reevaluate its triangular trade-investment nexus with China and the US as well as its role in the global supply chain.

The purpose of this investigation is to develop a hybrid fuzzy TOPSIS methodology in order to understand in a practical and integrated way, the consuming and buying behavior of EU residents towards Fishery and Aquaculture Products (FAPs), with an emphasis in the consumption and buying frequency.

Data were obtained from the Special Eurobarometer Survey (European Union, 2018b), which is a survey of 27,732 EU residents with different socio-demographic characteristics that represent the 28 EU countries. A hybrid fuzzy TOPSIS methodology that synthesizes the consuming and buying behavior of the EU residents toward FAPs was developed.

The results show that among the countries, Spain has the highest consumption and buying patterns of FAPs, while among the generations it corresponds to the residents born between 1928 and 1945. In addition, there are important differences that depend on the country of residence as well as the generation of the residents. The elasticity analysis evidenced that marketing strategies would have the biggest impact in the countries located in the Central-Eastern zone of the EU and on the generation formed by the people born after 1980.

Although in the literature there are many studies that aimed to understand the behavior of consumers for FAPs, few investigations have focused on analyzing and integrating both the consumption and buying behavior, and to our best knowledge, there are no studies providing a methodology that allow making comparisons between different countries regarding the consumption and buying behavior of FAPs.

The purpose of this article is to provide a critical account of the hate crime (HC) paradigm by exploring its historical legal definition and the limitations in addressing the multiple and structural discriminations faced by minority groups. Specifically, the article focuses on the case of Italy, where in recent years a fierce debate over a proposed law on HC against LGBT+ and disabled people ended in its rejection due to neoconservative and Catholic opposition.

Drawing on critical socio-criminological literature on HC, the paper analyses the Italian debates and socio-legal context over the past two decades regarding discrimination against LGBT+ groups and its (lack of) criminalization. It also provides a secondary analysis of recent data on violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people, collected by the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

The analysis of the debate and the data collected shows that the criminal definition of HC is insufficient to capture the wider range of social and cultural violence and discrimination against LGBT+ people. Indeed, data analysis shows the effect of the low level of recognition of rights on the propensity of people to denounce and of social practitioners to recognize, discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people. It is therefore argued that the discussion on HC should move beyond the criminalization of individual violence to be entrenched in a broader reflection over the lack of recognition of sexual citizenship rights which perpetuates the vulnerability of LGBT+ people.

This paper contributes to the international socio-criminological debate on HC. It argues for a comprehensive framework that recognizes the structural nature of discrimination and violence against vulnerable groups by framing discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people as a citizenship right rather than a criminal justice issue.