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492. Does intangible capital affect economic growth?
- Author:
- Felix Roth and Anna-Elisabeth Thum
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- Using new international comparable data on intangible capital investment by business within a panel analysis from 1995-2005 in an EU-15 country sample, we detect a positive and significant relationship between intangible capital investment by business and labour productivity growth. This relationship is cross-sectional in nature and proves to be robust to a range of alterations. Our empirical analysis confirms previous findings that the inclusion of business intangible capital investment into the asset boundary of the national accounting framework increases the rate of change of output per worker more rapidly. In addition, intangible capital is able to explain a significant portion of the unexplained international variance in labour productivity growth and when incorporating business intangibles, capital deepening becomes an even more significant source of growth. The relationship is slightly stronger in the time period 1995-2000 and seems to be driven by the coordinated countries within the EU-15.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, Monetary Policy, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Europe
493. Do the European Union's bilateral investment treaties matter?
- Author:
- Selen Sarisoy Guerin
- Publication Date:
- 07-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- Several policy-relevant issues regarding the EU's bilateral investment treaties (BITS) are addressed in this paper. First and foremost, we explore the question of whether EU's BITs have a significantly positive impact on outflows or not. Second, we ask the question which member states and which BIT partners have had a significant experience after the implementation of the BIT. In our sample we find that both OECD BITs and EU BITs have a statistically significant and positive impact on FDI outflows. This result is robust to the inclusion of variables such as privatisation proceeds that control for the level of economic reform, the level of trade linkages, the level of democratic freedom and a measure of risk of expropriation among other standard controls. We control for endogeneity in our estimations by using the fixed-effects estimator as our preferred estimator on a large panel dataset. We also test the strict exogeneity of our results by using a method suggested by Baier and Bergstrand (2007) and we find no feedback effect in our sample.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Monetary Policy, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Europe
494. The financial crisis and citizen trust in the European Central Bank
- Author:
- Daniel Gros and Felix Roth
- Publication Date:
- 07-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- Trust in the ECB, as measured by the standard Eurobarometer (and other) surveys has fallen to an unprecedented low – especially in the larger euro area countries. The authors find that up to the start of the recession in 2008, trust in the ECB was little affected by business cycle variables such as growth and inflation. This changed radically with the recession, with trust in the ECB becoming correlated quite closely with growth. However, even the recovery of growth in 2009 was not sufficient to restore trust in the ECB to previous levels. This finding implies that European citizens seem to have placed a heavy share of the blame on the European Central Bank for the real economic downturn caused by the financial crisis.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
495. Eve C. Landau and Yves Beigbeder. From ILO Standards to EU Law: The Case of Equality between Men and Women at Work
- Author:
- Nellie Munin
- Publication Date:
- 02-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Since its establishment in 1957, the European Union or, to be more precise, the European Economic Community was motivated by the vision of a single market, where the peoples of Europe would be able to conduct economic transactions without suffering from barriers to trade. EU law, EU legislation, and its interpretation by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) are aimed at promoting the single market vision, based on the four freedoms, one of which is the free movement of persons. These legally-established freedoms aim at removing obstacles to trade. Obstacles to the free movement of persons may include direct or indirect discrimination of employees at work. Discrimination may be based on grounds of religion, race, or sex. This book concentrates on the last.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
496. Italian Armed Forces under Pressure
- Author:
- Valerio Briani
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- The Italian defence budget is decreasing again. According to an analysis produced by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), in 2010 Italy will spend around €17,6 billion, or 1.13 percent of GDP, for defence. More worryingly, the budget is seriously unbalanced; personnel costs still gobbles up over 65% of the funds available for the Defence Function, while lack of resources will prevent troops recruiting (thus deepening the unbalance between troops and officers). Funding for the education and training of personnel, and equipment maintenance and support, is also decreasing. If the political and military leadership will not deal with this situation, the country runs the risk of having a military instrument that is unable to perform its duties fully.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Italy
497. The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Euro-Mediterranean Relations
- Author:
- Maria Cristina Paciello
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The International Spectator
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- The ongoing global financial and economic crisis, which initially emerged in North America and Europe, has increasingly spread to emerging and developing countries, including the Southern Mediterranean. The global economic crisis could pose, and is posing, a number of challenges to Euro-Mediterranean relations. On the political front, it has contributed to further undermining the political reform agenda included in the Barcelona Process and the European Neighbourhood Policy. On the economic front, the crisis is jeopardising trade integration in the Euro-Mediterranean area and could slow down the pace of economic reforms supported by the European Union in Southern Mediterranean countries.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and North America
