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This study uses firm-level data on a large sample of European manufacturing firms to investigate the links between opening up foreign affiliates and firms’ productivity. The analysis is guided by recent theoretical models of international trade with firm heterogeneity. The paper finds that while only a small share of euro area firms locate affiliates abroad, these firms account for over-proportionally large shares of output, employment and profits in their home countries. They have higher survival rates and their productivity growth is also higher. The strongest contribution is by productivity growth of existing firms with a multinational status rather than entry into the multinational status. finally, there are performance premia for multinationals with a large number of affiliates abroad relative to those with a small number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In asking the question, "what can Europe do for itself?" in recovering and rebuilding after World War II, the article presents a conference paper that addresses information from the "General Report of the Committee of European Economic Cooperation." The author summarizes the European position into one: increase production. The author considers whether the goals outlined are attainable and what that will mean, discussing food, coal, electrical power, oil refinement, and steel production.

Abstract: In this paper, we explore whether higher corporate tax rates, because they lower the after‐tax returns to productivity‐enhancing investments, reduce the speed with which small firms converge to the productivity frontier. Using data for 11 European countries, we find evidence that their productivity catch‐up is slower when the statutory corporate tax rates are higher. In contrast, we find that large firms are instead affected by effective marginal rates. Using the reduced‐form model of productivity convergence of Griffith et al. (2009, Journal of Regional Science 49, 689–720), our results are robust to a host of robustness checks and a natural experiment that exploits the 2001 German tax reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper models externalities of production across regional economies. Under the assumption that knowledge diffuses without political or administrative barriers, we derive externalities that affect the steady state and the process of growth of each economy. The empirical counterpart of the reduced form equation summarizing the process of growth allows us to test for the presence of regional spillovers and to measure their magnitude. Our results for a sample of European regions show that spillovers are far from negligible, are robust to the consideration of variables within each region, and may cause nondecreasing returns at the spatial aggregate level. The paper also relates previous empirical evidence on spatial dependence in growth studies to the externalities modeled here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Workforce management (WFM) systems potentially enable the optimisation of the management of the workforce (WF) of a service provider (SP) in order to maximise both service quality and efficiency. Although the extent research literature provides characterizations of the various typologies of WFM systems, the effects of these systems on productivity and quality have not been investigated very extensively. This paper proposes a classification of WFMs that enables an SP to select the most suitable WFM, on the basis of both SP operating characteristics and SP efficiency objectives. The aim of this classification is to offer guidelines to SPs intending to implement a WFM system for the first time in order to improve productivity and quality. A case study of two departments of an important European telecommunications services company is then presented in order to examine the implications of our research for WF management. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Regional Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts (RAMEA) is the Regional version of a ‘National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts’ (NAMEA), an environmental accounting system that combines economic and environmental accounts into a single framework, which is useful for the evaluation and comparison of the integrated economic–environmental–social performance of regions. Presenting the first results of compiling and applying a RAMEA in three European regions: Emilia-Romagna (Italy), Noord-Brabant (the Netherlands) and Małopolska (Poland), this paper analyses the difficulties in achieving internationally comparable regional models. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers some reflections on the convergence of productivity in the United States and Europe, which essentially stopped in the 1990s. It argues that the barriers preventing further convergence in the early 1990s were removed subsequently. But since then trends in productivity growth have been importantly affected by the advent of the New Economy, which poses further challenges for Europe. Without additional reform of European labor markets, financial markets, and university systems, we may be on the eve of another era of persistent divergence. [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]

