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Introduction: Regional economies are significantly shaped by the new developments in technology, digital transformations, as well as by the demographic processes (the ageing population and international migration), all of these being amplified by the Covid-19 pandemics and requiring tailored strategies to bridge regional welfare gaps and enhance sustainable economic development.

Aim: This research provides a review of the interplay between the regional economic welfare and digitalisation, with a keen focus on digital transformations, education, digital skills and risk management strategies in filling development gaps and enhancing regional economic growth in a sustainable development framework, with a keen focus on Romania. In this approach, the study undertakes several essential research questions and designs an advanced theoretical and empirical research to inforce the knowledge in this scientific field.

Method: The methodological framework consists of robust regression models and spatial analysis with two types of spatial models, namely spatial lag-autoregressive and spatial error. National data compiled for Romania during the 2010–2019 lapse of time were exploited.

Findings: Main results encompass that digitalisation coordinates, education and digital skills are essential for enhancing the economic development and labour market performance of various regions in Romania, with beneficial spill-overs on sustainable economic welfare and poverty reduction. These advances bring to the fore important shifts in both demand and supply sides across regional economies that affect the equilibrium and overall performance, while public discourse, regulatory authorities, policy-makers and business representatives render global the keen need to strengthen the understandings in this scientific field.

Needs change as people get older. Procuring resources to satisfy them can generate anguish and insecurities in consumers due to their financial situation. This study aims to analyze the relationship between age and financial stress among Mexican adults and estimate the age of their maximum financial stress.

This study is based on constructing a financial stress indicator using the confirmatory factor analysis and linear regression models with a quadratic term, employing data from the National Survey on Financial Inclusion 2021.

Results show that the relationship between age and financial stress follows a quadratic pattern, with a maximum level at age 56, which varies according to sex, marital status, number of dependents, education and regions. These findings interest financial product designers and policy developers who aim to improve consumers' well-being.

Longitudinal studies and indicators, such as financial fragility, are needed to facilitate refining models over time.

There is no evidence of studies that have addressed the age of maximum financial stress in Latin America. Doing so is relevant because identifying the stages in life when adults are most vulnerable to financial stress helps assess its causes more precisely, thus mitigating its adverse effects.

Although microfinancing is considered a key tool for fostering women's entrepreneurship development, there is growing concern regarding the impact of loan repayment strategies on the mental health of women entrepreneurs. This study seeks to unravel the implications of microfinance loans on the mental well-being of women entrepreneurs.

A carefully structured questionnaire was distributed to a purposive sample of one hundred women entrepreneurs in Lagos State using a mixed-method research approach. Also, interviews were conducted using an interview guide, which directly mirrored the questionnaire administered to five focus groups within Lagos State.

The study found that loan repayment and recovery strategies positively and significantly impact women entrepreneurs' mental well-being, with psychological distress serving as a measure for measuring mental well-being. Additionally, other factors such as the number of dependants and household headship trigger psychological distress, while age in business was associated with a reduction in psychological distress.

This study contributes to the existing literature by delving into the psychological implications of loan repayment strategies on the mental health of female entrepreneurs in Lagos State, Nigeria. Furthermore, it employs a triangulation research approach to validate questionnaire responses through focus group discussions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, corruption perception, real gross domestic product per capita and the Gini index on happiness.

In this study, the sample consists of 137 countries observed over the period 2017–2019. A multidimensional approach is used consisting of a principal component analysis and an econometric linear regression model.

The findings indicate that perception, taking care of other people, corruption perception, freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy are the most determining factors of social well-being.

Well-being benefits countries by improving living standards. Indeed, taking care of other people, corruption perception, freedom to make life choices and healthy life expectancy directly and positively correlate with social well-being.

This study contributes to the previous literature in three ways. First, this paper provides fresh and recent data on social well-being. Second, the author introduced a multidimensional approach using a principal component analysis of the different social well-being factors to detect correlation between these indicators and to determine homogeneous clusters. Third, through these indicators, a country's leaders can formulate policies to enhance social well-being because it is closely linked to the improvement of the standard of living, good governance and therefore an increase in GDP.

This study aims to analyse the consumption inequality between farm and non-farm households in rural Vietnam, using the data from the 2016 Vietnam household living standards survey.

The present paper applies the “recentered influence functions (RIF)” in “Oaxaca-Blinder (OB)” type decomposition as proposed by Firpo et al. (2018) to allow for the flexible distribution of the outcome variables and the non-randomness of non-farm employment that violates the classical linearity assumption.

