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Assessment of Sustainable Socioeconomic Development in European Union Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Viktorija Skvarciany

    (Department of Economics Engineering, Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius 10221, Lithuania)

  • Daiva Jurevičienė

    (Department of Economics Engineering, Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius 10221, Lithuania)

  • Gintarė Volskytė

    (Department of Economics Engineering, Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius 10221, Lithuania)

Abstract

There are still debates in the scientific literature about the factors influencing countries’ sustainable socioeconomic development. Therefore, the current article aims at determining the factors of sustainable socioeconomic development and assessing its level in the EU countries. The following methods were employed for the research: an evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). EDAS was used to reveal which countries have the highest level of sustainable socioeconomic development, and which have the lowest. The ranking was done based on the appraisal score, which is an outcome of EDAS. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was used for clustering the countries based on the appraisal scores in order to distinguish groups of countries having a similar level of sustainable socioeconomic development. The results revealed that the highest level of sustainable socioeconomic development is in Germany, and the lowest in Portugal. Based on HCA, the countries were divided into three groups. The first cluster’s countries have the weakest sustainable socioeconomic development, and countries assigned to the third cluster have the best. In the current research, the third cluster consists of one country, Germany, which supports the results obtained with the EDAS method, i.e., Germany is the country with the highest level of sustainable socioeconomic development in the EU.

Suggested Citation

  • Viktorija Skvarciany & Daiva Jurevičienė & Gintarė Volskytė, 2020. "Assessment of Sustainable Socioeconomic Development in European Union Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-19, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:5:p:1986-:d:328773
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    5. Stefaniec, Agnieszka & Hosseini, Keyvan & Assani, Saeed & Hosseini, Seyed Maziar & Li, Yongjun, 2021. "Social sustainability of regional transportation: An assessment framework with application to EU road transport," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Xiangfei Ma & Inna Gryshova & Viktoriia Khaustova & Olena Reshetnyak & Maryna Shcherbata & Denys Bobrovnyk & Mykyta Khaustov, 2022. "Assessment of the Impact of Scientific and Technical Activities on the Economic Growth of World Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-35, November.
    7. Pereira, Javier & Contreras, Pedro & Morais, Danielle C. & Arroyo-López, Pilar, 2022. "A multi-criteria and stochastic robustness analysis approach to compare nations sustainability," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

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