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     

The geometry of voting power: Weighted voting and hyper-ellipsoids

Suppose legislators represent districts of varying population, and their assembly's voting rule is intended to implement the principle of one person, one vote. How should legislators' voting weights appropriately reflect these population differences? An analysis requires an understanding of the relationship between voting weight and some measure of the influence that each legislator has over collective decisions. We provide three new characterizations of weighted voting that embody this relationship. Each is based on the intuition that winning coalitions should be close to one another. The locally minimal and tightly packed characterizations use a weighted Hamming metric. Ellipsoidal separability employs the Euclidean metric: a separating hyper-ellipsoid contains all winning coalitions, and omits losing ones. The ellipsoid's proportions, and the Hamming weights, reflect the ratio of voting weight to influence, measured as Penrose–Banzhaf voting power. In particular, the spherically separable rules are those for which voting powers can serve as voting weights.     

Distance in time between transition economies and the European Union

The time distance methodology used offers a new perspective to the problem, an additional statistical measure, and a presentation tool for policy analysis and debate readily understood by policy makers, media and general public. Disparity between the analysed transition economies and EU countries is considerably smaller for other indicators than for GDP per capita. Compared with Ireland, Portugal and Greece Slovenia was in 1995 in 13 cases behind (but time lag of Slovenia never exceeded 10 years) and in 13 cases ahead of them. Sicherl (1997a) discusses application of S-distance to time series regressions, models, forecasting and monitoring. First version received: October 1995/final version received: April 1998     

The costs and benefits of eastern enlargement: the impact on the EU and central Europe

Eastern enlargement of the EU is a central pillar in Europe's post-Cold War architecture. Keeping the eastern countries out seriously endangers their economic transition, and economic failure in the east could threaten peace and prosperity in western Europe. The perceived economic costs and benefits will dictate the enlargement's timing. There are four parts to the calculus – the costs and the benefits in the east and in the west. Here we break new ground in estimating the economic benefits of enlargement for east and west using simulations in a global applied general equilibrium model. Our analysis includes a scenario in which joining the EU significantly reduces the risk premium on investment in the east – with resulting huge benefits to the new entrants. We also review the existing literature on the EU budget costs and arrive at a surprisingly well-determined 'consensus' estimate, which we support with a new political economy analysis of the budget. The bottom line is unambiguous and strongly positive: enlargement is a very good deal for both the EU incumbents and the new members.     

Voting requirements, concessions, international side payments and the European Monetary Union

This paper addresses the question of criteria for selection of EMU members. We identify two factors in the decision process: (1) The costs and benefits which the individual countries attribute to alternative EMU arrangements (`hard-core', medium-sized, all EU members), and (2) the binding institutional restrictions, i.e., the distribution of votes in the European Council and the minimum vote requirements. Within this framework the EU countries are assigned to different groups according to their degree of convergence. Based on stability concessions and side payments these groups decide on the final EMU composition. We show that minimum vote requirements can lead to a suboptimal size of the EMU and can threaten the feasibility of a multi-speed monetary union.     

The empirical estimation of the cost-minimizing jury size and voting rule in civil trials

Since the early 1970s, the literature examining the court system has placed much emphasis on the importance of the jury size and voting rule when analyzing the jury decision-making process. In addition, researchers have also used deductive reasoning to theoretically determine the cost-minimizing jury size and voting rule with regards to Type I and Type II errors. In this paper, we take this analysis one step further by empirically estimating the cost-minimizing jury size and voting rule in civil jury trials.     

The structure of bias in peer voting systems: lessons from the Eurovision Song Contest

This paper assesses whether and how common characteristics of jury members or peer voters affect the outcomes of voting systems. In particular, we analyze to what extent these common features result in voting bias. We take as a case study the Eurovision Song Contest for which an extensive amount of historical data is available. In contrast to earlier studies we analyze the impact of common factors on the bias individually for each country, which is necessary to substantiate the publicly debated accusations of regional block voting by certain groups of countries. We establish strong evidence for voting bias in the song contest on the basis of geography, even after correction for culture, language, religion and ethnicity. However, these effects do generally not correspond to the usual accusations. We believe that our findings extend to all instances where groups of jury members or peer voters share certain common factors, which may cause voting bias. It is important to identify such structures explicitly, as it can help avoiding bias in the first place. The authors are grateful to Marieke van Dijk for excellent research assistance and to Laurens Swinkels, Ieva Pudane, Gijsbert van Lomwel, Jelena Stefanovic, and Bas van den Heuvel for useful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Voting on voting with the feet: a cross-county analysis of the Tennessee popular referenda to secede from the union

We analyze a unique case of voting on voting with the feet, when Tennessee twice considered secession from the Union in 1861 by popular referenda. The initial votes to hold a convention, and to send disunion delegates to a convention, failed, but after the Confederate states adopted a new constitution and the bombing of Fort Sumter took place, a second set of votes to separate from the union, and to join the confederacy, passed. Regression results support the importance of both economic interests and political tendencies, along with regional differences, in explaining the variation in votes across counties. Class distinctions were not found to be significant.

