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The aim of the paper is to investigate if the Western Balkan countries converge towards the new Member States of the European Union, the EU-13. The analysis is focused on beta convergence, defined as a tendency of poor countries to grow faster than rich countries. The analysed period is 2004-2017, with two sub-periods; 2004-2008 and 2009-2013. The subdivision is made in order to test the research hypotheses that the recent financial crisis negatively affected the absolute and conditional convergence process of the Western Balkans towards the EU-13. The relationships between per capita GDP growth rate and selected macroeconomic variables are econometrically tested and the empirical results support the convergence hypothesis. The convergence rates range 1.3%-3.6%. The negative effects of the crisis on convergence are not confirmed, i.e., the convergence rates during the crisis period are the highest among the analysed periods. The poorer countries should open their economies and maintain stable inflation and debt, as economic openness and inflation have a positive impact on per capita growth in the analysed countries, while general government debt has a negative impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regions within the European Union differ substantially not only with respect to per capita GDP, but also with respect to income inequality within the regions. This paper studies the effects of different types of technology-oriented cohesion policies, aiming at the reduction of regional differences, on the convergence of regions and the dynamics of income inequality within regions. In particular, policies are analyzed using a two-region agent-based macroeconomic model – the Eurace@Unibi model – where firms in the lagging region receive subsidies for investment in physical capital. It is demonstrated that the short-, medium- and long-term effects of the policies on per-capita output and between- as well as within-regional inequality differ substantially. Effects depend on how successful the policy is in incentivizing firms to choose best available capital vintages and on how flexible labor markets are in the targeted region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the current issues of the development of European economic integration in terms of the level of governance in Member States of the European Union. The differences in the level of governance impact the countries' ability to act as a whole and to achieve convergence. This article is devoted to the analysis of governance in the EU. First, the status of governance of Member States was evaluated; then, we examined whether there has been a reduction in the disparity since the 2004 EU enlargement. We have also summarized the existing heterogeneity in EU indicators and the basic data concerning economic, political and social variables as part of the governance. In the second part, the analysis of the results was carried out. The main task of this chapter was to closely examine how homogenous/heterogenous Member States are. Finally, the actual status of the level of governance of the EU was explained in the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The former Post-communist countries faced after the change of their regimes with an unexpectedly high unemployment. The Visegrad four countries (V4) joined the European Union in 2004 and especially Slovakia and Poland were hit with high unemployment in this time. To the most important aim of the EU members belongs the convergence of EU economies. The sigma convergence of the unemployment rate (UR) calculated in the paper through the coefficient of variation proves a strong convergence of the UR till the beginning of economic crisis. Unfortunately, the crisis started the divergence of UR. In 2000 the coefficient of variation was as high as 53.1% for UR. Due to the decline of UR especially in "new" Member States, including the V4 countries, the variability of unemployment degreased steadily till 2008 when the CV dropped to 26.9% Unfortunately the crisis caused an increase of UR and so was it also with the coefficient of variation. The variability of the UR in 2016 stood at 52% which means a divergence of the UR. Strong economic growth was reflected in reduction of UR from 18.9% to 9.7% between 2000 and 2016 in Slovakia, while in Poland in the same time span the UR dropped from 16.1% to 6.2%. The divergence process of UR in the EU after 2008 was mainly caused by an extremely high increase of unemployment in Greece, Spain or Cyprus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to analyze economic convergence of the Western Balkan countries towards the European Union member states with two types of measurement methodology, sigma and beta convergence. Sigma convergence measures the dispersion of real per capita GDP among the countries and beta convergence is based on the neoclassical growth theory. The main hypothesis of the paper is that the recent financial crisis has negatively affected the convergence process of the Western Balkan countries towards the twenty-eight member states of the European Union (EU-28). The relationship between selected macroeconomic variables and the rate of per capita GDP growth are econometrically