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This paper presents an empirical investigation on the determinants of workplace accidents across Europe and focuses on the extent to which production-system characteristics (employment sectoral risk, size of firms, temporary contracts), business cycle and socio-economic factors (GDP, level of investments, unemployment, education) and other territorial controls (crime index) might account for cross-country heterogeneity. We use Eurostat data, and our panel is composed of 27 European countries over the period 2010–2018. Implementing different functional forms and estimation methodologies (pooled OLS, panel fixed and random effects models, system-GMM and semiparametric fixed effects model), we find robust evidence that productive-system structural characteristics, business cycle controls and the other territorial variables are effective in explaining European cross-country heterogeneity. Moreover, we find evidence of a nonlinear relationship between GDP and occupational accidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate house price misalignments and how they affect the real economy. We estimate the long-term relationship between house prices and the fundamentals that determine long-term house prices for a panel of European countries with dynamic OLS, using data from 2005–2018. We find that income has been the main driver of fundamental house prices in all countries, while the supply of dwellings has calmed the rise in house prices in some of them. We calculate house price misalignments, which are deviations of house prices from the fundamental value, and we employ them in the growth model. The results of the growth regression indicate that house price imbalances amplify business cycles in the short term, but in the long term house price overvaluations slow economic growth down. The findings imply that it is crucial to take measures to stabilize housing cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a panel of European countries, we analyse paper products, sawnwood and wood panels consumption data. With this object, we use a classical demand model where national consumption depends on real GDP and real prices. In contrast to previous panel estimations in the literature, we highlight non-stationarity time series which can lead to spurious regressions. We explicitly take into account the issue by using recent panel cointegration techniques. Cointegration is present for printing paper and fibreboard, though less clear cut for other products. Then we estimate demand elasticities and find that GDP elasticities are significantly lower than estimates from the literature. Finally, we simulate the implications of modified demand elasticities by using a partial equilibrium model of the forest sector. For most products, changes in elasticities would lead to lower projected demand and lower prices over a 20-year time horizon. Lower demand for solid wood and wood fibre would lead to less tensions with fuel wood- and wood-based chemical markets. In a context of rising interest for renewable bio-based products, updated long-term demand models contribute to the analysis of the forest sector’s sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines empirically the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on economic sentiment in Europe. We focus on the EU-27 countries plus the UK during the period September 2019 to November 2020, before the initiation of Covid-19 vaccination, using data from Eurostat's Business and Consumers Surveys. Panel data estimates indicate that the pandemic has generated strongly declining sentiments among economic agents in Europe through the slowdown of the economy due to the imposed restrictions on movement and other controls. The risk of infection-induced mortality has played a separate role in generating pessimism directly from human psychology. The emergency social protection measures launched by governments have, on average, been effective in reducing market pessimism. However, we provide evidence suggesting that policymakers should focus more on targeted support to poor households and other disadvantaged groups of the population. Overall, our results suggest that certain structural features of economies, including poverty exposure, a large informal sector, and a high percentage of vulnerable employment as well as limited financial and informational openness, are factors that may intensify the severity of the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in Europe by breaking down the factor income components into their sub-components, and aims to further examine whether financial integration and international portfolio diversification boosts or dampens risk sharing. Using a panel of European countries, we compare the years before and after the 2008 financial crisis. We extend the literature by properly taking into account the heterogeneity (in both country and time dimensions) in the panel through new econometric models. Our results show that financial income has become a major channel of risk sharing in recent years and that a higher integration in the bond and equity markets significantly improves risk sharing in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Florida's seminal work on the 'creative class' there is a great deal of interest concerning whether creativity, as an input, is important for regional growth. Answering this question requires developing a production framework that can distinguish creativity from other inputs. With data from Europe, this paper integrates the concept of information and communications technology (ICT) and the creative class into a theoretical production function. Findings reveal that not only is there a positive and interactive relationship between creative workers and ICT, but the combination of creative workers and ICT leads to higher levels of GVA growth. Moreover, creative workers were found to have a larger impact on growth in comparison with traditional human capital measures (i.e. graduates). Thus, findings from this research suggest that the creative class should not only pay attention to socio-economic preferences of individuals, but it must include wider social resources, such as ICT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how the Great Recession affected the gender disparity in material and social deprivation in Europe. We propose multidimensional non-monetary indexes of absolute and relative (i.e. using peer comparisons) deprivations estimated on data from the European Quality of Life Survey for the waves 2007 and 2011. We find that the Great Recession decreased gender disparity over all the dimensions of deprivations. By applying a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, we