推进科技创新 促进地区发展——欧盟地区政策简析

经过6次扩大,欧盟目前已经拥有27个成员国,其各个成员国的不同的发展状态和经济发展水平,加剧了整个欧盟层面上区域发展的不平衡状况。为了缩小其成员国以及地区间的经济差距,增强其社会凝聚力,进一步推进经济、政治一体化,欧盟制定并推行了一系列的旨在缩小地区差距以确保各成员国经济社会能够相对均衡、协调发展的地区政策。多年的实践使得欧盟在地区发展领域积累了丰富的经验,也在促进其成员国,特别是经济较为落后的成员国经济和社会发展方面取得了相当的成绩。本文试图对欧盟的地区政策,特别是其通过科技创新为地区发展所作的努力作一剖析,希望读者有所收益。     

Perspectives on the Guaranteed Income,Part I

Strengthening economic, social, and territorial cohesion is a central objective of the European Union. However, disparities between European regions are considerable, and there are doubts as to whether they are likely to be attenuated. In recent years, there has been a growing body of literature that examines the effectiveness of the European Union’s funds for promoting growth and reducing asymmetries among members. We contribute to this literature by examining the conditions under which the European Union’s financial aid may be affecting regional growth. We explore the interactions between transfers and income and other regional characteristics, such as human capital or innovation. We apply this study to a panel of 137 European regions, covering the period from 1995 to 2009. Our conclusions suggest a positive and significant marginal impact of funds only in regions with low levels of human capital and innovation.     

Human capital and economic growth in Spanish regions

Modern economic growth theory has emphasized on the human capital effects on economic growth. In this case, the externalities from a better education could enhance economic growth process and facilitate the progress in different regional areas. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the effects of human capital on economic growth process by taking into account the case of Spanish regions. The authors examine whether a better education process and social capital can improve the economic growth process in such area and if it can explain the differences in per capita GDP existing in those regions. The paper uses data from Spanish Statistical Institute and from different institutes of the European Union. The Castilla La Mancha Regional Government has provided financial support for the Project PDI-02-025.     

简析欧盟推动科技创新及促进地区发展的政策

经过6次扩大,欧盟目前已经拥有27个成员国,其各个成员国的不同的发展状态和经济发展水平,加剧了整个欧盟层面上区域发展的不平衡状况。为了缩小其成员国以及地区间的经济差距、增强其社会凝聚力、进一步推进经济、政治一体化,欧盟制定并推行了一系列的旨在缩小地区差距以确保各成员国经济社会能够相对均衡、协调发展的地区政策。多年的实践使得欧盟在地区发展领域积累了丰富的经验,也在促进其成员国,特别是经济较为落后的成员国经济和社会发展方面取得了相当的成绩。本文试图对欧盟的地区政策,特别是其通过科技创新为地区发展所作的努力作一剖析,希望读者有所收益。     

Structural change and foreign direct investment: globalization and regional economic integration

This paper investigates flows of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) and FDI-to-GDP ratios in a sample of 62 countries over a 30 year time span. Using several endogenous structural break procedures (allowing for one and two break points), we find that: (1) the great majority of the series have structural breaks in the last 15 years, (2) post-break FDI and FDI/GDP ratios are substantially higher than the pre-break values, and (3) most breaks seem to be related to globalization, regional economic integration, economic growth, or political instability. Static and dynamic panel-data analyses accounting for and/or addressing endogeneity, simultaneity, nonstationarity, heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence show that FDI is negatively related to exchange rate volatility and GDP per capita, but positively related to some regional integration agreements, trade openness, GDP, and GDP growth. Most notably, the European Union is the only regional economic integration unit found to consistently have significant and positive effects on FDI.     

Spanish regional policy: Economic and social cohesion in the European union

The aim of this paper is to analyze the economic and social cohesion from the Spanish perspective. The hypothesis is that the economic and social cohesion in the European Union needs three requirements. First, the Structural Funds, European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund and European Agricultural Guide, and Guarantee Fund, increase their weight in the community budget. Second, the resources of those funds must be concentrated on the lesser developed regions. Third, each region assigns its resources to the improvement of the factors that contribute to its backwardness (quality of human capital, innovation, development, and managerial initiative). The analysis is based on the first and second Community Support Framework [CSF 1989–93 and CSF 1994–99].An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fifty-Third International Atlantic Economic Conference, March 13–17, 2002, Paris, France.     

