The nonobserved economy in the European Union

To better understand the share of the nonobserved economy (NOE) in the European Union, especially on the PIIGS, we estimate, through the multiple indicators multiple causes model, the path between 1980 and 2013. The model includes (i) the tax burden (disaggregated into direct and indirect taxes), a proxy of regulation burden, the unemployment rate and self-employment as causes of the NOE economy; (ii) the GDP and the labour force participation ratio as indicators of the NOE economy. In particular, the estimated weight of NOE as a percentage of official GDP was always higher in the PIIGS group.     

The impact of the European Union fiscal rules on economic growth

This paper analyses whether Maastricht and Stability and Growth Pact fiscal rules have affected growth in the European Union negatively. A growth equation is specified for a group of 15 European Union countries (and 8 OECD countries) over the period 1970-2005 to analyse this issue. Panel estimations using fixed-effects, pooled mean group and system-GMM estimators show that the institutional changes that occurred in the European Union after 1992 were not harmful to growth. Moreover, results show that growth is slightly higher in the period in which the fulfilment of the 3% criteria for the deficit started to be officially assessed, i.e. after 1997.     

The trade impact of European Union agricultural preferences

We assess the impact on agricultural trade of European Union (EU) trade policies, using a gravity model based on disaggregated trade flows from 161 developing countries (DCs) to 15 EU member countries. We use a sample selection framework to account for potential selection bias of positive trade flows and provide an explicit measure for relative preference margins. From a policy perspective, our results debunk some of the most widespread criticisms of preferential policies: EU preferences matter and have a positive impact on DCs agricultural exports at both the extensive and intensive margins, although with significant differences across sectors.     

The impact of trade openness on technical efficiency in the agricultural sector of the European Union

The aim of this study is to analyse the impact of trade openness on technical efficiency of the European Union’s (EU) agricultural sector. There are no systematic theories linking trade policy to technical efficiency; hence, the relation between trade liberalization and technical efficiency is fundamentally ambiguous. Stochastic frontier analysis is used to model the relationship between EU’s production resources and agricultural output, as well as the importance of trade openness on technical efficiency of a country. The data for 16 of the 28 EU members were available for the period 1980–2007 including land, capital, fertilizer, labour, agricultural GDP, foreign direct investments (FDI), exports and import data. Results indicate that trade openness has an immediate, negative impact on efficiency in the EU agricultural sector. Over time, however, trade openness does increase efficiency. The FDI outflows increase efficiency. This suggests that an initial reduction in capital supply forces EU nations to utilize other factor inputs more efficiently. However, there is the unexamined potential that over time the depletion of capital results in a decrease in efficiency. Finally, formerly communist member-countries of the EU are found to have the lowest technical efficiency scores whereas Southern European nations have the highest efficiency.     

The impact of electricity prices on foreign direct investment: evidence from the European Union

We examine the impact of electricity price variation on net FDI (%GDP) inflows in countries of the European Union. We use panel data of 27 EU countries for a period of 2003 – 2013. We show that electricity prices of south-western and north-eastern EU countries did not converge to one price until now. Dynamic panel data analysis using system GMM shows that besides unit labour costs, tax rates and competitive disadvantage in secondary education, also higher electricity prices reduce countries’ ability to attract FDI. The immediate effects are statistically significant across both sub-regions analysed: in the short run, a 10% increase in electricity prices leads to a decrease in net FDI inflows as a share of GDP by 0.4 percentage points for the south-western and 0.33 for the north-eastern region. In the long run, the response is 0.60 percentage points for south-western and 0.48 for north-eastern regions. Policies should aim at reducing electricity market price differences on the European level through investment in transborder transmission capacity; reductions in FDI, when environmental policy increases after-tax electricity prices, should be countered by other tax reductions as well as harmonization of property rights, absence of corruption and labour market regulations at best-practice level.     

The sensitivity of poverty rates to macro-level changes in the European Union

The authors use the European Union-wide tax–benefit model,EUROMOD, to establish baseline rates of relative poverty in1998 for each of the Member States and then explore their sensitivityto (a) an increase in unemployment, (b) real income growth and(c) an increase in earnings inequality. They find that povertyrates are sensitive to such ‘macro-level’ changesbut that the size—and in some cases the direction—ofthe effect varies across countries. If such indicators are tobe used in judging the effectiveness of social policies, itis important that differences in responsiveness are fully understood.     