estimate that this decline of gender gap has depended on a reduction of the difference in characteristics between genders that has more than offset an increase of gender discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The more pronounced job satisfaction among women is generally observed despite their less favorable work situation compared to men. However, regression analysis alone in a sample of non-comparable men and women may be subject to model misspecification. Our work uses an innovative matching procedure, Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM), to address this issue and analyze the reasons for the differential in job satisfaction between men and women with the same characteristics. Data from the Sixth European Working Conditions Survey are considered including five measures of satisfaction with career development prospects taken as a new measure. The results show that women are more satisfied with job security, while they seem less satisfied with their career development prospects. A similar level of satisfaction is observed between men and women with regard to social relations, overall satisfaction and salary. Exceptionally, the youngest women, or those with higher education, or employed at a higher hierarchical level, or working in male-dominated sectors, expressed levels of satisfaction that were the opposite of the other women. This is likely due to the fact that these women align their job expectations with those of their male counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital is supposed to be an important factor for innovation and economic development. However, the long-run impact of human capital on current innovation and economic development is still a black box, in particular at the regional level. Therefore, this paper makes the link between the past and the present. Using a large new dataset on regional human capital and other factors in the 19th and 20th century, we find that past regional human capital is a key factor explaining current regional disparities in innovation and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the degree of involuntariness in the entrepreneurial activity of the dependent solo self-employed, as well as its association with the country's wealth and labour market institutions. Using the unique information available in the 2017 European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) for 29 countries, we can properly identify the dependent solo self-employed and analyse to what extent they behave in accordance with an occupational choice model when making their self-employment decision. For that, we account for the reasons why they enter into self-employment (voluntarily or involuntarily either out of necessity or requested by the former employer). The results indicate that involuntary self-employment, mostly due to being required by previous employer, significantly increases the probability of being dependent solo versus non-dependent self-employed. The wealthiest countries have a lower incidence of this group of workers, mainly if they are involuntary self-employed. Moreover, labour market institutions that decrease the flexibility of paid employment tend to increase the incidence of dependent solo self-employment. These results point to this group of workers being particularly vulnerable with the degree of vulnerability significantly increasing for those self-employed with a lesser degree of occupational choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spectrum auctions have recently experienced increased sophistication in the allocation of multi-band frequencies, with efficiency issues becoming much more complex in such scenarios. This empirical analysis seeks to identify the drivers of auction prices associated with 4G and 5G technologies in seven European countries during the period 2008–2019. This study draws on a purpose-built dataset including auction design, spectrum frequency bands at auction, bandwidth supplied to mobile operators, and characteristics of the market structure. We use panel data techniques to identify the main determinants of European spectrum auction prices in the presence of substitutability and complementarities exhibited by the preferences in multi-band spectrum markets. In this regard, we find that mobile operators pay lower auction prices if there are alternative frequency bands used for previous mobile standards and that operators perceive as substitutes. Furthermore, auction prices are higher in more concentrated markets, when more licenses are auctioned and when the CCA format is used (possibly due to the existence of complementarities). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between international trade and economic growth has been an area of interest to many researchers in recent years. Although the literature is broad with respect to this topic, few studies have focused on the particular effect of cultural exports and imports on economic growth. This study addresses the relationship between trade in cultural goods and economic growth for 31 countries in Europe for the period 2004–2017, through a vector error correction model (VECM). A panel Granger causality test and a system generalized method of moments (GMM) are also utilized in this study. Cultural trade is characterized by exports and imports of cultural goods. The results indicate there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between gross domestic product, total exports, capital formation and labour force. Cultural exports and imports have a positive effect on GDP in the long run. In the short run, there is Granger causality of cultural imports on economic growth, total exports, total imports and capital formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effects of the announcements of ECB asset purchases and of financial stability measures in the euro area in the wake of the global financial crisis and the euro area sovereign debt crisis on 10-year government bond term premia in 11 euro area countries. We find that the term premia of euro area countries with higher sovereign risk, as measured by sovereign CDS spreads, decreased more in response to the announcements of asset purchases and financial stability measures. Term premia of countries with lowest sovereign risk either increased as in Germany, or were not significantly affected or fell slightly, as in the Netherlands and Finland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the new IFRS standards are considered an improvement for financial transparency, derivatives reporting remains subject to criticism by professional observers due to its complexity. Indeed, derivatives reporting could easily be used for earnings management. In this article, we