ABSTRACT
The paper documents through empirical data the dependency of economic growth to environmental issues (environment degradation, natural resources depletion, durable production and consumption) and social development (life expectancy) in Romania. We used World Bank data for the last 26 years and EUROSTAT data the last 15 years. We have constructed an environmental degradation index to document the depreciation of natural capital and an econometrical model was used to explore the link between economic performance and natural capital depletion and life expectancy.
We have three main findings related to the economic growth in Romania in the last 26 years: (1) it is associated with an increase of the natural resources depletion and life expectancy (2) it is depending on the resource efficiency and social dimensions of sustainable development (life expectancy) (3) the decoupling of economic growth from resource use in the last 5 years.
Keywords
sustainable development, environment degradation, natural resources depletion