The Concept of Sustainable Development and Relation to Economic Development

V globaliziranem svetu je merilo uspešnosti države najpogosteje gospodarska rast. Politiki in ekonomisti si v glavnem delijo prepričanje, da je doseganje gospodarske rasti ključni in skorajda edini cilj gospodarstva. Omejenost naravnih virov je pripeljala do osnovanja koncepta trajnostnega razvoja. Zmotno je prepričanje, da je trajnostni razvoj zgolj skrb za ekologijo. Marsikdaj se neupravičeno zanemarjata družbena in ekonomska komponenta koncepta. Cilj držav v prihodnosti je ustvariti harmonijo med temi tremi vidiki trajnostnega razvoja. Čeprav se soočamo s problemom merjenja in oblikovanja okvirjev trajnostnega razvoja, so države Evropske unije že razvile različne kazalce, ki usmerjajo ravnanja politike v izboljševanje kvalitete življenja. Trenutno nam merjenje trajnostnega razvoja omogočajo redki in nepopolni kazalci. Eden izmed teh je indeks okoljske uspešnosti (EPI) razvit s strani Univerze Yale. V magistrskem delu smo na podlagi podobnih študij povezav gospodarske rasti in trajnostnega razvoja definirali relevantne pojasnjevalne spremenljivke ter jih testirali v različno zastavljenih modelih. Vse tri zastavljene hipoteze smo sprejeli. Najvišjo korelacijo izkazujeta prav trajnostni razvoj in gospodarska rast, merjena kot agregatni dohodek, kar predstavlja srž našega dela. Z linearno regresijsko analizo smo dokazali, da če se agregatni dohodek poveča za 1 evro, se EPI v povprečju poveča za 0,0002 indeksni točki. Prav tako smo prikazali statistično značilno nelinearno povezavo med omenjenima spremenljivkama, kjer kakovost okolja sprva raste z gospodarsko rastjo, nato pa upada, nakar v določeni točki spet začneta sinhrono rasti. Druga spremenljivka so vladni izdatki, namenjeni za raziskave in razvoj, izraženi v odstotku BDP. Izračuni so pokazali, da se EPI poveča za 4,72 indeksnih točk, če se izdatki za raziskave in razvoj povečajo za 1 %. Nenazadnje se EPI v povprečju zmanjša za 11,69 indeksnih točk, če se indeks civilnih in političnih svoboščin poveča za 1 točko.In a globalized world, economic growth is the most common measure of the country\u27s performance. Politicians and economists mainly share the belief that achieving economic growth is a key and almost sole objective of the economy. Scarcity of natural resources has led to the creation of the concept of sustainable development. It is wrong to believe that sustainable development only concerns ecology. Social and economic components of the concept are often unreasonably neglected. The aim for the future is to create harmony between these three aspects of sustainable development. Althought we are challenged with the problem of measuring and shaping framework for sustainable development, countries of the European Union have already developed indicators which direct policy to improve the quality of life. Currently the rare and incomplete indicators enable us to measure sustainable development. One of them is environmental performance index (EPI), developed by the University of Yale. On the basis of similar studies that concern relations between economic growth and sustainable development, we determined relevant explanatory variables and tested them in different set of models. Empirical results support all of the hypothesis. The highest correlation is between sustainable development and economic growth. The latter represents the main core of the thesis. With linear regression analysis we showed that in the case of increase of aggregate income for 1 euro, EPI rises for 0,0002 index points. We also showed statistical significant nonlinear relationship between mentioned variables. The latter shows that the quality of environment initially rises with economic growth and it decreases over time till it reaches a point where they start increasing sinchronized again. The second variable represents government expenditure on research and development, expressed in precentage of GDP. Calculations have shown that EPI increases by 4,72 index points, if the government expenditure for research and development increase for 1 %. Last but not least, the EPI decreases by 11,69 index points if index of civil and political rights increases for 1 point