analyse half a dozen earnings management proxies before and after the mandatory adoption of a battery of IFRS standards in 2013 and 2014 by European firms. Among others, IFRS 13 and IFRS 11 featured impactful requirements for the financial reporting of listed companies. Our results show that following the adoption of these standards, earnings management has faded except for firms using derivatives. These results suggest that the 2013–2014 IFRS standards package has improved the accounting quality of European-listed firms but that the flexibility and lack of guidance in the new standards regarding derivatives reporting are used by managers to manage earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the trend and the author name-ordering rule in finance publication using the publication records of 21 core finance journals during the period from 1990 to 2004. We empirically model the underlying factors that affect the alphabetical ordering rule among multi-authored finance articles. We find that the choice of alphabetical ordering is based on the quality of the article, institutional heterogeneity, team size and cultural factors. The central argument rests upon the need to signal and the importance of signalling within the context of bargaining behaviour among coauthors. The probability of choosing alphabetical name ordering rule is associated with high article quality, higher ranked institutions, smaller research team and the presence of European authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines whether or not evidence is consistent with convergence of the Okun's Law coefficient (OLC) among several alternative groupings of European economies. A two-step empirical strategy is employed. The first step obtains rolling regression estimates of the OLC for individual European countries. The second step examines how the cross-country variance of the OLC evolves over the decade until 2002 in the selected country groupings. Evidence is found consistent with convergence of the OLC among northern European countries, and among countries with centralized wage bargaining, but an absence of convergence in other country groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy uncertainty (PU), and sustainability disclosure, influence the performance of the firms. We use European data to extend the nascent literature on sustainability disclosure, and economic policy uncertainty by investigating the moderating impact of sustainability disclosure on the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and firm performance. We find overwhelming evidence that policy uncertainty reduces firm performance; however, sustainability disclosure moderates this destructing impact of policy uncertainty on firm performance. Our results show that environmental and social disclosure by the European firms enhances their reputation and help these firms in reducing the policy-induced uncertainty. A higher governance disclosure representing efficient corporate governance also help European firms to moderate the negative effect of policy uncertainty on their performance. Our results are robust to alternate proxies of firm performance as well as endogeneity issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at assessing whether dualism represents a significant source of the aggregate labour productivity convergence observed across the European regions in the 1980s. We use a model of the dual economy based on the work of Dixit (Oxford Economic Papers, 22, 229-34, 1970), and Mas-Colell and Razin (Oxford Economic Papers, 25, 72-79, 1973) to obtain hypotheses to be tested in cross-region growth regressions. We use aggregate and sectoral data for 109 territorial units from 1980 to 1990. Our cross-section results are consistent with the major predictions of the dual model. Ignoring dualism as a source of convergence could therefore lead to inaccurate interpretations of the relative roles played by each of the forces behind the process, and to inexact assessments of what actions should be taken- if any- by the European regional policy to help the process become more pervasive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the sources of persistent interest rate differentials vis-a-vis Germany that have existed in Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, and the Netherlands. In a target zone system like the ERM, interest rate differentials mainly reflect devaluation expectations, which are measured here by raw 1-month Euromarket interest rate differentials, drift-adjusted 1-month differentials, and differentials in long-term government bond yields. The role of a large set of fundamental macroeconomic variables that may have affected these devaluation expectations is investigated within a vector autoregressive (VAR) setting, by means of Granger-causality tests, impulse-response functions and variance decompositions. We find no evidence that fundamentals are more relevant to drift-adjusted devaluation risk than for unadjusted interest rate differentials. A significant impact of inflation, budget deficits, and unemployment becomes evident for almost all ERM-participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definition of price stability adopted by the ECB has recently been criticized in the literature, particularly for being unable to fully anchor inflation expectations and creating a deflation risk. In the paper empirical evidence is provided against these claims. Despite the unfavourable macroeconomic conditions for the euro area since 2001, monetary policy management has lead to the setting of the policy rate at levels compatible with trend inflation (the long-run inflation forecast) in the range 1–3%, and therefore without affecting negatively the inflation outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past two decades the wage gap between high and low skill labour has increased more in the USA than in many European countries. In this paper, the correspondence between occupation and education is used to construct aggregates of skill supply, skill demand and unemployment by skill group that are comparable across countries. Using individual data for years 1983–1994, it is found that the relative demand for skilled labour has increased to a similar extent in the USA and in Europe and that wage inequality remained low in Europe partly because the European relative supply of skill increased much faster than in the USA, and partly because European relative wages were rigid, which caused an increase in unemployment among the low-skilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper sectoral production functions are estimated with a two digit disaggregation for eight European countries corresponding to the period 