Search

The fear of falling behind has been a driving force of European integration. Historically, Europe's response to the looming angst of declining competitiveness has been more market-creation, not market-direction. Recently, however, Europe has – in the name of safeguarding Europe's technological sovereignty – taken on a much more active role in directing economic activity towards sectors and technologies deemed geopolitically or geoeconomically important. In this paper, we attempt to explain this 'geo-dirigiste' turn. We reconstruct the evolution of EU industrial policy through the lens of Europe's fear of falling behind, drawing not only on primary (including archival) and secondary sources, but also on original interviews and deep transfer learning applied to an original dataset of 66.548 documents. Focusing on Europe's changing technological and geopolitical context, its coalitional underpinnings, and the role of ideational politics, we document and explain the historic shift away from market-creation and towards supranational market-direction in EU industrial policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization has altered the appeal of each region to host economic activities. As firms are pushed to be more competitive, they develop outsourcing and relocation strategies, displacing some production activities to new emplacements. These changes have important impacts in some regions and are modifying the economic geography of Europe. This paper aims to present the impact that outsourcing and relocation strategies have across European regions and industries as well as to determine some of the characteristics of the more affected regions most affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poland is a country with one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe. Many researchers have attempted to explain the reasons for this state of affairs. In the literature, the situation on the labour market is considered to be one of the determinants of low fertility -- difficulty in finding work, job insecurity, and the high expectations of employers vis-a-vis employees. Young people often postpone their decision to become parents in order to receive a better education, find a job, and establish their position on the labour market. Studies on the impact of economic activity on reproductive behaviours have produced ambiguous results, depending on the country. Differentiation is related to the situation on the labour market (employment, wages), institutional support, and the division of roles within the family. In countries with high wages (e.g. Denmark), the unemployment of one parent does not have to limit fertility. In countries with relatively low-wages, the effects of unemployment may contribute to the postponement of parenthood (e.g. Spain). The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the economic activity of both partners on the chance of having a first child in Poland. The analysis covers the socio-economic characteristics of both partners, such as place of residence, type of relationship, type of household, woman's age, partner's education level, and religiosity. The following hypotheses are tested: (1) the employment of both partners increases the chance of having a first child; and (2) the unemployment of one of the partners decreases the chance of having a first child. To verify these hypotheses, the random effect logit model was used. The data originate from the Social Diagnosis 2003-2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regeneration of brownfields gradually becomes an important challenge for regional and local development across the East-Central European countries. Due to the recent huge economic transition and global societal changes thousands of abandoned sites (brownfields) sprang up across the landscape after various economic activities, the Czech Republic included. This paper evaluates the perception of brownfields along with their individual reuse options by local population in one of the city districts of Ostrava which was heavily influenced by industrialisation during the last 150 years (Svinov city district, city of Ostrava, eastern part of the Czech Republic). The first part of the paper is devoted to brief theoretical aspects of brownfields regeneration and its perception. The second part of the paper presents us with the results of the questionnaire survey which was carried out among local population of Svinov (n=163) focusing on the perception of five selected local brownfield sites. It was found out that the issue of brownfields rouses huge discussions among public of the model area of Svinov. Among the most supported re-use options of local brownfields greenery and cultural facilities were identified. Brownfield sites located outside the settled area of the city quarter are almost disregarded while the re-use of centrally located sites for greenery is strongly supported. In the final part of the paper, the findings are synthesized and recommendations for public administration and potential investors are formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to empirically examine if the causal relationship between economic activity and stock market development exists in the selected 11 EA countries. The existence of relationship is investigated with the use of cointegration, vector error correction model and Granger causality during three sub-periods between January 1993 and January 2017. The results show that the general conclusion on the relation between activity and stock market development cannot be stated and that country-specific development should be taken into account when making decisions either from the investors' or policy makers' perspective. It also seems that the level of integration plays important role when studying the nature of relationship between variables during different time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent decades have been dominated by discourses describing a resurgence of regions. Yet despite its prominence the region remains a largely Delphian concept. In the period of new regionalist orthodoxy, for example, while it was recognized that regions take various forms, the normative claim that we were living in a ‘regional world’ became narrowly focused on regions as subnational political units. Nevertheless, the emergence of city-regions, cross-border regions, and European Metropolitan Regions is leading some scholars to suggest the formation in this century of a brave new ‘regional world’. With economic, social and political activity increasingly orchestrated through regional spaces that cross-cut the territorial map that prevailed through much of the twentieth century, the literature is adorned with accounts advancing the theoretical and policy rationale for relational approaches to regions and regionalism. Yet far less has been written on the struggle to construct these spaces politically, thereby neglecting questions of territory and territorial politics. With this in mind, our paper draws on the experience of Germany to consider the political struggle to overcome the contradictions, overlaps, and competing tendencies