Inequality and convergence in Europe's regions: reconsidering European regional policies

In this paper we take a critical look at current European regional policies. First, we document the motivation for such policies, that is, the large income disparities across the regions of the EU15. Large disparities are certainly present. Second, we illustrate the various instruments adopted and discuss their underpinnings in established economic theories. Next, we look at available data, searching for three kinds of evidence: (1) if disparities are either growing or decreasing, we conclude they are neither; (2) which are the major factors explaining such disparities and, in particular, if they are the factors predicted by the economic models adopted by the Commission to justify current policies, we conclude this is most certainly not the case; (3) if there are clear signs that EU policies, as opposed to other social and economic factors, are actually reducing such disparities, we cannot find any clear sign of such desired impact. Our conclusion is that regional and structural policies serve mostly a redistributional purpose, motivated by the nature of the political equilibria upon which the European Union is built. They have little relationship with fostering economic growth. This casts a serious doubt on their social value and, furthermore, strongly questions extending such policies to future members of the European Union. A successful EU enlargement, in our view, calls for an immediate and drastic revision of regional economic policies.
— Michele Boldrin and Fabio Canova     

The Ethics of Regional Policy

In the beginning, the economy was closed to ethics and as a social science had a moral dimension. However, after the marginal revolution and during the twentieth century, ethics was not considered in the economic analysis. Fortunately, this situation changed at the end of the past century. This paper analyzes the ethics of regional policy. Regional policy has an ethics dimension because its main goals are to reduce the differences among regions and to redistribute income. The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between regional policy and ethics, considering both targets and instruments. We will consider, mainly, the case of the European Union.     

Functional components of public expenditure,fiscal consolidations,and economic activity

This paper analyses how the functional components of public expenditure and spending‐driven consolidations affect the economic growth, unemployment, and income inequality. A dynamic panel data least squares dummy variable estimator estimator is employed over a sample of 15 European Union countries during the period 1990–2012. The empirical results show that real GDP growth decreases when fiscal austerity measures are implemented, especially if they are spending‐driven. Cuts in public expenditure undermine economic growth, namely if they slash spending on public order, recreation, and education. Spending cuts on education, in particular, affect the investment in human capital, harming not only growth but also economic, social, and human development. The unemployment rate also proved to be significantly boosted when austerity measures restrict spending on education, whereas income inequality rises when social protection expenditures are cut.     

Convergence of Income Distributions: Another Measurement Problem

According to EU-policy, the cohesion of the Communitydepends crucially on the convergence of per-capita incomes acrossEU member-states. By employing various indicators which are supposedto compare distributions on EU income-data, the paper shows thatthe EU-notion of cohesion faces a substantial measurement problem.Instead of arriving at a unique order, the indicators frequentlyyield conflicting results about the convergence of a particulardistribution. The paper examines the reasons and their consequencesfor institutional choice in the European Union; thus approachingthe cohesion versus conflict issue from an economic perspective.     

信任及其解释:来自中国的跨省调查分析

“信任”被普遍认为是除物质资本和人力资本之外决定一个国家经济增长和社会进步的主要社会资本。华人社会在许多跨文化研究中被认为是低信任度的社会 ,而在国内 ,许多学者已用“信任危机”概括人与人关系的现状。本文试图通过中国跨省的信任调查数据 ,揭示信任对一个地区的经济绩效 ,例如企业规模、企业发展速度、引进外资等的影响 ,进一步分析影响信任的因素。我们的发现表明 ,一个地区能否被人们所信任与地域文化并不紧密相关 ,更重要的是跟人们之间的交易被重复的可能性、交易的发达程度、教育水平等因素有关。这些证据支持了经济学理论中关于重复博弈导致信任的基本假说。     

A model-based analysis of the impact of Cohesion Policy expenditure 2000–06: Simulations with the QUEST III endogenous R&D model

More than a third of the EU budget is devoted to Cohesion Policy with the objective to foster economic and social cohesion in the European Union. Large-scale fiscal transfers are used to support investment in infrastructure, R&D and human capital. This paper provides a model-based assessment of the potential macroeconomic impact of these fiscal transfers using a DSGE model with semi-endogenous growth (Jones, 1995) and endogenous human capital accumulation. The simulations show the potential benefits of Structural Funds with significant output gains in the long run due to sizeable productivity improvements.     