1978-1992, distinguishing between internal economies of scale and intersectoral external effects. In order to avoid the possibility that the regressions, carried out by way of panel data techniques, are spurious, the integration order of each variable has been identified using unit root. Similarly, the Hausman procedure has been applied to test the exogeneity of the variables and determine whether the most appropriate estimations should be SUR or three stage least squares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether there has been an improvement in and convergence of productive efficiency across European banking markets since the creation of the Single Internal Market. Using efficiency measures derived from DEA estimation, the determinants of European bank efficiency are evaluated using the Tobit regression model approach. The established literature on modelling the determinants of bank efficiency is then extended by recognizing the problem of the inherent dependency of DEA efficiency scores when used in regression analysis. To overcome the dependency problem, a bootstrapping technique is applied. Overall, the results suggest that since the EU's Single Market Programme there has been a small improvement in bank efficiency levels, although there is little evidence to suggest that these have converged. The results also suggest that inference on the determinants of bank efficiency drawn from non-bootstrapped regression analysis may be biased and misleading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of trade and technology in the European case is assessed. A framework is developed which incorporates employment effects of (i) export expansion (ii) import competition and (iii) labour-saving productivity improvements. In this context, evidence is found for the hypothesis that international trade induces adjustments in technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the impact of employment security on labour demand. The approach taken is to estimate a dynamic labour demand function that allows for the effect of changes in a measure of employment security derived from surveys of employers. The estimation uses panel data on employment (both in terms of the total number of employees and total hours worked) for seven European countries for the period 1981–1994. The results suggest that employment security can have significant effects in slowing down the dynamic adjustment of labour demand. The paper also finds some (less robust) evidence that employment security can increase the long run level of labour demand in terms of total hours, but not the number of persons employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates pricing to market behaviour using data for European auto exports. The empirical analysis uses forward instead of spot exchange rates. Cross-country and cross-product analyses reveal that pricing behaviour depends mainly on the class of product, while the country of origin and destination appears as less important. Furthermore, the data do not usually reject the hypothesis of a symmetric response of export prices to depreciations and appreciations of the exporter's currency. Finally, although the point estimates confirm the combined influence of the business cycle and the direction of the exchange rate movements on pricing to market in most cases, formal tests seldom provide statistical significance for this result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We identify the network structure of spillovers and time-varying spillover intensities across European sovereign credit markets proposing a novel Copula-Granger causality based structural vector auto-regressive (SVAR) approach. Via the proposed framework, we examine the topological and time-varying spillover and contagion between 13 European credit markets, which is found to be consistent with crisis events. The heterogeneity in directional impacts could be useful in revealing contagion effects across the credit markets. We also find that newly proposed surprise and uncertainty indexes, among other macro-economic variables, significantly explain the spillover dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The banking sector and the stock market in Europe have been adversely impacted by a series of global financial crises over the last two decades. Major financial reforms were implemented to enhance the stability and competition within the banking sector. Measures were also implemented to create a vibrant stock market in Europe to stimulate economic growth in Europe. This study examines the interactions between stock market development, banking competition, and banking stability in European countries from 1996 to 2016. The purpose of the study is to understand the inter-linkages between these variables to ascertain the spillover impact of policy reforms in the banking sector on the stock market and vice-versa. Using a vector error-correction model, the study finds long-run and short-run inter-linkages between banking competition, banking stability, and stock market development in European countries. The study's most robust result is that banking competition and banking stability stimulate stock market development in the long run. There is also some evidence that healthy competition in the banking sector and stock market development instils greater stability in the banking sector. The results suggest that policy measures put in place to create a vibrant stock market must include elevating banking competition and banking stability, with policymakers being cognizant that causality may be bidirectional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the relationship between firm's R&D intensity, expressed as R&D expenditure over sales, and investment intensity in tangible assets. It is commonly acknowledged that R&D requires additional physical investment to be implemented. R&D increases a firm's productivity and return to tangible investments, thus, providing to the firm incentives to bear high tangible capital costs and to invest more. This represents a crucial issue for a firm's growth, particularly considering the strong interaction between physical capital accumulation and technological progress. The analysis is based on a large sample of manufacturing firms across seven European countries in the period 2007-2009. Since the sub-sample of firms performing R&D might not be random, there may potentially be an endogeneity issue. The analysis also considers that firms may decide to spend on R&D and investment in physical capital simultaneously. The questions of both endogeneity and simultaneity are dealt with by employing an instrumental variable two-step procedure. We find a positive and significant impact of R&D intensity on firms' tangible