tested. Sigma and beta convergence are estimated for the period 2004-2013 and two sub-periods: 2004-2008 and 2009-2013. The empirical findings support the hypothesis of economic convergence. The negative effects of the crisis on per capita GDP growth are confirmed, resulting in a slower convergence process. Dissimilarities between the growth patterns of the analyzed groups show the considerable heterogeneity of growth, i.e. the convergence clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the gaps in financial centres' competitiveness and their impact on regional economic convergence in 23 European Union Member States during the period of the Global Financial Crisis. In particular, we explore the economic convergence and divergence patterns among regions from two different perspectives across the selected European Union Member States and within each country. From a methodological viewpoint, we apply a fully non-parametric framework to the club convergence model and address the endogeneity problem between financial centres' competitiveness and regional economic convergence. Our results show that the large and internationally-oriented financial centres experienced a diverging trend in terms of the competitiveness of financial centres' business environment during the peak of the crisis. We also find evidence that the convergence of financial centres reduces regional economic inequalities between the regions where financial centres are located. In contrast, the increase in the competitiveness of financial centres only serves to widen existing inequalities at the national level. Finally, we examine and discuss the impact of competitiveness drivers of financial centres on the convergence pattern of European Union regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: One of the most interesting recent developments in contract law has been an academic and political effort to integrate private law. The proposed Common European Sales Law was ultimately withdrawn, and a series of setbacks, including the British referendum to exit the EU, has recast the politics of convergence. But it remains an objective for many European scholars. This essay considers the wisdom of convergence on a single law of transactions from the perspective of philosophical contract theory. The essay proceeds by disaggregating the rights at stake in contract law. It characterises the formal right to contract and describes its moral impetus as one that should underwrite contract law in all states, especially liberal states. But the essay argues that the legitimate contours of the formal right are contingent on tenets of political culture that vary across Member States. Similarly, substantive regulation of contract is morally compulsory and serves universal interests; the essay takes regulation of permissible work and remuneration for work as examples. But the rules and standards that best advance those moral interests depend on economic facts specific to individual political communities. The essay concludes by arguing that contract law is a poor tool by which to accelerate political and economic convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: The processes of economic convergence observed in many developing countries are characterized by reduction of economic differences on the cross-country level, which are accompanied by growing internal economic inequalities. This may stem from the fact that in the catching-up countries, a more dynamic growth pattern is observed in the economically strongest regions, which is initially reflected in spatial polarization and increasing regional inequalities. However, just as the countries reach higher levels of development, the diffusion of growth-inducing impulses to less-developed areas should lead to the spatial equalizing of the development levels and reducing regional inequalities. Purpose of the article: The aim of the paper is to determine the relationship between the level of economic growth and observed economic inequalities in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The theoretical framework adopted to describe and explain those relations is the so-called Williamson's hypothesis in which the relationship between the scale of regional inequalities and economic growth is illustrated by a curve shaped like an inverted U. Methods: The research procedure was intended to verify Williamson's hypothesis by estimating parabolic econometric models. Indicators of economic growth along with measure of regional inequalities (Williamson's coefficient of variation) were used in the regression modeling. The research period spanned the years 1995-2014. Findings & Value added: In the light of the study of CEE countries, it was possible to observe both convergence symptoms as well as divergence tendencies. It can be thus stated that the analyzed CEE countries followed a similar path to the one observed earlier by Williamson in other developing countries. However, the analyses conducted by the authors at the national and regional levels of CEE countries were equivocal and did not fully support the theoretical assumptions of Williamson's hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais is the property of Centro de Estudos Sociais 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.)