that result from new regional spaces appearing alongside, rather than replacing, existing forms of state scalar organization. In particular, we observe how the Federal State is using the ambiguity of the regional concept to present territorial and relational approaches as complementary alternatives. The paper concludes by relating these findings to ongoing debates on how we, as ‘regional’ researchers, should approach the analysis of regions and regionalism; speculates on the degree to which they form progressive and effective spatial policies; and asks what lessons can be learnt about contemporary state spatiality more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the endogenous development ( ED) approach has gained influence within the rhetoric of European rural development policies ( RP). This paper provides a fundamental critique of the approach and shows that neither the economic elements of RP in general nor ED in particular are targeted towards the specific economic needs and capabilities of rural areas. The second part of this paper consists of the search for possible alternative concepts for a more targeted and effective RP. Based on a synopsis of existing theories, an integrated approach is proposed that builds upon the different coordination mechanisms for economic activity suggested by different theories. The new, integrated perspective enables an economic characterisation of rural areas and indicates that the successful support of local coordination of economic activity is determined by specific local conditions. It also makes evident that localised approaches usually cannot compensate rural areas for the lack of agglomeration advantages. Therefore, programmes for the economic development of rural areas which support the local coordination of economic activity remain a second-best policy. As such, they do not free the state from policies of spatial redistribution if the political aim is the creation of comparable living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the main geo-economic and geo-political inter-dependencies which are structuring Europe’s relations with the wider world and how various European and European Union (EU) policy frameworks work to create relations of increasing yet uneven inter-dependency between Europe and that wider world. The paper begins with an examination of the economic and financial crisis and its role in transmitting crisis across inter-dependent space, and the consequences for political and urban struggles across Europe and beyond. This is followed by discussion of the entanglement of Europe with the forces which gave rise to the so-called “Arab Spring” in North Africa and the Middle East. The paper then turns to a discussion of the relocation of economic activity outside of Europe to “emerging economies”, of geographical shifts within Europe of elements of value chains in order to cope with increasing competitive pressures from other parts of the global economy by reducing labour costs but ensuring proximity to the main EU markets, and the emergence of new economic players with their origins in emerging economies within European value chains. The paper concludes with a consideration of the primary geo-economic and geo-political dimensions structuring Europe’s urban and regional inter-dependencies with the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes the framework of the ‘economics of proximity’ to distinguish between territory-based and agent-based proximity approaches in dealing with the dynamic interaction between changes in the organisation of production on the one hand and the role of territory on the other. The paper sets out to determine which of these approaches works best to explain the main changes carried out in the most recent configuration of value chain in the European automotive industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the crisis of socialism, Afro-Marxist states have introduced considerable changes simultaneously with Eastern Europe and the USSR. Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia have now in principle adopted multiparty political systems in addition to implementing a variety of economic liberalisation measures. However, unlike in Eastern Europe and the USSR (after the failed coup), the goal of economic liberalisation in Afro-Marxist states is, according to various official indications, a mixed economy and not a fully fledged market system. Why the responses of Afro-Marxist states to the socialist crisis are different from those of Eastern Europe and the USSR, how these responses are likely to affect their development processes and what their indications are to the future of socialism in the African continent have not yet been studied. This paper is intended to provide a preliminary assessment of change in these countries in order to stimulate further study. The paper is divided into two parts. The first outlines critical political and social dimensions of the crisis of socialism in general, and of Afro-Marxism in particular. The second briefly sketches the initial responses of the Afro-Marxist states to the socialist crisis and analyses the potential implications of such change to their economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of dynamic processes of creative economy development and resistance to the crisis of modern creative industries which occurs mainly in metropolitan areas, the interest in understanding these local processes as a factor of bringing international trade competitiveness and providing convergence among the countries where those metropolises are situated is of great value. The EU, and Central and East Europe (CEE) in particular, is not an exception. This paper reveals the most productive creative industries in the EU; fins out the impact of metropolises' creative activities development on countries' international specialization. Perspective products' and geographic patterns relating creative products' international specialization for CEE countries, especially for those which have recently signed association agreements with the EU (Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia as an important East Neighbour for the EU) are grounded. Using inter- and intra-trading estimations, the positioning of CEE countries in the EU 28(+3) international specialization pattern is indicated. The product specialization of metropolises in CEE countries which may (or may not) contribute to further internationalization of creative industries in these countries has been revealed in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 15 years, empirical evidence has emerged about the fact that European first-rank cities have not always led national economic performance, and when they did, the difference between first- and second-rank cities in explaining national growth has not been significant. A recent work [Dijkstra, L., Garcilazo, E. & McCann, P. (2013) The economic performance of European cities and city regions: Myths and realities, European Planning Studies,21(3), pp. 334–354] claims that second-rank cities have in fact outperformed first-rank cities, becoming the main driving forces in