investment intensity. The econometric results highlight the importance of financial factors, particularly with respect to firms' internal resources. Exposure to international trade has a negative impact on investment, possibly depending on the time-span of the sample used. Abbreviations: Technological Innovation and R&D; Investment Capital; Industry Studies; Firm Behavior; Empirical Analysis [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the issue of cost efficiency for eight main European railroads in a sample period of 17 years. Measures of technical and allocative efficiency are obtained from a stochastic cost frontier model, with minimal cost described by a translog cost system. In the model, the cost of allocative inefficiency is estimated simultaneously from the shares' errors, whereas technical inefficiency is modelled by a (half normal) positive departure from the cost frontier. Results show a negligible effect of allocative inefficiency on firms' costs, whereas the cost of technical inefficiency appears to be significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a method to estimate separately the size of the expected depreciation in an eventual devaluation of the central parity in the ERM, and the probability assigned by agents to this devaluation occurring in the short run. The proposed method complements the information provided by the jumps observed in market exchange rates around realignments with the information contained in interest rate differentials on the future behaviour of exchange rates. The separation of probability and size allows a richer analysis of the effects of devaluations on exchange rate credibility in the ERM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In past research on the long-run behaviour of exchange rates the possibility of cointegration among spot rates has been rejected. This rejection is surprising as some exchange rates are bound by official agreements to comove over time. The European Monetary System (EMS) is an example of such an officially coordinating system. In this paper we extend past research by focusing on only EMS rates and use potentially more powerful cointegration tests to show that EMS rates are cointegrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the size of government spending multipliers in Europe by applying a panel structural vector autoregression analysis on 11 eurozone and 8 non-eurozone countries using quarterly data from 1991Q1 to 2012Q4. We find that (i) spending multipliers are smaller in eurozone compared to non-eurozone countries, (ii) across the euro area the impact of government spending on GDP has been higher before than after the introduction of the euro, (iii) spending multipliers are larger in the eurozone periphery than in the core countries and (iv) since the beginning of the recent financial crisis, spending multipliers have become larger both for eurozone and for non-eurozone countries. We relate these results to an emerging theoretical literature linking the size of fiscal multipliers to the monetary policy stance. We also discuss the implications of our findings for the effectiveness of fiscal policy in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the deeper integration of the new EU accession states into the Single Market. Building on the assumption that observed trade patterns can be taken to reveal trading costs between members and non-members of a bloc, I develop a model-consistent Dixit-Stiglitz general equilibrium-based calibration technique. Using this, I investigate numerically the effects of the recent EU enlargement, suggesting that deeper integration, which removed the border costs implied by 1990s trade patterns, could raise trade by 50-100% and incomes in the accession states by 10-20%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a Structural VAR analysis on the employment and output effects of labour tax policies in six European countries for the period 1974–1997. By considering impulse response functions, it turns out that, on average, a shock to the total personal income tax revenues is positively correlated to employment, whereas there is mixed evidence on the output effect. Moreover, the quantitative impact of these effects, especially those related to the output, appears to be quite small. However, by introducing explicitly four labour tax parameters (namely the marginal and average tax rates for the personal income tax and the payroll tax), it turns out that these effects are not negligible after all: for some countries it is possible to conceive labour taxes as policy instruments favouring more employment and a better economic performance. However, the empirical support on the sign of the output and employment effects is mixed, suggesting that the same domestic fiscal policy does not produce the same impact in all the European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantifies the contribution of exports to economic growth in Central and East European countries (CEECs) during transition. Two theoretical models are examined: the first is based on an aggregate production function which includes exports as an additional 'input'; while the second is based on a two-sector (exports and non-exports) model where exports provide positive externalities in non-export production. Each model is estimated with both fixed and random effects using panel data. Results show that the random effects model is preferred and that exports have a significant impact on economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the debate on purchasing power parity (PPP) is considered by providing results with disaggregated price data from European countries. The disaggregation of the price data is important because it allows for the consideration of goods that are likely tradable (e.g., fruits) with goods that are not tradable (e.g., hotel rooms). The European focus is important because these results are able to shed light on the effect of the type of exchange rate regime, member of exchange rate mechanism (ERM) or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wages in industrialized countries have risen considerably during the last 50 years, whereas hours worked, for manual workers at least, have decreased only marginally. In Europe, one policy response has been to attempt to protect workers from pressure to work long hours by placing legal restrictions on the amount of hours that may be worked each week. This paper examines the possibility that, in fact, observed hours may be the result of a desire of workers to work longer due to a shift in their preferences from leisure to increased consumption, caused by the huge increase in mass media advertising. A cointegrating VAR framework is used to test this