This is the first study in the literature to investigate the convergence in transportation measures. To this end, we conjectured a transportation convergence equation and tested it via Difference GMM and System GMM methods, using 4-year span panel data from 15 European Union countries (EU-15) for the period 1970-2013. The results provide strong evidence for the existence of unconditional convergence among the EU-15 countries in two transportation measures, namely, inland freight transportation per capita, and inland passenger transportation per capita. The estimates show that the convergence is even stronger when control variables are used. We conclude that the income convergence of EU-15 in the process of economic integration is also strongly evident in the transportation sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degree of structural divergence in the Euro Area is examined on the basis of the frequency and distribution of observed asymmetric shocks over the period 1996-2015. An asymmetric shock is defined as an opposite sign difference between the deviation of an individual country's GDP growth rate from a trend and the deviation of the EA-wide GDP growth rate from a trend. Two measures of asymmetric shocks are introduced, one based on exponential trend values and another on moving-average trend values. Geographical distribution of observed ("revealed") shocks shows that EA member countries differ in terms of structural convergence, with a higher number of asymmetric shocks in countries that joined the EA at a later date. The distribution of asymmetric shocks over time shows two peaks in the number of shocks around 2002 and 2011, but no clear tendency towards more divergence is detected. As actual data may not provide a full picture of asymmetric shocks (given that countries with sufficient fiscal space could have neutralized their negative impact on GDP growth rates) a hypothesis on the existence of "non-revealed" negative asymmetric shocks is examined. Testing for correlation between public debt levels and GDP growth rate deviations confirms the existence of "non-revealed" asymmetric shocks in low-debt countries. In general, the observed differences in the number of asymmetric shocks in EA member countries (and their increases over time) may actually reflect different fiscal policy reactions in individual countries as well as the impact of financial and debt crises, and are not necessarily an indication of widening structural divergence across the EA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article examines 10-year bond yields convergence between each of the new EU countries and Germany, including a structural break that embodies the effects of the current sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone. The analysis is based on a new definition of bond yields convergence that can be interpreted either as strong or weak monetary policy convergence, depending on whether the conditions of uncovered interest-rate parity and ex-ante purchasing power parity hold or are violated, respectively. The empirical results provide evidence of either strong or weak monetary policy convergence to Germany only for five new countries, namely Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia. In contrast, for the rest of the new EU countries the empirical evidence suggests lack of monetary policy convergence to Germany. The latter result could be probably explained by the increased risk premia in these countries, as a result of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this paper is an attempt to assess the level of convergence of government health spending in the European Union countries. The ever-increasing level of life expectancy, demographic changes, including the aging of society in many European countries and the development of medical technologies are a growing challenge for modern nations. The similarities in the changes taking place in the EU states lead to considering whether there are similar transformations in health spending? Ensuring access to primary healthcare is one of the tasks of the welfare state and it can be assumed to be a public good. Accepting these reasons, the authors set out to investigate the phenomenon of sigma and beta unconditional convergence for the level of government spending on health care in the EU countries. The answer to the question has been sought: does participation in the EU leads to convergence in government spending on health care? The study uses selected dispersion measures for sigma convergence calculations and econometric modelling for beta convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of EU enlargement and the global economic crisis on the relative development of the EU countries. This effect is assessed by applying multivariate analysis to the whole set of 28 European countries at three representative points in time. The cluster analysis for the years 2002, 2007, and 2012 grouped the countries according to the range of economic development indicators showing within-EU cohesion before the EU enlargement, after the enlargement wave, and after the crisis. The findings show that a decrease in the development differences after the enlargement was replaced with an increase in these differences after the crisis, thus contributing to the existing debate about the success of cohesion and future of European integration. These results are somewhat worrying for the new member states of the EU as well as for EU membership candidates and their prospective development within the integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romanian accounting rules (RAR) had followed a convergence process with International Accounting Standards/International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS/IFRS) since 1999, and the level of convergence has increased over time. The Romanian accounting regulator continues to follow IAS/IFRS in internalizing the Accounting Directive 2013/34/EU. Only a few major differences still exist (some of them due the restrictions in the Accounting Directive 2013/34/EU) between RAR and IFRS. However, RAR lack the level of detail existing in IFRS, and IFRS cannot be used in practice as a source of guidance and interpretation. While major stakeholders have a positive attitude towards the convergence with IAS/IFRS, the Romanian accounting regulator intends to keep the control over RAR and avoid differences in interpretations that might have tax consequences. Despite the good level of convergence of RAR with IFRS, practitioners tend to continue to utilize the tax approach as a source of guidance and interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the determinants of regional disparities in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and their evolution over time in the enlarged European Union (EU). With reference to the literature it groups EU regions on the basis of three different factors-specialisation, socio-economic features, and innovation. It then analyses regional disparities in per capita GDP (EU-relative and country-relative) across groups over 2004-2011 using both non-parametric tools and traditional regression analysis with spatial effects. The paper finds that EU-wide convergence actually conceals growing divergence across old member regions and within new members. Coming to the factors that lie at the heart of regional disparities, country factors lose importance for newcomers but become more important for older members, notwithstanding longstanding integration. Socio-economic factors and innovation instead become increasingly important for all areas, socio-economic factors lying at the heart of within-country differences and innovation more of those between regions. Finally, specialisation appears to have a lower explanatory power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dynamic Econometric Models is the property of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun 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.)