Out in the cold? Iceland's trade performance outside the European Union and European Monetary Union

Although entering currency (and customs) unions involve bothcosts and benefits, an increasing body of research is findingthat the benefits—in terms of international trade creation—areremarkably large. Focusing simply on the European Monetary Union(EMU) rather than the broad range of currency unions studiedby other authors, we find that the trade impact of EMU is smaller,but still substantial. Our findings suggest that the Iceland'strade could increase by about 60% and that the trade-to-GDPratio could rise by 12 percentage points should Iceland jointhe European Union and EMU.     

Pressure to adjust: Consequences for the OECD countries from reforms in eastern Europe

The opening of the formerly planned economies to the world has not only profound consequences for these central and eastern European economies. There are also substantial effects on the economies of western Europe, resulting from enhanced price competition in product markets, migration and capital flows. The macroeconomic effects and adjustment requirements in the OECD countries are fundamentally determined by the two central, but not mutually exclusive growth options for the reform countries, which are analysed in the paper: the option of an import-led growth in eastern Europe, resulting from capital transfers from the West in order to asist the modernisation and investment process in the East, and the option of an export-led growth, allowing for unrestricted entering of western markets and imitating the experience of south-east Asian economies. The estimated magnitudes and likely economic effects speak in favour of the export-led growth option, but under both options the governments in the West are challenged.     

Institutional Reform and Co-Decision in the European Union

This paper studies the Treaty of Amsterdam's reform of the co-decision procedure in the European Union. The paper presents spatial models of the procedure, and examines whether the Treaty significantly alters it. The theory analyzes the implications of the Treaty for the equilibrium EU policies and the institutions' powers. It characterizes sets of policies the Commission can successfully propose under the old procedure, and sets of policies the Council and the Parliament can successfully propose as joint texts under the new procedure. The paper concludes that the new procedure does not lead to a further increase in the Parliament's powers, as intended by the drafters of the Treaty. Rather it finds that the Treaty eliminates the Commission's power under co-decision and may increase indecision.     

Principles of Policymaking in the European Union: An Economic Perspective

How should tasks be divided between the EU and its member states?And what institutional reforms are needed? This paper arguesthat the single market remains to be better enforced, and thismight require further centralisation of tasks. On the otherhand, EU meddling with redistribution should be scaled back;this would imply reducing EU intervention in agricultural policy,structural funds and the social charter. EU tasks should insteadbe expanded outside the first pillar, namely in foreign anddefence policies, internal security, immigration. The paperends by discussing what institutional reforms are needed toaccompany this allocation of tasks. (JEL F02, F3)     

Spatial models of logrolling in the European Union

This paper presents spatial models of logrolling in the EU. It analyzes the Commission appointment, logrolling and policy-making processes under the EU's principal legislative procedures: the consultation, cooperation and codecision procedures. The theory characterizes equilibrium EU policies and sets of successful policies, i.e., sets of policies that can become EU policy during the logrolling and policy-making processes. It also determines countries' optimal nomination strategies and countries' and legislators' optimal voting strategies during the Commission appointment process. It concludes that the EU institutions provide opportunities for efficient and stable exchanges of votes.     

Agricultural Biotechnology in the European Union: Alternative Technologies and Economic Outcomes

All seed firms in six EU countries were surveyed in May 1999 to determine how seed development budgets were distributed across three crop development technologies and the effects of the type of technology in use on employment, sales and exports. The results indicate that an evaluation of the economic consequences of an emergent technology such as genetic engineering should both consider the effect of competitive alternative technologies and survey all firms within the sector, rather than focusing on a subset of high technology firms. Only about 10% of the combined 1999 research budget of European seed firms was spent on genetic engineering, although this should increase to about 15% by 2002. Alternative technologies to develop new plant varieties, such as conventional plant breeding and conventional breeding combined with techniques that were developed for genetic engineering, are considerably more important economically. In fact, there is no difference in expected employment and sales per development employee by the type of technology in use, while export rates are highest among firms that combine conventional plant breeding with advanced techniques.     

Environmental Appraisal and Environmental Policy in the European Union

Revisions to the European Treaty of Union require some form of environmental appraisal – primarily risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis – of regulatory initiatives by the European Commission. A retrospective look at the emergence of environmental appraisal also shows that, while the Commission has made great advances in introducing cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness appraisals in recent years, past environmental decisions and overall environmental policy have not been informed by systematic appraisal techniques. Nor is it clear what role is now being played by risk assessments. While it is impossible to gauge the extent to which systematic appraisal procedures will save on regulatory and compliance expenditures, some indications are provided of the costs of past neglect of these procedures.     

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.     

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.