Everything All Right at the Internal EU Borders? The Ambivalent Effects of Cross-Border Integration and the Rise of Euroscepticism

ABSTRACT

The policy of the European Union, which promotes a vision of Europe without borders and has fostered the development of cooperation across borders over 25 years, has led, in some parts of Europe, to the emergence of so-called integrated cross-border regions. Thus far, the increase of cross-border flows and interactions has always been a normative and almost unquestioned policy paradigm. However, tendencies of re-bordering and signs of growing Euroscepticism can also be observed nowadays in these border regions, which show the importance of investigating the negative externalities that can be generated by cross-border integration. This article attempts to do this by focusing on three case studies usually considered as among the most integrated ones in Europe because of cross-border flows related to work: the cross-border metropolitan regions of Basel, Geneva and Luxembourg. Our findings show that if several decades of cross-border integration have led to the reinforcement of the functional linkages between the border regions, some effects of the cross-border integration process have also created a functional specialisation of space that relies on social and economic inequalities. Such a situation contradicts the ideal of cross-border territorial cohesion and helps to better understand the rise of Euroscepticism in some of the border areas.     

Are Choice Rationality and Social Consistency Two Sides of a Same Coin?

This paper aims at proving that a society cannot be consistent if it is constituted of decision-makers who are not rational. For that purpose, we propose to justify social interactions by means of individual preferences. More precisely, we establish that individual choice rationality is logically equivalent, i.e. is a necessary and sufficient condition, to social consistency—when individual rationality means that preferences are completely ordered (as in standard microeconomics) and social consistency that there is a one-to-one mapping from the list of actual communities to the underlying particular interaction (unique, reflexive and symmetric) between all individuals of the society.     

A note on essential smoothness in the Heston model

This note identifies a gap in the proof of Corollary 2.4 in Forde and Jacquier (Finance Stoch., 2011) which arises because the essential smoothness of the family (X _t /t) _t≥1 can fail for the log-spot process X in the Heston model, and it describes how to circumvent the issue by applying a standard argument from large deviation theory.     

What Drives the International Transfer of Climate Change Mitigation Technologies? Empirical Evidence from Patent Data

Technology transfer plays a key role in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, we characterize the factors that promote or hinder the international diffusion of climate-friendly technologies using detailed patent data from 96 countries for the period 1995–2007. The data provide strong evidence that lax Intellectual Property regimes have a strong and negative impact on the international diffusion of patented knowledge. Restrictions on international trade and foreign direct investment also hinder the diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. Surprisingly, local technological capabilities tend to discourage transfers. While broad indicators of technology capabilities are expected to facilitate transfers, this latter result stems from our technology-specific definition of local capabilities, which makes it possible to capture a substitution effect between local and foreign inventions.     

Public Trading and Private Incentives

This article studies the link between public trading and theactivity of a firm's large shareholder who can affect firm value.Public trading results in the formation of a stock price thatis informative about the large shareholder's activity. Thisincreases the latter's incentives to engage in value-increasingactivities. Indeed, if he has to liquidate part of his stakebefore the effect of his activity is publicly observed, a moreinformative price rewards him for his activity. Implicationsare derived for the decision to go public, capital structure,and security design.     

‘Weltoffenheit schafft Jobs’: Turkish entrepreneurship and multiculturalism in Berlin

This article investigates the connections between multiculturalism, unemployment and self–employment in the case of Berlin’s Turkish economy. It first describes five trends that are currently shaping German–Turks’ business activities: heterogeneity, hybridity, professionalism, internationalization and state interest. The consequences of these five trends are partly contradictory. On the one hand, they challenge the relevance of the ‘Turkish economy’ concept. On the other hand, they give an unprecedented respectability to the ‘Turkish economy’, thus popularizing this concept. The article argues that this contradiction should be interpreted as an outcome of the growing importance of multiculturalism in Germany’s relation to immigrants. Acknowledging the presence of immigrants has led to an emphasis on their high rate of self–employment, viewed as a possible solution to their unemployment and ‘integration’ problems. What emerges is the economic dimension of multiculturalism, i.e. an ideology that sees immigration and ethnic pluralism as economically positive. The article concludes by a critical analysis of this ideology. Cet article étudie les liens entre multiculturalisme, chômage et entreprise individuelle dans le cas de l’économie turque berlinoise. Il décrit d’abord cinq tendances qui configurent actuellement l’activitééconomique des Germano–turcs: hétérogénéité, hybridité, professionnalisme, internationalisation et intérêt de l’État. Les conséquences de ces cinq tendances sont en partie contradictoires. D’un côté, elles remettent en question le concept ‘d’économie turque’ et, de l’autre, elles lui offrent une respectabilité sans précédent, propageant ainsi le concept. Cette contradiction devrait être interprétée comme le résultat de l’importance croissante du multiculturalisme dans la relation de l’Allemagne à l’égard des immigrants. Reconnaître la présence d’immigrés a conduit à souligner le rôle important des entrepreneurs, considérés comme une solution possible à leurs problèmes de chômage et ‘d’intégration’. Est ainsi révélée la dimension économique du multiculturalisme, c’est–à–dire une idéologie qui voit l’immigration et le pluralisme ethnique comme économiquement positifs. La conclusion expose une analyse critique de cette idéologie.     

Economic burden of chemotherapy-treated recurrent and/or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck in France: real-world data from the permanent sample of national health insurance beneficiaries

Aims: Overall survival (OS) of patients with recurrent or metastatic (R/M) squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) is extremely poor. New therapeutic options emerge but need to establish their economic value. The objective was to describe the direct and related costs of R/M SCCHN in France.

Materials and methods: We selected all adult patients treated with chemotherapy for R/M SCCHN between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2014 from the permanent sample of the French national health insurance database (EGB). Data were analyzed from the index date (first chemotherapy) until patients’ death or 31 December 2015. “Treatment period” and “end-of-life” (EoL) (from last chemotherapy until death) were distinguished. Costs included all hospitalizations for SCCHN and ambulatory care. Costs of hospitalized and non-hospitalized adverse events (AEs) were estimated.

Results: Among 267 patients identified, 85% were men, 44% had metastases at the index date and the mean age was 62.0 years (±9.9). The most common tumor location was oropharynx (29%) but 39% of patients had multiple locations. Median OS was 9.3 (95% CI: 7.9–11.8) months for the overall population. The average total direct cost per patient was €49,954, broken down into €32,908 (95% CI: 29,525–36,290) for hospitalizations and €17,047 (14,941–19,152) for ambulatory care. Main cost drivers were drug acquisition and administration (€14,538) during the treatment period (209?days on average) and palliative care (€3,750) during the EoL period (125?days). Regarding related costs, around 12% of patients received disability pensions (€1,397 per patient [624–2,171]) and sick leave payments (€1,592 [888–2,297]). “Metabolism and nutrition disorders” and “Infections and infestations” were the most expensive hospitalized AEs (€1,513 and €1,180 per patient, respectively). Febrile neutropenia was the most expensive non-hospitalized AE (€766 per patient).

Conclusions: This analysis of real-world data confirms the poor prognosis of patients with R/M SCCHN and provides cost data for future economic evaluations.