This paper is aimed at answering the question of whether absolute income (GDP per capita) beta-convergence exists in the case of regions in new EU Member States before the period of 2000-2008 and during the 2008-2011 crisis. The sample consists of 211 regions (NUTS 3-level) of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. The research is based on econometric models, namely on the spatial lagged model (SLM), the spatial error model (SEM) and the Durbin spatial model which contrary to the ordinary least squares the (OLS) model include possible spatial dependencies. The SLM and SEM models as well as the Durbin spatial model detect the absolute income beta-convergence on the level of about 1% during the years 2000-2008. Additionally, models do not confirm the existence of absolute income beta-convergence during the crisis of 2008-2011. SLM models (which offer the most reliable findings) find a spatial correlation (measured by the rho-parameter) at a level of 0.75 during 2000-2008 and 0.35 during 2008-2011. Thus, absolute income beta-convergence in the case of NUTS 3 regions in 10 new EU Member States existed only in the pre-crisis period and this period is characterized by much stronger spatial dependencies than the period of 2008-2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The convergence process has for many decades captured the attention of economists and its importance has especially increased with deepening economic integration. A wide range of indicators is used in the professional literature to establish real and nominal convergence in the European Union, but national competitiveness is usually not among them, despite the fact that national competitiveness has in recent years been an important indicator of economic performance at the national level. Furthermore, converging competitiveness is a necessary precondition for further common development of the European Union. The aim of this contribution is to demonstrate whether the competitiveness of the EU countries is converging or not. Competitiveness is defined as the ability of a country to deliver beyond-GDP goals to its inhabitants and the indicator of outcome competitiveness is used for its evaluation. We apply methods of beta and sigma convergence and the results of both methods show that while the differences in competitiveness among the EU member states decreased in the period 2003-2012, it did so very slowly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that strategic culture, long consigned to the margins of broader, more substantial IR theories, offers a novel mode by which to explore recent developments in EU-Russia energy relations. Approaching seminal strategic policies from the perspective of institutionalised norms and cultural value-sets, strategic culture explores the power of the past and its ability to produce and influence national attitudes in governments and societies. This enables analyses of strategic energy relations between actors like the EU and Russia to move beyond obvious polarities to nuanced insights about the national value sets by which energy security is itself rendered strategic. Beginning with the individual strategic cultures of both the EU and Russia within the area of contemporary energy security policies, the article then appraises the range of bilateral EU-Russia energy security policies, suggesting that in many ways, these shared policies constitute asector-specific strategic energy culturethat includes both the EU and Russia. Areas of ongoing intransigence and policy convergence in EU-Russia energy security approaches constitute the case studies, illustrating that both sides are essentially motivated toward the same goals of energy security, market prosperity and actor-based prestige, but on the basis of vastly different visions, using widely diverse modes of implementation, and with dissimilar standards of evaluation. The analysis then appraises whether this co-constituted area is progressive or regressive in terms of the cooperation or conflict generated between the two sides, concluding that a basis of acknowleged commonalities – made available through strategic culture perspectives – both sides retain the impetus to cooperate to the point of complete agreement on some areas, whilst simultaneously remaining in conflict to the point of aggression in others. