How Are the Balkan Countries Progressing Toward Green Economy?

Abstract

Green growth mitigates greenhouse gas emissions and prevents environmental degradation. It creates new growth engines and jobs. A green economy is characterised as a public good. In it, income growth and employment should be driven by public and private investment (UNEP, 2011). The main purpose of this paper is to present a general picture of green growth for the Balkan countries that are not part of the European Union, as well as to evaluate the indicators where these economies have performed better and where they need to intervene in order to improve. To achieve this goal, the paper uses data obtained from OECD.Stat. The OECD Green Growth data source contains specific indicators to monitor improvement through green growth. We selected data for five Balkan countries that are not part of the European Union (Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia) for the years from 1990 to 2020. The variables used in this paper are indicators of green growth, and we will use them to observe which of the countries taken in the study has progressed more towards green growth. The results of the paper guide governments to design relevant policies in those variables where they have performed the weakest.