498. Making Choices: Prospects for a Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement.
- Author:
- Joseph Blomeley
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Woodrow Wilson School Journal of Public and International Affairs
- Institution:
- Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
- Abstract:
- With a population of over 500 million, the European Union (EU) is Canada's second-largest trading partner. In 2006, two-way merchandise trade between Canada and the EU was approximately $78 billion and two-way investment reached $263 billion. While these figures are far from marginal, they pale in comparison to the $626 billion in two-way merchandise trade and $497 billion in two-way investment with the United States. In light of these numbers, analysts have argued that there is room for improvement in the economic relationship between Canada and the EU. They believe that the relationship has been significantly under-traded and under-valued. In an attempt to bolster this claim, a Canada-EU Joint Trade Study commissioned by the European Commission and the Government of Canada (GoC) recently noted that Canada is the EU's 11th-largest merchandise trading partner, with only 1.8 percent of external EU trade in this category (GoC, 2008). In light of the financial crisis in the United States, discussions to revive talks of a Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) have begun to garner attention.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Canada
499. Learning from Dependency and World System Theory : Explaining Europe's Failure in the 'Lisbon Process'
- Author:
- Almas Heshmati and Arno Tausch
- Publication Date:
- 11-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
- Institution:
- Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
- Abstract:
- The current paper investigates the cross-national relevance of Latin American 'dependencia theory' for five dimensions of development (democracy and human rights, environment, human development and basic human needs satisfaction, gender justice, redistribution, growth and employment) on a global scale and tries to confront the very basic pro-globalist assumptions of the 'Lisbon process', the predecessor of the ongoing EU-2020 strategy, which was the policy target of the European leaders since the EU's Lisbon Council meeting in March 2000 to make Europe the leading knowledge-based economy in the world with a 'Latin American perspective'. A realistic and politically useful analysis of the 'Lisbon process' has to be a 'Schumpeterian' approach. First, we analyze the 'Lisbon performance' of the world economy by multivariate, quantitative means, looking into the possible contradictions that might exists between the dependent insertion into the global economy and other goals of the 'Lisbon process'. Dependency from the large, transnational corporations, as correctly predicted by Latin American social science of the 1960s and 1970s, emerges as one of the most serious development blockades, confronting Europe. Secondly, we analyze European regional performance since the 1990s in order to know whether growth and development in Europe spread evenly among the different regions of the continent. It emerges that dependency from the large transnational corporations is incompatible with a balanced, regional development. Finally, we discuss cross-national and historical lessons learned from the views of dependency and Schumpeterian perspectives for current policy-making in Europe, and opt for an industrial policy approach in the tradition of former EU-Commission President (1985-1995) Jacques Delors.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Latin America
500. European and Asian regionalism: Form and function
- Author:
- Philomena Murray and Nicholas Rees
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Politics
- Institution:
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Abstract:
- In investigating the relationship of the European Union (EU) and the East Asian region, and the comparisons of these two regions, this special issue on European and Asian Regionalism: Function and Form brings together a collection of articles that contributes to an understanding of these regions – and regional bodies – in an interdisciplinary and comprehensive manner. They contribute to our understanding of the EU as a political, economic! and security actor with civil society dimensions, and a clear regional integration agenda and that agenda's influence on East Asia. They further deepen our understanding of East Asian developments in regionalism. Much more than a simple examination of EU–Asia relations, this special edition critically examines the proposal that the EU may constitute a paradigm for East Asian regionalism. Among other things, it looks at EU–Asia links in the Asia Europe Meetings (ASEM) and role of formal and informal integration and networks within the East Asian region; the new wave of regionalism in Asia in the aftermath of the Asian Currency Crisis of 1997–1998; and the role of institutions and of state and non-state actors.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Asia