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The effects of the financial crisis, that started in 2008 and first emerged on the American housing market, have been experienced by many European economies. The purpose of this article is to attempt to measure and assess the sensitivity of convergence processes to crisis in European Union's regional economies taking into consideration their sectoral structure. Particular resistance to crisis is associated with the presence of "modern" sectors of the economy. The study covers the panel of the European Union NUTS-2 level regions in the period 2005-2011. In the analysis, the application of panel data allows for inclusion of the specific non-measurable aspects characteristic for particular regions and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the transformations of state policies in the European Union and explores the patterns of their convergence or divergence in the context of increased economic transnationalization. The starting point is the thesis that in the globalized, post-Fordist economy welfare states are transforming into Competition States concerned primarily with increasing the competitiveness of their territory and aiming at labour recommodification rather than decommodification. The article offers an operationalization of the concept of Competition State and uses cluster analysis to examine to what extent different European states converged on this model from mid-1990s to 2007. The results show that Eurozone members over time converge to a single cluster that is less oriented towards increasing competitiveness than are the states outside of the EMU, while the latter indeed experience transformations towards Competition States. However, rather than finding a single ideal-type, the analysis actually identifies three different types of Competition States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crises of 2002 and 2008 have raised the issue of banking sector's ranking system efficiency. The credit rating agencies (CRAs) are crucial for the modern financial market. The impact that the ratings have is indisputable. This paper is seeking to find the factors that affect the ratings and to create a prediction mechanism. The originality of the paper is based on the fact that it utilizes a number of different variables (ownership status, corporate governance, etc.), and the hypothesis is innovative because it addresses the issue of divergence-convergence of the European banking sector and its respective ratings. In order to do that, all ranking evaluations have been matched with a numerical value (i.e., AAA has value 24, A- has value 18, and B- has value 9). A good grade is considered to be above A- (value 18) and a bad grade below that number. Seven groups of indicators are examined: performance, size, ownership, corporate governance, capital adequacy or capital structure, sovereign-country ranking, and loan growth. Three econometric methods (probit, logit, and OLS) have been used to create a system that predicts the rating grade. The independent variable is binary (good grade = 1/bad grade = 0). Inactive banks have been excluded from the sample. This paper provides a model for predicting the factors that affect the grade of the bank rating. Many of the factors, which other studies have pointed out, are found to be statistically important in our models, too. This paper contributes to the literature by establishing a unique framework for the European banks and identifying the factors that affect the rating grade by giving an answer to the issue of an isomorphic banking sector in Europe. It shows that there are significant differences among the various geographical regions [variables cgsys, ns, European countries with major economic problems or those under stress (Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Greece)]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at analysing the issue of conditional convergence in the new enlarged European Union (EU) over the period 1995–2012 by means of panel data techniques. We examined the issue of conditional convergence in the enlarged EU giving particular attention to the effects of corruption and bureaucracy on growth controlling for a widely used set of explanatory variables such as investment (domestic and foreign), human capital formation, inflation, general government final consumption and trade openness. Furthermore, we examine if growth responds differently to corruption and bureaucracy in the new EU members by means of two group-specific interaction variables to capture possible different responses to corruption and bureaucracy. The analysis reveals evidence of conditional convergence in the enlarged EU, with investment share, foreign direct investment, human capital, and country openness appearing as robust growth drivers. In contrast, inflation and government consumption rather hamper growth. Furthermore, the effects of corruption and bureaucracy on growth seem to differ across old and new EU members. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu 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.)