Non-farm households have significantly higher per capita consumption expenditure than farm households for the entire distribution. The gap in expenditure is large at low percentiles and narrowing with higher percentiles. At 10th percentile, the gap is estimated at 27.1%, but it is decreasing to 11.1% at 90th percentile. Most of the gaps are explained by the differences in the observed characteristics between farm and non-farm households such as ethnicity, education, income, internal transmittances and household composition. Non-farm households are endowed with more productive factors that result in higher per capita consumption expenditure.

Gaps in ethnicity and education are found to be key predictors of the inequality in consumption expenditures between farm and non-farm households, then, government policies that are aimed at increasing access to non-farm employment and education for ethnic minorities and for rural poor households are pathways to improve rural household welfare and hence reduce inequality.

This study examines the relationship between partners' locus of control and their spouses' domains of job satisfaction (job satisfaction and its domains, personal income and promotion) among Australian couples.

Data were obtained from the Household, Income and Labor Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) Survey. Various estimation strategies including ordinary least squares (OLS), Mundlak approach and instrumental variable (IV) method are used to reveal the relationship between spouse's locus of control and domains of job satisfaction.

To reduce sex heterogeneity, the analysis used in this study is disaggregated by sex. In particular, the findings of this study show that wives' locus of control positively influences husbands' satisfaction with pay and working hours, while there is no relationship between husbands' locus of control and wives' domains of job satisfaction.

The study's findings emphasize the importance of locus of control in couples. A good work–life balance and a healthy marital relationship potentially facilitate positive effects of characteristics from the partner on employees' job satisfaction. Thus, on the organizational level, employers may consider creating a working environment that promotes a healthy marital relationship for their staff, including flexible working schedules, work from home options, family days or family-extended staff events.

This study is the first to reveal the relationship between spousal locus of control and domains of job satisfaction, enriching the current literature on this topic.

The study examines the impact of the preferential credit provided by the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies on poverty reduction in Ninh Binh province, Vietnam. It also identifies and ranks the barriers of accessing the credit.

The study applies fixed-effects method to handle the panel data to examine the impact of the credit on poverty reduction. It also uses face-to-face interviews and group discussions to identify and rank the barriers of accessing to the credit.

The results show that the credit (represented by loan volume) positively and significantly helps improve household income, but does not help to improve household consumption. The major barriers include the time spent to get to the nearest bank branch, banking support services provided to clients and the transparency of household poverty status assessment.

Data are collected in three years and the number of the observations is limited to 300 households.

The VBSP preferential credit may need to be modified to significantly help reduce poverty and the VBSP and involved parties may need to eliminate the barriers so that the poor can have a better access to the credit.

The VBSP preferential credit is one of the reasonable sources that can help eliminate poverty though increasing household income.

The VBSP preferential credit can help increase household income, but does not really help improve household consumption due to the small volume of loans. In addition, banking support services and the household poverty assessment are seen as barriers to the access of the poor.

This paper analyzes individual subjective well-being using a survey database from the Strasbourg metropolitan development council (France). The authors focus on the effects of externalities generated by public services (transport, culture and sport), environmental quality and feeling of security in the Strasbourg metropolitan area (Eurométropole de Strasbourg, EMS). Results show that EMS specificities (public facilities, environmental quality, safety and security) and individual features like opportunities to laugh or live with children significantly influence individual well-being. These findings are robust when using three subjective measures: feeling of well-being, environmental satisfaction and social life satisfaction. The authors also show that income may affect the perceived well-being of individuals belonging to a low-income group, while individuals belonging to a high-income group tend to be unsatisfied with environmental quality but satisfied with their social life. Besides, social comparison in terms of income does not matter for individual well-being in the Strasbourg metropolitan area.

Theoretical and empirical paper —Utility theory in economics—Econometric modeling using an ordered probit model.

Specificities of the Strasbourg metropolitan area-France (public services related to transport, culture and sport, environmental quality perceived as convenient for individual health, sense of security) significantly impact individual subjective well-being. Income does not substantially impact the individual subjective perception of happiness: income may matter for the feeling of well-being only for individuals belonging to a low-income group. Wealthy individuals tend to be unsatisfied with environmental quality but satisfied with their social life. Social comparison in terms of income does not matter for individual well-being in the Strasbourg metropolitan area.

