EU accession: Negotiating “environmental dumping”?

“Environmental dumping” is a concern frequently raised in discussions on the potential risks involved in the eastern enlargement of the European Union¹ (EU).² There is a general concern that the Central and Eastern European accession countries may be neither willing nor able to fully apply the EU’s environmental acquis communautaire, the body of Community environmental legislation, once they have joined the EU. As a result, these countries would benefit from a competitive advantage when selling their goods on the Internal Market. This article asks whether, and in which specific cases, such concerns may be justified.     

Chances for Africa’s trade in farm products

African LDCs are hard-hit by the decline in the world’s agricultural trade but there are still fair chances for increasing African farm produce exports. Yet instead of relying on commodity agreements and preferential tariffs, the countries of Africa ought to apply an offensive marketing strategy to certain products and improve trade in their home markets.     

Betriebliche Bündnisse für Besch?ftigung in der Krise 2008/2009 erfolgreich

The favourable employment records of the German economy during the crisis 2008/2009 is related to the pacts for employment and competitiveness concluded at the company level and characterized by concessions from both bargaining partners. In these pacts work councils agree to company-specific deviations from an industry-level contract such as reduced wages in exchange for employment guarantees. In our analysis we use the IAB-Establishment Panel Survey data from the years 2006 to 2010. We find evidence suggesting that companies which adopted these pacts during the crisis reduced the number of employees less since they were more active with respect to specific measures to cope with the crisis.