Russian language skills and employment in the Former Soviet Union

During the Soviet era, proficiency in the Russian language was often a ticket to attractive employment opportunities in the member republics. Does it still contribute to securing employment in the former Soviet republics after two decades of transition? Using data from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the years 2008–2010, this paper demonstrates that Russian language skills remain economically valuable. The baseline estimates suggest that Russian language skills increase probability of employment by about 6 (males) and 9 (females) percentage points. Our results bear important implications for the ongoing debates on language policies in the post‐Soviet countries.     

The impact of private vs. public ownership on the level and structure of employment

We examine the effects of private vs. public ownership on the level and structure of employment using uncommonly rich data on the population of Portuguese firms from 1991 to 2009. We find that private ownership is associated with sizeable job losses. This occurs whether we consider privatizations or nationalizations, and the relationship tends to be stronger in the presence of foreign capital. We also find some evidence that private ownership is associated with higher skill utilization, particularly following privatizations and when foreign investment is present. The estimated job losses associated with private ownership are consistent with a theory in which the shift in ownership increases the degree of profit orientation and leads to lower job security.     

中国加工贸易就业效应的实证研究

基于中国省际面板数据,运用动态面板模型系统GMM方法,实证检验加工贸易对第二产业及工业就业的影响。研究表明,加工贸易出口对就业具有正向促进作用,加工贸易进口对就业具有负向挤出效应;随着国内企业技术水平的提升和加工贸易的转型升级,前者的就业吸纳能力和后者的就业排斥效应均趋向衰减。     

The deregulation of international trucking in the European Union: form and effect

We describe the regulatory regime under which international trucking operated in Western Europe until the mid-1980s, the deregulatory process that followed, and the effect of this deregulation. We find that deregulation had a large positive effect on the growth of international trucking. We also find that shippers shifted toward more outsourcing of their trucking needs, but this occurred to an even greater extent in local and national road transport. We conclude that other factors beside the deregulation of international trucking affected the organization of the industry at the time. Finally, despite concerns voiced by member countries, we find no evidence that deregulation disproportionately favored carriers of countries that were initially more (or less) involved in international trucking, nor that it has favored low-wage countries.      

Economic Growth and CO2 Emissions in the European Union

This paper examines the relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions in the European Union. A panel data analysis for the period 1981 to 1995 is applied in order to estimate the relationship between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and CO₂ emissions in ten selected European countries. The analysis shows important disparities between the most industrialised countries and the rest. The results do not seem to support a uniform policy to control emissions; they rather indicate that a reduction in emissions should be achieved by taking into account the specific economic situation and the industrial structure of each EU member state.     

欧盟电池法令与绿色壁垒制度的正面效应研究

本文主要对绿色壁垒制度所产生的正面效应展开简要的研究．提出了绿色壁垒制度的技术创新效应、制度创新效应、绿色生产与消费效应以及标准接轨的导向效应．并在此基础上以欧盟电池法令为例．提出了相应的建议。     

欧盟促进农村社会化科技创新的政策措施

欧盟农村发展计划及其农村发展行动联合计划(Leader计划),有效促进了欧盟农村创新体系各主体之间的合作,推动了农村社会化创新,是欧盟推动农村发展的一种创新陛政策实践。通过对欧盟Leader计划、欧盟农村发展计划及推动农村社会创新的政策措施等进行研究分析,提出了推动我国农村社会化创新的建议:充分发挥农民的主观能动性,推进农村社会创新;利用经济刺激手段,提高农产品质量;实施生态补偿,引导农民保护环境;建立公私合作伙伴机制,促进农村社会化创新。     

The Powers of The Central Governments and the Problems of Enlarging and Deepening the European Union: An Essay of Constitutional Political Economy

In this paper we present an adaptation of Buchanan and Tullock’s model in order to apply it to the constitutional choices regarding the assigning of powers to a supranational authority. The outcome of the economic-political model developed in this paper demonstrates that there are constraints in the supply of integration, suggesting that the enlargement and deepening of the European Union will have to be based on federalist conceptions. The authors should like to thanks seminar participants at European Public Choice conference (Belgirate 2002) and ECSA-C conference (Toronto 2002) where earlier versions of the paper have benefited from constructive suggestions. The authors assume the sole responsibility for any errors remaining in this version.     