hypothesis on UK time series data for both males and females from 1952 to 1997. Advertising is shown to be positively associated with hours worked for both male and female series. Causality tests indicate unidirectional causality, for males and females, from advertising to hours worked. These results suggest that the European policy response is more likely to restrict employee rather than employer discretion over hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to test for price parity across different species of whitefish in the European Union. Price parity is defined by a system of cointegrated prices and would be evidence of a single European market for whitefish. Whitefish are of interest because EU fishers receive the largest share of their income from these fish species. Notwithstanding the single market policy of the EU, by establishing national and regional associations to stabilize or increase the local price of fish, fishers operate as if the European market is made up of separate submarkets with price being determined largely within each submarket. If whitefish markets were price cointegrated such associations would be largely ineffective. In that case, what are required are regulations that encompass the European market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the long run relationship of real interest rates within a number of economic blocs such as Asia–Pacific, Europe, North America using cointegration analysis and vector error correction models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the nature of the relationship between output and stock prices, and consumption and stock prices, with respect to the different financial structures that exist primarily in the European Union (EU). Evidence is found of a long-run relationship for both relationships, with the exception of Germany and to an extent France, which is argued is due to their bank dominated financial systems. Kalman Filter estimates reveal that both relationships have increased in strength, although little evidence is found of any convergence in the strength of the relationship across the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of military and non-military public expenditures on gross private investment using cointegration and error-correction analysis. The latter type of public spending is disagreggated into expenditures of infrastructure, consumption and other general government expenditures. The empirical evidence from four emerging European countries namely, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain suggests that in some cases public capital spending stimulates investment, while in others it depresses it. Also, the results tentatively indicate that defence spending exerts no influence on private investment, thus adding to the ongoing controversy of the economic effects of military spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of spatial price relationships helps to explain market performance and their degree of integration. Applying only one method of analysis may not be flexible enough to account for the complex interactions of prices in separated markets. This paper complements usual cointegration tests with a description of dynamic features and patterns of causality among price series. The method proposed is applied to study spatial pork and lamb prices relationships within the EU in the period 1988-1995. The results indicate that European markets for both commodities are integrated, not only in the long run but in the short run as well, although the price transmission process is more efficient in the porkmeat industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the effectiveness of the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System (EMS) should be gauged by its impact on the monetary component of real exchange rate variability. Nominal and real shocks are separated using a bivariate structural VAR applied to real exchange rate data of the six original member countries participating in the ERM and a control group consisting of Britain and the United States. The findings suggest that monetary shocks have been an important source of real exchange rate variability and that the ERM has been successful in reducing the incidence of monetary shocks across its member countries prior to the EMS currency crises of 1992-93, while being less successful thereafter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the definition and measurement of efficiency in a public body, specifically railways. The authors argue against commonly used measures such as profit and labour productivity in favour of a production possibility frontier approach. Physical measures of input and output are derived and applied using a variety of methodologies. Results from some of the most popular, such as Data Envelopment Analysis and Corrected Ordinary Least Squares using the Translog function, are shown to be potentially misleading. Two original approaches, one using Uniform efficiency distributions and the other applying Bayesian State Space techniques, are developed and applied but these too are found to be potentially unreliable. Comparison with results from other authors finally lead to the conclusion that accurate measurement of efficiency is not possible, although the research is able to indicate good and bad performers. The final conclusion is that efficiency on the railway is a product primarily of good management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the sources of the observed price disparities in the EEC automobile market. On the basis of an oligopoly model with product differentiation, this paper tests, and fails to reject, the hypothesis that automobile firms segregate national markets in the EEC. It is found that value added tax differentials and the existence of different import restraints (quotas and VERs) are important contributing factors to price disparities. On the contrary, transportation cost differentials are not a significant explanatory variable. Finally, the preference for domestic products or 'national' brands is found as an important contributing factor in Britain and Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the depression in 1975, the world steel industry has been suffering from a serious problem of excess production capacity in terms of both physical capital and manpower. As a consequence there has been a growing recourse, by all countries, to trade restrictionist measures in order to protect their domestic industries from outside competition. The European Economic Community (EEC) has been no exception in this sequence of events as witnessed by the amazing number of trade barriers introduced by member states or by the Community authorities during the past decade.