The need for increased convergence in the decentralized processes for public enforcement of EU competition law has received much recent attention. Yet, this debate lacks a convincing explanation as to why the goal of effective enforcement warrants further harmonization. Focusing on fining practices for competition infringements, this article explores possible justifications to explain convergence; the legal or other means by which harmonization could be achieved; and the choice of converged practices that might be implemented. Whilst the strict necessity for convergence is less obvious, the evolving structure of decentralized enforcement would arguably benefit from increased alignment. Key concerns identified are the need to balance consistency with flexibility, and the reflection of an EU-wide consensus on fining practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While EU regional policy has the ambitious objective of supporting lagging regions and promoting inter-regional convergence, its impact is dependent on the ability of regional policymakers to secure and use EU funding to meet the region's needs. This paper aims to show under which conditions politics has a defining influence on the distribution, allocation and utilization of structural funds (SF), specifically in Objective 1 regions. The empirical analysis focuses on the 2000–2006 programming cycle in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. The results show that regions politically aligned with national governing coalitions tend to perform better in terms of received SF support and enjoy more flexibility in implementing SF. However, the influence of regional political behaviours on economic performances is very limited. The findings confirm the importance of politics in influencing SF implementation, but its limited influence on economic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the effect of economic complexity on economic growth in the context of the EU countries. Our results suggest that a group of countries in the EU whose economic complexity exceeds a certain threshold tend to converge to levels of income corresponding to their measured complexity. On the other hand, the interaction of the current account deficit with economic complexity has important effects on growth for a second group of countries with lower levels of complexity. Since we also find that income convergence is faster within the first group, we argue that convergence is much faster for countries whose economic complexity exceeds a certain threshold. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The challenges currently facing systems of media provision across Europe require critical, multidisciplinary research informed by creative economy and policy perspectives. Creative economy themes of relevance to media include the exceptional economic characteristics of cultural and creative content, production activities and markets. The use and efficacy of copyright and alternative policy interventions to support creativity represent important emerging areas for media-related research. The effects of changing technology are another priority. More research is needed that builds our critical understanding of the implications of contemporary changes in audience behaviour, of converged multi-platform strategies for supplying content and of globalised distribution for creative outputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the co-movement patterns of European business cycles during the period 1986-2011, with an obvious focal point the year 1999 that marked the introduction of the common currency, the euro. The empirical analysis is performed within the context of Graph Theory where we apply a rolling window approach in order to dynamically analyze the evolution of the network that corresponds to the GDP growth rate cross-correlations of 22 European economies. The main innovation of our study is that the analysis is performed by introducing what we call the threshold-minimum dominating set (T-MDS). We provide evidence at the network level and analyze its structure and evolution by the metrics of total network edges, network density, isolated nodes and the cardinality of the T-MDS set. Next, focusing on the country level, we analyze each individual country's neighborhood set (economies with similar growth patterns) in the pre- and post-euro era in order to assess the degree of convergence to the rest of the economies in the network. Our empirical results indicate that despite a few economies' idiosyncratic behavior, the business cycles of the European countries display an overall increased degree of synchronization and thus convergence in the single currency era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to introduce the evaluation of convergence of Latvia's social development to the EU-28 member states in the context of the EU convergence policy. In additional, the article addresses development challenges for improvement of the socio-economic well-being of states and regions in the European Union and also for avoiding disparities. The objective of this study is to assess the level of social situation in Latvia and its development by applying latest developments of convergence economic theory to local conditions. The main emphasis of this research lies on the complex approach to the EU convergence policy analysis and its implementation in Latvia, which enables social convergence of Latvia towards the EU-28 level. The research methodology is based on the analysis of the EU convergence economic theories and on the estimation of external and induced variables: the economic and welfare level situations. This research investigates major variable factors and presents information about various socio-economic indicators and indexes. This study contains and discusses changes of key concepts related to the convergence policy of the European Union and compares objectives and general outlines of the convergence period 2014-2020 in the framework of Europe as a whole, as well as its impact on Latvian economics and living conditions. The main results and conclusions reflect the overall socio-economic situation in the EU and Latvia and the impact of current and future European convergence policy on social development in Latvia. The discussion focuses on the analysis of socio-economic situation in the EU and Latvia and the estimation and trends of the national economy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the European Union (EU) and European Monetary Union (EMU) as club-governments after an analysis of the characteristics of the union of governments as clubs. Convergence among member countries regarding the parameters relevant for club homogeneity and stability is paramount. We develop empirical research on the