Trade in the enlarged European Union: a new approach on trade potential

This paper focuses on the trade potential of manufactured exports from countries belonging to the enlarged EU (EU25) to groups of countries of that economic area in 2002. We note that previous results on trade potential, based on the estimation of a gravity model, may be invalid. Thus, we propose a correct approach based on the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood estimator and the calculation of confidence intervals with the Delta method. The gravity model includes fixed effects to capture bilateral trade specificities between country groupings. We conclude that CEEC as a group had apparently exhausted the possibilities for export expansion in the EU25, unless dynamic changes were to take place. However, several of the remaining EU25 countries had not yet reached their export potential to the EU25 markets, including to the CEEC as a group.     

美日欧发展高新技术产业的比较研究

在全球竞争目益激烈的背景下,美日欧不断调整完善科技创新战略,加强重点领域研发,大力发展高新技术产业,培育新的经济增长点,以便在竞争中占据有利地位。通过从九大方面,包括产业发展战略模式、产业发展重点领域、法律保障、科技管理体制、科技投入、产学研合作模式、政府在科技成果转化和商业化中的作用、技术创新财税支持政策、科技人才政策等,对美日欧发展高新技术产业进行分析和比较．以期了解美日欧在发展高新技术产业中的做法和特点,使我国在发展高新技术产业中有所借鉴。     

借鉴欧盟国家经验推动我国电子政务工作发展

近年来,在全球信息化浪潮的推动下,世界各国尤其是发达国家的政府,都把电子政务作为新一轮公共行政管理体制改革的重要手段和目标,投入巨额资金进行建设.我国从中央到地方的各级党委和政府对此也给予了极大关注,越来越多的省、市开始将电子政务建设提上议事日程.本文着重比较中外电子政务发展情况,展现国外先进的发展趋向,把握我国电子政务建设的走向,为使越来越多的人认识和适应电子政务起到应有的作用.     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy-Makers in the European Economic and Monetary Union: Allies or Adversaries?

Optimal monetary and fiscal policies within the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) are determined by simulating a global model under alternative assumptions about the objective function of the European Central Bank (ECB) and about cooperation vs. non-cooperation between monetary and fiscal policy-makers and among the latter. The results show the high effectiveness of fixed rules in the presence of supply-side shocks and the usefulness of cooperative discretionary measures against demand-side shocks. More generally, cooperation among fiscal policy-makers in the EMU is nearly always superior to non-cooperative equilibrium solutions, yielding a strong case for the coordination of fiscal policies.     

Pharmacoeconomic considerations of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) within the European Union

Summary

Depression is a frequently utilised model in health economy analysis, particularly since the introduction of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). In the present study, a cost-treatment analysis of this antidepressant family is carried out, in a representative sample of EU countries. For each SSRI and country, a series of pharmacoeconomic indicators was calculated including Monthly Treatment Cost (MTC), Relative Cost (RC), and Health Care Pharmaceutical Index (HCPI). The results of this study show a great disparity and lack of homogeneity among the pharmacoeconomic indicators in the different countries. MTC is higher in Central Europe countries, while France and the United Kingdom have the lowest MTC and RC. RC, a relative indicator of antidepressant cost for the patient, is higher not only in Germany and Denmark but also in Mediterranean countries. Concerning the Government cost, HCPI shows higher values for countries with lower total health expenses per capita, such as Spain, Italy and Ireland. No correlation exists either between MTC and launching year of the different SSRI. The lack of homogeneity in the analysed parameters may be due, in our opinion, to a series of factors, such as the R&D expenses, the commercial policy of pharmaceutical companies or the price control by Regulatory Authorities, which have a different repercussion in EU countries.