Je t'aime, moi non plus: Bilateral opinions and international trade

This paper studies the relationship between bilateral trade patterns and opinions. It uses the Eurobarometer public opinion surveys published by the European Commission, which provide data on the share of the population in each EU15 member country in favour of each CEEC joining the EU. Our results first suggest that bilateral opinions have a statistically robust and relatively large effect on imports, even when standard and new covariates capturing proximity between countries are controlled for. We interpret this effect as reflecting a positive impact of “bilateral affinity” on trade patterns. We also show that it is possible to go some way towards explaining the variance in bilateral opinions among our sample. Last we provide some preliminary attempt to determine causality between bilateral opinions and imports.     

我国个人收入分配差距问题研究

在急剧变动的社会转型时期,由于市场机制的不健全和收入调节机制的缺失,我国居民的个人收入分配的差距不断扩大,已经影响到劳动群众的工作积极性。现阶段,我国个人分配差距存在的问题主要有群体性差距、行业性差距、区域性差距、所有制性差距、国际性差距。笔者根据我国个人收入的横截面数据和时间序列数据,对我国个人收入分配差距问题进行具体阐述。     

In search of employment: online technologies and Polish migrants

This paper seeks to advance our understanding of recruitment strategies focusing on a hitherto undeveloped research area, which scrutinises the relationship between social media and recruitment strategies in the context of facilitating international migration. The case study used to explore this activity is migrant workers from Poland seeking and engaging in employment in the UK hospitality sector. Using empirical findings, the paper outlines the role of the Internet fora as a transnational platform for job searching and job advertising, emphasising migrants' role as recruitment agents.     

区域一体化与城市创新：基于长三角扩容的准自然实验

随着我国城市进入都市圈发展的新时代，区域一体化对城市创新产生了广泛而深刻的影响。从创新资源流动整合、知识技术溢出和市场规模扩大等维度深入分析区域一体化对城市创新的潜在作用机制，将长三角扩容作为一项准自然实验，以2003-2018年中国内地283个地级市为样本数据，综合利用合成控制法和PSM-DID模型对两者关系进行实证检验。结果发现：①整体而言，长三角扩容能够显著促进城市创新水平提升。从不同区域看，长三角扩容对原位和新进城市创新水平均有显著促进作用，且对新进城市的影响大于原位城市；②异质性分析结果表明，扩容政策对科创走廊城市创新水平的提升作用强于非科创走廊城市，同时区域通达性改善也能够明显强化扩容对城市创新的政策效应；③扩容政策对城市创新的作用呈现出边际效应递减趋势。研究结论对推进长三角一体化发展、深化区域创新合作、建设长三角创新驱动示范带具有重要指导意义。     

Political economy of eastern enlargement of the European Union: Budgetary costs and reforms in voting rules

Eastern European countries are likely to be major recipients of European Union (EU) funds after membership, which has created serious concern among incumbent members. The EU has devised reforms of budgetary rules to limit the funds that will flow to the East. Using a political economy model and drawing on the experience of previous enlargements, this paper argues that such pre-accession reforms will be ineffective because they can be reversed by a coalition of Eastern European countries after membership. The paper then estimates budgetary costs of eastern enlargement. A better way to resolve budgetary concerns is to reform voting rules rather than budgetary rules, before eastern enlargement.     

The European economy at the cross roads: Structural reforms, fiscal constraints, and the Lisbon Agenda

This paper studies the incentives to sustain and extend a monetary union under alternative assumptions about the extent of market reform within the union and accession countries. Lack of labour mobility, or wage/price flexibility, or fiscal reform, brings costs for both new entrants and in the existing union. Countries will therefore want a union where there has been sufficient reform, and also one where markets are more flexible than their own. But existing members will want the same properties of their partners. Fiscal restrictions may exaggerate this incentive mismatch and could therefore delay the necessary reforms. Similarly, too large costs up front may also delay those reforms.     

The Economic Convergence Performance of Central and Eastern European Countries

A critical discussion of a comparative growth analysis about Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries is performed. The main conclusion is that there was economic convergence for most CEE accession candidates, but not between them and Western Europe. Results do justify a separation into first and second-wave accession countries, but also undermine differences in Central and Eastern Europe between accession and non-accession countries.This paper critically examines theories and empirical studies for three types of convergence, namely , and club convergence. Each can be in absolute terms or conditional to the long-term equilibrium (steady state) for each country.Empirical results are provided for all types of convergence from 1996 to 2000, both with population-weighted and non-weighted data. The analysis is performed for differently framed country subgroups considering even Western Europe for better comparability. Once absolute convergence is found through a unit root test about a standard deviation time series of cross-sectional income per capita, the regression coefficient for initial income per capita with the average growth over the sample period as dependent variable ( convergence) establishes the speed of this process. The same method applies to the conditional version by using the distance of the income from the corresponding steady state instead of the level of GDP. Then Markov chain probability matrixes (club convergence) provide information about the past behaviour of the whole cross-sectional income distribution over time, but also about intra-mobility of single countries.     

Poland's Accession to the European Union: Demand for Protection of Selected Sensitive Products

This paper analyses the expected changes in external tariffs and imports in Poland after accession to the European Union. We find that around 14% of all manufacturing commodity groups in the Harmonised System will experience tariff reductions of over 10 percentage points, while for agricultural goods tariff comparisons are complicated by very different tariff systems and may be overrated, since applied tariffs are often lower than those legislated. Based on gravity estimates we also find onlly few relatively narrowly defined commodities will experience import growth rates of above 20%. More widely defined sensitive commodities are subject to much smaller but still important import growth     

欧盟东扩对我国制造业影响的实证分析

欧盟东扩后产生了贸易创造和贸易转移效应,其中贸易转移效应将影响我国对欧盟出口。东扩的国家人均GDP显著低于西欧,但也显著高于我国,所以与中国相比对欧盟出口可能拥有不同比较优势,对我国不同技术含量的制造业商品出口欧盟会产生不同程度的影响,本文首先分析了中东欧主要国家和我国制造业的双边贸易以及中国和中东欧国家出口欧盟的制造业商品结构,然后基于制造业相对显示性指数实证分析得出：欧盟东扩后,制造业商品出口结构恶化,特别是中低技能技术的制造业产品在东盟东扩后受到的贸易转移效应影响尤为明显,而对我国劳动和资源密集型产品影响不大,还有最近几年的贸易摩擦使得高技能技术产品的出口欧盟受阻,进一步恶化了我国对欧盟制造业商品出口结构。     

区域一体化与城市创新：基于长三角扩容的准自然实验

随着我国城市进入都市圈发展的新时代，区域一体化对城市创新产生了广泛而深刻的影响。从创新资源流动整合、知识技术溢出和市场规模扩大等维度深入分析区域一体化对城市创新的潜在作用机制，将长三角扩容作为一项准自然实验，以2003-2018年中国内地283个地级市为样本数据，综合利用合成控制法和PSM-DID模型对两者关系进行实证检验。结果发现：①整体而言，长三角扩容能够显著促进城市创新水平提升。从不同区域看，长三角扩容对原位和新进城市创新水平均有显著促进作用，且对新进城市的影响大于原位城市；②异质性分析结果表明，扩容政策对科创走廊城市创新水平的提升作用强于非科创走廊城市，同时区域通达性改善也能够明显强化扩容对城市创新的政策效应；③扩容政策对城市创新的作用呈现出边际效应递减趋势。研究结论对推进长三角一体化发展、深化区域创新合作、建设长三角创新驱动示范带具有重要指导意义。