Maja Klun

Government mechanisms are vital for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with public spending accounting for nearly 50% of gross domestic product (GDP) in EU countries in 2022. This chapter analyses the impact of public financial instruments on SDG outcomes, using a structured literature review and linear regression in a Slovenian case study. Literature shows public spending promotes sustainable development by enabling green investments through tools like green procurement, subsidies, and tax incentives under stable governance. Empirical results indicate that Eco Fund loans and research and development (R&D) tax reliefs significantly reduce emissions intensity; subsidies lower CO2 emissions from new vehicles, and government spending leads to a delayed decline in energy-related emissions. The strongest positive effects are seen for SDG 12.3, SDG 2.4, and SDG 12.2, reflecting improvements in sustainable production, food system resilience, and resource efficiency. These findings underscore the strategic importance of targeted public interventions in environmental sustainability.

This research investigates how Slovenia's national budget allocation affects the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using Pearson's correlation analysis. It examines if budget funds assigned to various sectors impact SDG progress and fund efficiency. Findings indicate that 24.46% of budget programs significantly correlate with SDGs, with variations across goals. Effective sectors include Environmental Protection and Infrastructure, while Energy Efficiency and Pension Protection could improve. The study underscores the pivotal role of strategic budget allocation in advancing SDGs, suggesting enhancements in budget planning to optimize SDG outcomes.

On the 20th anniversary of the Central European Public Administration Review (CEPAR), this study underscores the significance of the journal’s inclusion in indexing. Employing scient metrics, bibliometric techniques, and knowledge mapping, the analysis offers a comprehensive overview of CEPAR’s evolution over the past two decades, the challenges encountered following the journal’s indexing in Web of Science, and the distinctivecharacteristics of authorship patterns. The data used in bibliometric analysis was extracted from Web of Science and covers the period 2018– 2023 (103 papers), while the data for authoring analysis was collectedfrom the archives of journal volumes covering the period 2003–2023 (425 papers). Over its 21 years of existence, CEPAR has published a total of 425 articles with an average of 20 articles per year. These contributions represent the collaborative efforts of 684 authors from different countries, with the average article written by 1.61 authors. The trend in annual citations is positive, with citations increasing tenfold following indexation in Web of Science. The publications in the sample (bibliometric analysis) were written by 175 authors affiliated with 75 institutions, of which 84% contributed a single article to CEPAR’s evolution. In the five years since its indexing in Web of Science, CEPAR has garnered about 200 citations, approximately 33 per year. The most frequent topics include studies on performance, public administration, comparative analysis, e-government, administrative courts, and access to information.

Sustainable societies of the future should be designed on the basis of a green public budgeting, as green public 79 spending and investment are the key drivers of sustainable development. Studies on green budgeting have so far tended to focus on gree...

Globalisation and cross-border movement of persons and capital have placed new challenges before national tax systems as well as international taxation. Over the past 20 years there has been an unprecedented development of exchange of information, a...

In honor of CEPAR's 20th anniversary, we have invited present and past editors to offer some thoughts on the journal's founding and its evolution over two decades of publishing.

Recent developments in local public finance management in Slovenia indicate the local governments’ growing interest in introducing participatory budgeting as a decision-making tool, wherein part of local resources are used with citizen participation. Usually, the literature on participation budgeting analyses its effects, but our main research objective was to analyze the possible determinants influencing its implementation. The influence of political factors, sociodemographic factors, economic factors, and the capability of municipalities are examined here using binary logistic regression to predict a dichotomous dependent variable from a set of predictor variables. In binary logistic regression, predictable variables are the probability of one category being chosen. In this case, the authors calculated the probability that a municipality, described by selected prediction variables, would implement a participatory budget. The results of the analysis suggest six indicators that impact the probability of participatory budgeting adoption, proving the influence of four determinants on the decision to adopt such a measure.

Environmental regulations bring social benefits and contribute to lessening environmental damage. At the same time, due to the rapidly changing and complex environmental legislation, businesses incur costs, including administrative burdens. The article presents quantitative evidence on the factors that affect the compliance costs of environmental regulations. For this purpose, we used a binary model of logistic regression with the following predictors: enterprise characteristics, the relevance of environmental regulations for business operations, and the impact of environmental stimulus measures on compliance costs. The results of the study suggest that medium-sized enterprises are less likely to experience the environmental administrative burden than small enterprises. However, no difference has been found between large and small enterprises. Further, we show that environmental consents are an important determinant of the environmental administrative burden and that financial environmental measures can have a positive impact thereon.