Korišćeocena uticaja konkurentnosti i inovacija u cirkularnoj ekonomiji na privredni rast u evropi

Abstract

The world usage of raw materials is 70% higher than what the Earth can safely renew. Circular Economy represents a new model of economic development relying on the 7Rs (redesign, reduce, reuse, repair, renovate, recycle, and recover) to provide operational and strategic benefits on the micro, meso, and macro levels. This research aims to determine the impact that circular economy competitiveness and innovation have on economic growth within European countries by evaluating the impact of four independent variables selected from the European Commission Circular Economy monitoring framework on the GNI per capita. This paper analyses the competitiveness through Values Added at Factor Cost (VAFC), Gross Investment in Tangible Goods (GITG), and Number of Employees (EMP) in Circular Economy, innovation through the Number of Patents in climate change mitigation technologies related to wastewater treatment or waste management (PAT), while the economic growth was estimated based on the GNI per capita annual growth rate (GNIpc). Correlation and regression methods were applied to the sample of 25 European countries using the log-transformed data. The results show that the correlation between VAFC and GNIpc is moderate and significant but negative, while the correlation between GITG and EMP and GNIpc is not statistically significant.