IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jecomi/v13y2025i2p33-d1581341.html

Households’ (In)Security in the European Union: From Principal Components to Causality Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Ionuț-Andrei Pricop

    (Department of Economics and International Relations, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, 700505 Iasi, Romania)

  • Laura Diaconu (Maxim)

    (Department of Economics and International Relations, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, 700505 Iasi, Romania)

Abstract

Economic security is considered one of the primary aspects of well-being and it is usually closely associated with poverty. This article intends to explore the main determinants of economic (in)security in European Union countries and to investigate the relationship between the level of economic insecurity and the degree of economic freedom. In order to achieve our goal, we used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to stipulate a composite and standardized index of economic insecurity in the European Union and, afterwards, we utilized panel data regressions to analyze its correlation with the variables of the Index of Economic Freedom.

Suggested Citation

  • Ionuț-Andrei Pricop & Laura Diaconu (Maxim), 2025. "Households’ (In)Security in the European Union: From Principal Components to Causality Analysis," Economies, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-23, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:13:y:2025:i:2:p:33-:d:1581341
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/13/2/33/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/13/2/33/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ed Diener & Eunkook Suh, 1997. "Measuring Quality Of Life: Economic, Social, And Subjective Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 189-216, January.
    2. John Carter, 2007. "An Empirical Note on Economic Freedom and Income Inequality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 163-177, January.
    3. Manal Mustafa Dehisat & Zainudin Awang, 2020. "Exploring Items and Developing Instrument for Measuring Organizational Performance among Small Medium Enterprises in Jordan," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 10(6), pages 51-57.
    4. Lars Osberg, 2009. "Measuring Economic Security in Insecure Times: New Perspectives, New Events, and the Index of Economic Well-being," CSLS Research Reports 2009-12, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    5. Andreas Bergh & Christian Bjørnskov, 2021. "Does economic freedom boost growth for everyone?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(2), pages 170-186, May.
    6. Andreas Baur & Lisandra Flach, 2023. "Protectionism on the Rise? New Challenges for EU Trade Policy," EconPol Forum, CESifo, vol. 24(05), pages 32-35, September.
    7. Sen, Amartya, 1973. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198281931.
    8. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-231, March.
    9. Petar Stankov, 2017. "Economic Freedom and Welfare Before and After the Crisis," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-62497-6, October.
    10. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    11. Dario Caldara & Edward Herbst, 2019. "Monetary Policy, Real Activity, and Credit Spreads: Evidence from Bayesian Proxy SVARs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 157-192, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mark Western & Wojtek Tomaszewski, 2016. "Subjective Wellbeing, Objective Wellbeing and Inequality in Australia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, October.
    2. Belhadj, Besma & Limam, Mohamed, 2012. "Unidimensional and multidimensional fuzzy poverty measures: New approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 995-1002.
    3. Chattopadhyay, Amit K. & Mallick, Sushanta K., 2007. "Income distribution dependence of poverty measure: A theoretical analysis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 377(1), pages 241-252.
    4. Jean-Michel Hourriez & Bernard Legris, 1998. "L'approche monétaire de la pauvreté : méthodologie et résultats," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 308(1), pages 35-63.
    5. Imedio Olmedo, L. J. & Bárcena Martín, E., 2003. "Privación, status e imposición sobre la renta," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 21, pages 123-147, Abril.
    6. WANG, Zuxiang & SMYTH, Russell & NG, Yew-Kwang, 2009. "A new ordered family of Lorenz curves with an application to measuring income inequality and poverty in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 218-235, June.
    7. Kuan Xu, 2007. "U-Statistics and Their Asymptotic Results for Some Inequality and Poverty Measures," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(5), pages 567-577.
    8. Jens Leth Hougaard & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2013. "On the Measurement of the (Multidimensional) Inequality of Health Distributions," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 111-129, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. Justin T. Callais & Vincent Geloso, 2023. "Intergenerational income mobility and economic freedom," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 732-753, January.
    10. Francesco Andreoli & Claudio Zoli, 2020. "From unidimensional to multidimensional inequality: a review," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 78(1), pages 5-42, April.
    11. Clauss, Markus & Schnabel, Reinhold, 2008. "Distributional and behavioural effects of the German labour market reform," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(4), pages 431-446.
    12. Srinivas Goli & Nagendra Kumar Maurya & Moradhvaj & Prem Bhandari, 2019. "Regional Differentials in Multidimensional Poverty in Nepal: Rethinking Dimensions and Method of Computation," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(1), pages 21582440198, March.
    13. Sreenivasan Subramanian, 2008. "On a ‘Level-Sensitive’ Headcount Ratio: Revisiting Shorrocks’ Poverty Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 88(3), pages 477-482, September.
    14. Lucía Gorjón & Sara de la Rica & Antonio Villar, 2018. "The social cost of unemployment: the Spanish labour market from a social welfare approach," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2018-22, FEDEA.
    15. Ferreira,Francisco H. G., 2022. "The Analysis of Inequality in the Bretton Woods Institutions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10149, The World Bank.
    16. Kunihiro Kimura, 1994. "A micro-macro linkage in the measurement of inequality: Another look at the Gini coefficient," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 83-97, February.
    17. Itishree Pradhan & Binayak Kandapan & Jalandhar Pradhan, 2022. "Uneven burden of multidimensional poverty in India: A caste based analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(7), pages 1-18, July.
    18. Reddy, S. R. C. & Chakravarty, S. P., 1999. "Forest Dependence and Income Distribution in a Subsistence Economy: Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1141-1149, July.
    19. Yoram Amiel, 1998. "The Subjective Approach to the Measurement of Income Inequality (published in Handbook of Income Inequality Measurement, J Silber (ed), Kluwer Academic Publishers (1999), pp.227-241)," STICERD - Distributional Analysis Research Programme Papers 38, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    20. Elena Makarenko & Lyudmila Nivorozhkina & Alexandra Tregubova & Tatiana Toropova & Elmira Nazarova, 2022. "Risk of Increasing Income Inequality and Poverty: Analysis by Income Source," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-12, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:13:y:2025:i:2:p:33-:d:1581341. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.