Cross-sectional data, but it is the only available database from a survey conducted by EMS in 2017 to collect information on potential elements relative to individual well-being in the Strasbourg metropolitan area.

Results shed light on the role of territorial policies in improving individual well-being and might provide some guidelines for policy-makers concerned about the population’s welfare. Policy-makers should give strong attention to public facilities (an essential element of local public action) and improve environmental quality. If they care about the population’s happiness, they have to reorient current policies in this direction. Of course, through the inquiry in 2017 giving this database, the Strasbourg agglomeration development council aimed to provide such evidence to the local administration. Nevertheless, the results were a bit upsetting for many people in the administrative and political circles, who generally prioritize economic and demographic development, while the citizens’ responses to the inquiry have revealed a strong focus on the quality of everyday life in their neighborhood.

The present study contributes to the literature on subjective well-being, with a focus on the role of local characteristics and living environment. The authors’ starting point is related to the standard utility theory, indicating that environmental quality and public services are positive externalities. The authors investigate whether the local living environment and public facilities are crucial elements explaining individual well-being. To do this, we consider three subjective measures: feeling of well-being, environmental satisfaction and social life satisfaction, which are used as proxies of individual utility. The authors consider different explicative variables representing specificities of EMS in terms of public services (transport, culture and sport), environmental quality perceived as convenient for individual health, safety and security, etc. The authors also provide a test for relative standing by including the median monthly household income at the municipality level.

Social development is the ultimate goal of every nation, and climate change is a major stumbling block. Climate Risk Index has documented several climate change events with their devastations in terms of lives lost and economic cost. This study aims to link the climate change and renewable energy with the social progress of extreme climate affected countries.

This research used the top 50 most climate-affected countries of the decade and estimated the impact of climate risk on social progress with moderation effects of renewable energy and technology. Several competing panel data models such as quantile regression, bootstrap quantile regression and feasible generalized least square are used to generate robust estimates.

The results confirm that climate hazards obstruct socioeconomic progress, but renewable energy and technology can help to mitigate the repercussion. Moreover, improved institutions enhance the social progress of nations.

Government should improve the institutional quality that enhances their performance in terms of Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption to increase social progress. In addition, society should use renewable energy instead of fossil fuels to avoid environmental degradation and health hazards. Innovation and technology also play an important role in social progress and living standards, so there should be free hand to private business research and development, encouraging research institutes and universities to come forward for innovation and research.

The ultimate goal of all human struggle is to have progress that facilitates human beings to uplift their living standard. One of the best measures that can tell us about a nation’s progress is Social Progress Index (SPI), and one of many factors that can abruptly change it is the climate; so this study is an attempt to link the relationship among these variables and also discuss the situation where the impact of climate can be reduced.

Although social progress is an important concept of today’s economics discussion, relatively few studies are using the SPI to measure social well-being. Similarly, there is consensus about the impact of climate on people, government and crops but relatively less study about its overall impact on social progress, so this study attempts to fill the gap about the relationship between social progress and climate change.

The main contribution of this study is the solution for the impact of climate risk. Climate risk is not in human control, and we cannot eliminate it, but we can reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Moderator impact of renewable energy decreases the negative impact of climate change, so there is a need to use more renewable energy to mitigate the bad consequences of climate on social progress. Another moderator is technology; using technology will also mitigate the negative consequences of the climate, so there is a need to facilitate technological advancement.

This paper aims to focus on non-poor households that during the Great Recession experienced economic stress (ES). That is, whose economic comfort was reduced taking into account their previous living standards. The paper seeks to determine how the crisis has affected this extensive (and key) social group.

The analysis has been performed in a dynamic way. The non-poor households ES situation and its changes are studied throughout the period 2008-2016 by taking the four-year intervals provided by the longitudinal Spanish Living Conditions Survey. The authors discuss and select the circumstances to determine whether ES has occurred. To identify which variables determine the probability of suffering ES the authors use a standard logit model.

The main variable is the tenure status of the dwelling: property with a mortgage or rented multiply the risk of ES by up to 3.5 times. ES falls as the household’s work intensity increases. However, an improvement in the employment situation cannot be associated with a reduction in ES probability. The main socio-demographic variables behave as predicted: woman householder, grow in the number of household members and bad health increase the risk of ES, and the higher the level of education of the householder, the lower the risk.

There are very few studies regarding the people above the poverty line. Exploring and analyzing the factors determining the sensitivity of the largest part of the population to the crisis is very relevant, as the pace of the economic recovery depends largely on them.