Debt and Economic Growth in the European Union: A Panel Granger Causality Approach

This paper contributes to empirical investigation of the causality relationships between real gross domestic product (GDP) growth and the growth of three debt categories, namely public, foreign and private debt, in the universe of the 28 European Union (EU) countries during the past decade. Using panel Granger causality estimations, we find statistically relevant bidirectional causality relationships between public debt and economic growth for the periods both before and after the outbreak of the recent financial crisis. Moreover, there is clear evidence of economic growth’s contribution to decreasing public debt.     

SOCIAL CAPITAL,GOVERNANCE AND PERFORMANCE OF ETHIOPIAN COFFEE COOPERATIVES

ABSTRACT: The performance of agrarian cooperatives strongly depends on the interaction between internal cohesion and external exchange. Empirical assessments of social capital and trust within cooperatives suggest that market involvement could enhance collective action. This relationship may not hold, however, under circumstances of heterogeneous membership and strong state control. We use field data from a comparative sample of 500 coffee farmers belonging to five cooperatives of Sidama Cooperative Union, Ethiopia to outline how differences in economic performance are related to the structure of social networks. We identify clear trade‐offs between bonding and bridging social capital that favour remotely located cooperatives.     

Catching Growth Determinants with the Adaptive Lasso

Abstract. This paper uses the adaptive Lasso estimator to determine variables important for economic growth. The adaptive Lasso estimator is a computationally very efficient procedure that simultaneously performs model selection and parameter estimation. The computational cost of this method is negligibly small compared with standard approaches in the growth regressions literature. We apply this method for a regional dataset for the European Union covering the 255 NUTS2 regions in the 27 member states over the period 1995–2005. The results suggest that initial GDP per capita (with an implied convergence speed of about 1.5% per annum), human capital (proxied by the shares of highly and medium educated in the working age population), structural labor market characteristics (the initial unemployment rate and the initial activity rate of the low educated) as well as being a capital region are important for economic growth.     

The communication and European Regional economic growth: The interactive fixed effects approach

Following the frontier framework of the panel data models with the interactive fixed effects, the study identifies the European regional economic growth determinants for 268 regions from 2000 to 2014. The regional communication might provide the supplementary positive effects on the European regional economic growth, where the population and educational attainment level are negative correlated to the regional economic growth. The regional human resources in science and technology remain the domination power as one of the regional economic engines in European Union after the millennium.     

“The winner takes it all” or a story of the optimal allocation of the European Cohesion Fund

This paper aims to determine an optimal allocation of the European Cohesion Fund (ECF) and compares it with the observed allocation. This optimal allocation is the solution of a donor optimization problem which maximizes recipient countries' GDP per capita to achieve economic convergence in the European Union. Compared to the observed allocation, our solution can identify the recipient countries that can benefit from higher ECF transfers than the observed levels, as those having low relative GDP per capita, large population size and where the ECF has a strong capacity to support economic growth. Result is robust to changes in the specification of the donor's utility function.     

Neoliberalism,EU and the Evaluation of Policies

Changes in GDP growth, unemployment and inflation are utilized as indicators of the transition of nineteen OECD countries from Keynesian to neoliberal policies in the period 1960 to 2007. The paper then shows how evaluations of this change and of the success of the European Union can vary depending on the value basis of the observer.     

Is public capital productive in Europe?

This paper addresses the issue of whether and by how much public investment or public capital can increase GDP. In comparison with the literature on the subject, we apply many different methodologies to answer these questions. A vector autoregressive (VAR) model (for France, Italy, Germany, the UK and the USA), a panel composed of 6 European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) and a regional panel (French regions) are estimated. Public investment is shown to be a significant determinant of output; this is also true for public capital but to a lesser extent than public investment with a VAR methodology. The size of the estimated coefficient is also more realistic than those obtained in the literature. This empirical result confirms that the focus of some economists on safeguarding the level of public investment is not misplaced. The debate on the introduction of a ‘golden rule of public finance’ in the European Monetary Union is legitimate in this respect.     

Structural differences across macroregions: an empirical investigation

Using a macro–micro econometric framework that allows studying the labour market dynamics, this paper offers an in-depth investigation of the structures of both national and macro regional labour markets in Italy. The simulation results reveal structural differences between regions in the short as well as the long run. Regional gaps represent one of the main components of the natural unemployment rate in Italy. The results may help regional and national policy makers in the European Union to formulate strategies tailored to the specific needs of regional labour markets.