This study uses firm-level data on a large sample of European manufacturing firms to investigate the links between opening up foreign affiliates and firms’ productivity. The analysis is guided by recent theoretical models of international trade with firm heterogeneity. The paper finds that while only a small share of euro area firms locate affiliates abroad, these firms account for over-proportionally large shares of output, employment and profits in their home countries. They have higher survival rates and their productivity growth is also higher. The strongest contribution is by productivity growth of existing firms with a multinational status rather than entry into the multinational status. Finally, there are performance premia for multinationals with a large number of affiliates abroad relative to those with a small number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deregulation of financial services in the European Union (EU), together with the establishment of the Economic and Monetary Union, aimed at the creation of a level playing-field in the provision of banking services across the EU. The plan was to remove entry barriers and to foster both competition and efficiency in national banking markets. However, one of the effects of the regulatory changes was to spur a trend towards consolidation, resulting in the recent wave of mergers and acquisitions. To investigate the impact of increased consolidation on the competitive conditions of the EU banking markets, we employ both structural (concentration ratios) and non-structural (Panzar-Rosse statistic) concentration measures. Using bank-level balance sheet data for the major EU banking markets, in a period following the introduction of the Single Banking Licence (1997-2003), this paper also investigates the factors that may influence the competitive conditions. Specifically, we control for differences in efficiency estimates, structural conditions and institutional characteristics. The results seem to suggest that the degree of concentration is not necessarily related to the degree of competition. We also find little evidence that more efficient banking systems are also more competitive. The relationship between competition and efficiency is not a straightforward one: increased competition has forced banks to become more efficient but increased efficiency does not seem to be fostering more competitive EU banking systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last 2 decades, Europe's economy experienced a productivity slowdown whereas the United States (US) economy exhibited a marked acceleration. The result is that since the early 1990s the relative productivity levels between the two regions have continuously diverged, leading to a transatlantic productivity gap. Much of the explanation for this is the strong performance of the US in the so-called 'new economy' or 'knowledge economy' and in particular the underinvestment in R&D, and as a result, productivity and innovation has been at the forefront in the European Policy agenda. However, various explanations for the US-European Union transatlantic productivity gap suggest that the picture is rather more complex than simply the effects on, or the result of, particular technology-driven sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper is presented on the general profile of Vetropack Holding AG, a glass manufacturing company in Europe. It explores the strategies adopted by the company which helped it gain its success despite the decline of other glass companies. It tells that the company took over the Nemsova plant in Slovakia in 2002 and developed it through efficient management and application of technology. Moreover, it says that the company had a good strategy, philosophy and knowledge of production.

The article focuses on the development of open-air markets (OAMs) in East-Central Europe. In a communist economy OAMs had an important place in the distribution of goods. Yet they were considered either as remnants of an outdated and unnecessary form of commerce or as a dangerous challenge to the socialized retail sector, as places where profit-making was combined with criminal activity such as speculation, pickpocketing, or the reselling of smuggled and stolen property. As a consequence, OAMs in the communist economy were continually under the threat of police raids or--at best--tolerated as suspicious but irrelevant distortions of the production and distribution system. The collapse of communism in eastern European post-communist countries resulted in an expansion of the numbers and types of OAMs. Street trading appeared in many cities, towns and villages, absorbing a range of social groups. All over Central Europe, people clustered in open-air markets such as sports stadiums in order to buy and sell goods directly. The activity of trading or buying in OAMs became more open, more acceptable and more noticeable in the post-communist period. Now OAMs have become an integral part of the post-communist economies of eastern and Central Europe, just as they were part of the communist economies.

The article highlights the workshop organized to consider problems of the measurement of productivity in historical international comparisons. The workshop was organized as part of the Human Resources Since 1900 Program of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and financial support was provided by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Nuffield Foundation. The workshop focused on Great Britain and on the phenomenon of differential success among European countries in catching up American levels of productivity.

Reports on the geographical expansion of U.S. firms in Western Europe. Location of first manufacturing affiliate classified by period of first establishment or takeover; Attractiveness of countries in Europe for production; Integration of activities in Europe.

As Europe is currently characterized by huge disparities in the economic performance of "old" and "new" states, we investigate whether this is the result of local agglomeration--specialization and diversity--externalities. Our spatial econometric analysis focuses on total factor productivity dy-namics over the period 1996-2007 for 13 industries located in 276 European regions. Consistently with the "nursery cities" theory, we find that diversity exerts a positive effect in the knowledge-intensive services of the "old" Europe urban areas, while specialization is still effective in the "new" Europe low-tech manufacturing. Human and technological capital has also a positive impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

. The authors measure wage discrimination against disabled persons after controlling for unobserved disability-related productivity differences. Using data for 11 European countries from the European Community Household Panel (1995-2001), they estimate wage equations for persons with disabilities hampering them in daily activities, for those not hampered, and for non-disabled people. Most countries showed no relevant wage differential against disabled workers not so hampered, compared with non-disabled workers. Where it existed, it related mainly to low productivity characteristics, not wage discrimination. However, compared with non-disabled workers, disabled workers hampered in daily activities suffered from low productivity characteristics and wage discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of the articles that are published in the December 2002 issue of "International Journal of Urban and Regional Research." The article "Concertation and Local Development," by Angelo Pichierri, examines cooperative modes of regulation of local economies that in Europe increasingly take the form of concertation that is formalized agreement on common goals stated by collective actors with traditionally/potentially contrasting interests. This kind of agreement is increasingly institutionalized; institutionalization being the process through which certain behaviours are steadily promoted, required, even made obligatory, by actors other than those putting them into effect, who demand conformity to their values and beliefs in return for making resources available. Another article "Geographical Proximity and Supplying Relationships in Modular Production," by Vincent Frigant and Yannick Lung, focuses on the changes that are associated with "modular production," whose diffusion has reinforced the need for proximity between auto-makers and parts-makers. The new geographical configurations that have cropped up, especially in the field of assembly operations, are based on spatial contiguity.

Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)