national economic performance. In the debate that emphasizes the role of second-rank cities in national growth, a simplified view of the role of agglomeration economies is provided; they are taken for granted in small- and medium-sized cities and only in large cities will the problem of a downturn in urban returns to scale emerge. In this paper, a more complex view is assumed, claiming that the oversimplified interpretation that urban economic performance simply depends on the exploitation of agglomeration economies and that these agglomeration economies merely depend on urban size alone should be abandoned. Some already existing theoretical frameworks in urban economics can help in recalling the role of possible bifurcations in the development path of cities, linked to the capability to attract or develop new and higher-order functions, increase internal efficiency and reach scale economies through cooperation networks with other cities (the city-network theory). All these elements work as conditions for fully exploiting agglomeration economies and ways to overcome urban decreasing returns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the yield spread determinants for a sample of European markets in the light of the recent financial crisis. It utilises findings from two different strands in the literature: findings on bond spread determinants and findings on the effect of investor sentiment on equity returns. Design/methodology/approach – The explanatory variables in the regression models proxy not only for economic fundamentals (e.g. economic activity, default risk, liquidity risk, general market conditions) but also for investor sentiment. A vector autoregressive approach is employed. Findings – The results indicate that fundamental variables are significant for the determination of the level of yield spreads, as suggested by previous studies. Local and international investor sentiment, however, both current and past, is also a statistically significant determinant for both the level and monthly changes of yield, especially during the crisis period 2007-2011. Research limitations/implications – The implication of this finding is significant for all parties involved: government officials, private lenders, EU/ECB/IMF officials, and market participants. Practical implications – Focusing solely on quantitative economic performance indicators may not have the desirable effect of reducing borrowing rates and facilitating the return to economic stability. Perhaps, reassuring and/or sending strong qualitative signals to financial markets may be as important. Involved agents may have to address not only technical financial issues but also the perception that market participants have about the proposed solutions to the crisis and eventually affect market sentiment. Originality/value – The issue of the effect of investor sentiment on government yield spreads during a crisis has not been investigated before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the change in Energy Intensity (EI) of the main economic activities in the EU15 countries, which represents approximately 45% of their final energy consumption. The purpose is, first, to measure the different patterns between the countries by establishing differentiated typologies, and second, to investigate those reasons that explain the different trends by country. To attain our objective, the changes in EI are decomposed into their structural and efficiency components for EU15 countries for the period 1991-2005. Results reveal four different typologies for this set of countries, and show the importance of identifying those economic activities which, due to their special impact, are key to reducing energy consumption. The changes in the structural component are due mainly to a transformative process in which the importance of industry in the economy as a whole drops, while the opposite holds for services. However, the changes in the efficiency component do not seem to be linked to this same process. It does not appear as though the services sector resulted in a more efficient use of final energy. We have detected significant evidence of convergence for EI in the service sector that would help to understand the recent worsen evolution of EI in this sector (and in overall EI) of Southern European countries. It can also be concluded that an analysis of global EI change without distinguishing among its components can result in misleading conclusions and in improperly conceived Energy Policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The European Alps are one region of the world where climate-driven changes are already perceptible, as exemplified by the general retreat of mountain glaciers over past decades. Temperatures have risen by up to 2°C since 1900 particularly at high elevations, a rate that is roughly three times the global-average 20th century warming. Regional climate models suggest that by 2100, winters in Switzerland may warm by 3–5°C and summers by 6–7°C according to greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios, while precipitation is projected to increase in winter and sharply decrease in summer. The impacts of these levels of climatic change will affect both the natural environment and a number of economic activities. Alpine glaciers may lose between 50% and 90% of their current volume and the average snowline will rise by 150m for each degree of warming. Hydrological systems will respond in quantity and seasonality to changing precipitation patterns and to the timing of snow-melt in the Alps, with a greater risk of flooding during the spring and droughts in summer and fall. The direct and indirect impacts of a warming climate will affect key economic sectors such as tourism, hydropower, agriculture and the insurance industry that will be confronted to more frequent natural disasters. This paper will thus provide an overview of the current state of knowledge on climatic change and its impacts on the Alpine world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the neighboring effects of Internet adoption as measured by the percentage of firms with their own website in the European regions. This is the first study that explicitly analyzes the role played by spatial effects to explain website adoption for the European case. A set of instruments and techniques commonly used in the spatial econometrics framework is employed to test the hypothesis that proximity matters when explaining Internet adoption by firms. Results show that firms in physically adjacent regions register a similar degree of Internet adoption, confirming the presence in this context of positive spatial dependence. Nevertheless, the spatial effects detected are mainly constrained by national borders. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, population density, sectoral composition, and education are positively related to geographic distribution of Internet adoption in the enlarged European Union. In addition, regional disparities in Internet adoption were found to be less important than territorial inequalities in GDP per capita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the Knowledge-based Economy spatial distribution across the European Union (EU) regions (NUTS II), linking recent research approaches on innovation and structural change with approaches to regional economics. As a means of conducting this research, we classify economic activities according to six sectors based on their knowledge/technology intensity. Our results show that the higher the knowledge/technology content of the economic activity, the higher the concentration level of the activity. We find that some service activities (those considered knowledge intensive) have similar concentration levels to those operating in high or medium tech manufacturing. With regard to specialization, the most outstanding result is the strong presence of high and medium knowledge intensive service activities in metropolitan/capital regions. In general, our results reinforce the notion that an oligocentric model persists in Europe, with the southern German regions leading high and medium tech manufacturing, the south-east of England leading in high knowledge-intensive services, and with the mid-core model exemplified by the European metropolitan archipelago (particularly capital cities) in both northern and southern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As economic activity becomes increasingly globalized, partly by means of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), one of the key expectations of European policy-makers was that businesses in rural regions, and particularly in peripheral rural regions, would overcome some of the disadvantages of their locational contexts, and become more effective participants in larger market areas. This paper examines the reality of ICT exploitation by rural business across Europe, based on a survey of 600 enterprises in 12 regions located in Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Spain, Greece and Finland. Not surprisingly, a range of outcomes has been identified in terms of telecommunications infrastructure and ICT usage, which reflect considerable differences in access to reasonably priced broadband telecommunications, awareness of how the technologies can be exploited, and in levels of skills to translate that exploitation into a means of competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an alternative approach to analyzing decoupling between municipal solid waste and economic activity production. The methodology consists of generalizing the functional form of the statistical model of the environmental Kuznets curve. To avoid the limitation of one single alternative hypothesis, we developed a small set of alternatives based on the signs and statistical significance of estimates. We tested the model for all available categories of municipal solid waste in Italian provinces. The necessity of developing an alternative approach resulted from inconsistencies in past studies within the same policy context. Conclusions from similar statistical approaches and models provided contradictory findings for Europe and other regions. The results of our approach suggest that there is no linear correlation between economic activity and municipal solid waste, nor are they (yet) decoupled from economic activity: GDP per capita affects MSW production differently in each province, which is reflected through differences in spatial correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bridging the broadband digital divide between urban and rural areas in Europe is one of the main targets of the Digital Agenda for Europe. Though many technological options are proposed in literature, satellite communication has been identified as the only possible solution for the most rural areas, due to its global coverage. However, deploying an end-to-end satellite solution might, in some cases, not be cost-effective. The aim of this study is to give insights into the economic effectiveness of integrating satellite communications into 4G networks in order to connect the most rural areas (also referred to as white areas) in Europe. To this end, this paper proposes a converged solution that combines satellite communication as a backhaul network with 4G as a fronthaul network to bring enhanced broadband connectivity to European rural areas, along with a techno-economic model to analyse the economic viability of this integration. The model is based on a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model for 5 years, taking into account both capital and operational expenditures, and aims to calculate the TCO as well as the Average Cost Per User (ACPU) for the studied scenarios. We evaluate the suggested model by simulating a hypothetical use case for two scenarios. The first scenario is based on a radio access network connecting to the 4G core network via a satellite link. Results for this scenario show high operational costs. In order to reduce these costs, we propose a second scenario, consisting of caching the popular content on the edge to reduce the traffic carried over the satellite link. This scenario demonstrates a significant operational cost decrease (more than 60%), which also means a significant ACPU decrease. We evaluate the robustness of the results by simulating for a range of population densities, hereby also providing an indication of the economic viability of our proposed solution across a wider range of areas. • Bridging the broadband digital divide in Europe becomes economically viable thanks to integrating satellite into 4G networks. • Results from this techno-economic model shows Average Cost Per User of 12–155 euro, depending on the bitrate per user. • Caching popular content on the edge saves more than 60% of the operational costs of the satellite-4G solution. • Caching popular content on the edge reduces the required ACPU to 6–66 euro depending on the bitrate per user. • Sensitivity analysis on population density and caching rate provides insights into the most cost-effective solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of the Western world has drawn on theoretical structures of classical and neoclassical liberalism for its explanatory support and sources of inspiration for centuries. Against this ideological background, institutionalists aim at showing that growth is a process of transformation, a double change: an economic and an institutional one. In this analysis, our purpose is to highlight the importance of informal institutional arrangements and their quality in explaining the disparities of revenues and developments between countries. In our approach, we will consider several indicators meant to highlight various aspects of research. The approach proposed is a transversal-comparative one and static methods pertain to uni- and multivariate analysis. The results obtained suggest the existence of major differences within the Central and East European area as far as informal institutions are concerned; moreover, the analysis conducted confirms the existence of a significant relation between the level of development and the structure of informal arrangements such as: trust level, bribe culture and corruption control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]