The concrete context of development can no longer be linked only to economic aspects. A variety of factors are driving a sustainable development trajectory of a nation, involving additional social and environmental elements (Andrei et al., 2024; Dilanchiev et al., 2024; Hatmanu et al., 2014; Jiang et al., 2023; Lobont et al., 2018; Nuta, 2023; Nuță et al., 2024; Petrea et al., 2021). In this sense, the human development index encompasses a multidimensional perspective of an inclusive and equitable pathway. The importance of a just transition is foremost.

The economic complexity index (Stojkoski et al., 2023) measures and ranks economies worldwide by considering three main elements: trade, patents, and research publications. The literature revealed an obvious direct interlink between economic complexity and economic growth; wealthier states are being higher ECI ranked. Nevertheless, there is no explicit exploration of the influence of economic complexity on human development; previous studies mainly consider economic complexity's influence on environmental degradation or the economic complexity-economic growth link.

In this sense, we used data from 1998 to 2022 to evaluate the impact of economic complexity, digitalization, foreign direct investments, and innovation on human development in selected emerging European countries by employing different approaches to evaluating the variables' causality, contributing to the advancement of the economics literature.

 

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