Although the introduction of such barriers provides an ex-post proof of the existence of a highly price-elastic European import demand for steel products, there exists no recent empirical study which has tried to measure the magnitude of this elasticity. This paper is an attempt in that direction. It develops and estimates an import demand function for iron and steel products from third-party countries to the EEC as a whole.[1] The reason for choosing the EEC as a whole, rather than each member state, lies basically in the absence of reliable price data for individual countries.
The paper is divided into four sections. Section II is dedicated to an overview of the recent empirical literature on the same subject. In Section III a new model for imports of iron and steel products into the EEC is developed. A summary and concluding remarks are contained in Section IV, whilst an Appendix to the paper derives the explicit expression for the price variable which appears in the estimated equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is the aim of the present paper to contribute to this process by reproducing Barro--Pesaran experiment with data from four western European economies: France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Such a study, it is hoped, will determine the extent to which the conclusions reached by the above authors may be confirmed for countries whose political and economic environments differ from those present in the US and the UK.
The choice of the countries in our sample was motivated by the following three factors. (1) The bulk of extant empirical work pertains to US and occasionally to UK data [Barro (1977, 1978) and Pesaran (1982a) use US data while Attfield et al. (1981) estimate a quarterly model for the UK fashioned after Barro's model]. (2) The size of these four countries and the importance to their economies of international trade provide the opportunity to test the contending models in the ease of small open economies. (3) The countries retain the basic complexion of a decentralized capitalist economy. Extension of this research to other countries with different economic and political environment would be desirable.
Before presenting our empirical results, their place within the broader controversy of New Classical vs Keynesian has to be highlighted. Accordingly, the rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II contains a general survey of the issues separating New Classicals from Keynesians. In Section III, the model and the procedures to be followed in our empirical work are laid out, and the relevant empirical findings for the US economy are, briefly, surveyed. Section IV presents our empirical results, and Section V contains the conclusions of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During recent years there has been a growth in the use of assisted reproductive techniques (ARTs) across Europe, America and Australia. This has resulted in debates about whether health insurance should cover this procedure. This study used the closed-ended willingness to pay (WTP) technique to establish the value the infertile place on in vitro fertilization treatment in Scotland. One approach to help inform this debate is to employ economic tools to assess the costs and benefits of the treatment. Costs can then be compared with benefits, and the public provision of the service encouraged or discouraged on the basis of these results. To date, economic evaluations which have attempted to inform the debate about the provision of ARTs have assumed that the only factor that is important is whether users leave the service with a child. One approach that should allow for all such attributes in the economic evaluation is the economic instrument of WTP. This technique is based on the premise that the maximum amount of money an individual is willing to pay for a commodity is an indicator of the value to him/her of that commodity. This paper uses the WTP technique to assess the benefits from ARTs. These benefits are then compared with the costs of providing the treatment. The aim is to show how the application of this specific tool can be of use to policy makers considering the public provision of ARTs.

This paper examines the potential gains in terms of increased social surplus from integrating the power markets in Europe and assesses the scope for free seasonal and diurnal trade in a setting of Third Party Access (TPA). We construct an equilibrium model at the level of the wholesale markets, taking account of the existing power generating infrastructure (of varying flexibility) as well as the existing transmission network interconnecting the countries involved. The model indicates an overall gain from integrating the power markets. Electricity prices are substantially reduced for all regions involved, thus implying a significant redistribution of income from producers to consumers. Trade flourishes with regions establishing themselves as either pure exporters, pure importers or as intermediaries acting as transit countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]