Search

In general, the economic performance of European countries was disappointing in the 1990s. However, country differences increased, and in some European countries economic growth matched US rates. This paper uses a set of performance indicators to carve out a group of successful European countries and to compare their economic strategies to those of the more poorly performing, big continental economies. The analysis shows that the successful countries implemented a policy mixture of cost cutting, improving institutions, and investing in future growth. We consider the first two strategy elements to be preconditions, while investment in growth drivers such as research, education and technology diffusion is the sufficient condition for long-run growth. The difference between top and low performers is larger with respect to the dynamics of future investment than in cost cutting. In research expenditures, the top countries surpassed the big continental European countries in 1987, and have been increasing their lead steadily since that time. They are welfare states with a comprehensive social net, which they have maintained in principle, while improving institutions and incentive structures. The results are not in line with the usual twin hypotheses that high welfare costs and insufficient labour market flexibility are the main culprits in European underperformance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship is recognized as one of the factors stimulating economic growth and increasing economic competitiveness. In addition, the Europe 2020 Strategy has focused its attention on entrepreneurship as a key factor of economic growth, social progress, and employment. In this context, our study examines the role of entrepreneurial performance for sustaining the development of countries, focusing on a sample of European countries. We attempt to reveal if increasing entrepreneurial performance would have significant influence on improving the economic position of countries and their future economic development. Starting from the OECD-Eurostat Entrepreneurship Indicators Programme we use a set of entrepreneurial performance indicators as independent variables and examine to what extent they can influence competitiveness and economic growth, seen as dependent variables of the models. We focus on a period of 10 years (2008–2017) and we apply panel-data estimation techniques. Because the period considered includes the period of the last international financial crisis, we also include in our analysis a dummy variable. Our results emphasize that the changes in entrepreneurial performance play a significant role in enhancing national competitiveness and economic growth. Our findings contribute to the expansion of literature in the field by providing evidence on the correlation of indicators that measure entrepreneurial performance with national competitiveness and economic growth. Moreover, our findings point out the need of the policy makers to adopt measures and policies that help and stimulate entrepreneurs to become more performant because they can generate positive effects to the economy as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have approached this paper with the idea of helping to predict the likely effects of the accession of the CEEC's on trade patterns in the enlarged EU and how the trade structure will affect growth. To this end, we examine the factors that account for the major changes that have taken place in trade flows since the CEEC's began their processes of transition and economic opening-up within the framework of the European Association Agreements. Specifically, our purpose is to find evidence that help us to foresee whether the accession of the CEEC's will involve not only increased trading with the new partners -attributable to the effects of trade creation and deviation, acknowledged on a general basis in the literature on the Regional Integration Agreements- but also a geographical restructuring of the trade flows between the members of the area. Due attention has not been attached until recently to this latter aspect in the context of the new geography and trade models, although it is of equal importance. In this respect, it is of particular interest to us to examine whether -as has been postulated in some papers- the integration of the CEEC's may lead to a concentration of the multinationals in these countries with a view to using them as a "exporting platform" in detriment to the exporting possibilities of the current members of the EU, and particularly of the Southern European member states, which have a more similar production and trading capacity to the candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]