convergence path in a model with the five main EU countries, with 15 parameters drawn from neoclassical growth theory and from EU-EMU rules. We examine convergence and stability in the EU club for France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom by measuring their parametric spreads from 2003 (first year of normal circulation of the euro) to 2011. Convergence with growth developed before the great financial fluctuation, then divergence set in. Convergence then reappeared with partial stagnation. Gross domestic product (GDP) was the dominant parameter, while GDP per capita was the least important. The main focus of the paper is on measurement. The results signal the need for changes in institutions and policy tools consistent with the market economy models of the two clubs. Further integration will face the same issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of 1990s, Danny Quah devoted several papers to the analysis of polarization and stratification in the convergence processes of economies, creating the image of the 'convergence clubs' and suggesting the importance of studying the distribution dynamics of the macroeconomic variables. As for the labour markets, Overman and Puga (2002) showed that a progressive polarization of unemployment was in fact occurring among the European regions in 1986-1996, causing a phenomenon of cross-border clusterization. Here we propose to analyse the evolution of the unemployment rates of the EU 27 regions in the last two decades assuming that the unemployment rates evolve according to a Gompertz stochastic process. The estimated parameters of the process - intrinsic growth rate, deceleration factor, volatility - represent the evolutionary path of the unemployment rate and allow for estimating the steady state of the process. A cluster analysis is performed on the steady state values of the unemployment rates. The analysis confirms the emergence of several 'convergence clubs' among the European regional labour markets, which are compared to the clusters resulting from the more traditional clusterization on the current unemployment rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cohesion policy belongs among the most important fields of EU interests. Its objectives are achieved by many ways with respect to diversity among the European regions at the level of NUTS 2. The aim of this paper is to analyse relevant indicators, and via the evaluation of EU regional policy effectiveness to rewiev difference in the production-consumption patterns of behaviour of European regions; focussing on convergence and variabiliness of these regions. With defined goal in mind, the regions have been classified. To classify the regions, the relational indicator has been created. The relational indicator has been developed as the relationship between the index of relative performance and index of relative consumption sources. The changes of relational indicator, as well as the GDP per capita criterion, have been evaluated in two periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After an examination of the public choice theory of clubs and of Buchanan theory regarding Governments as club and after the analysis of the theory of convergence for the optimal currency area theory in club perspective, the paper focuses on the EU (European Union) and EMU (Euro-monetary Union) as clubs. On the basis of the modern growth theory, we develop an empirical research on the convergence path, in a new model, under the memory formalism hypothesis, with spread measures, on the 5 EU main countries, with 15 parameters deducted from neoclassical theory of growth and from the EU-EMU rules. The convergence and stability of the 5 main countries in the EU club, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK as affected by the EMU club(to which 4 of the 5 countries do belong), is examined, by measuring their 15 teen parametric spreads, from 2003 (first year of normal circulation of Euro) to 2011 ( last year of available official statistics). The convergence with growth actually developed before the great financial fluctuation, in which divergence spread out. Convergence, then, reappeared, but did not last long, because the consolidation policies were not counteracted by appropriate expansionary fiscal policies at the EU level and by timely non conventional expansionary policy. Divergence cum semi stagnation did develop. GDP and unemployment are the dominant parameters, while GDP per capita is the least important. A memory explanation of the paradox is suggested. To assure stability cum growth of the two clubs, one needs monetary and fiscal policy tools coherent with their models, which are already institutionally available. Further integration would face the same issues, in a less free situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Productivity is considered to be an important factor underlying the economic growth. The progressive integration processes in Europe, the EU enlargement and covering the new EU Member States (NMS) with the structural funds should promote the equalization of the efficiency of agriculture among the countries. In this context, the subject of the paper is an attempt to answer the question whether the convergence processes occur in the EU agriculture in terms of productivity. More specifically, the subject of the studies is total factor productivity (TFP) and unconditional convergence. TFP for the individual EU countries has been estimated using the DEA method and Malmquist indices. Sigma-, betaand stochastic convergence was analysed. For the assessment of the convergence process, methods based both on cross-sectional data and on panel data have been applied. The results show that we are dealing with the convergence processes, in particular in case of NMS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nominal convergence criteria is a necessary condition but insufficient for Romania's entry into the Eurozone. In addition to quantitative economic criteria, Romania must also fulfill the institutional criteria which are as binding as all the others. As the latest convergence report considers that Romanian legislation, does not meet all the requirements for the independence of the central bank, the monetary financing prohibition and institutional integration of the central bank into the Eurosystem", the article analyses the compatibility of Law no.312/2004 with the current European legislation, given the fact that Romania must comply with all adaptation requirements set out in Article 131 TFEU. Thus, the aforementioned article examines the central bank's independence in terms of functional independence, institutional, financial and personal, identifying the articles and paragraphs that are not consistent with EU legislation and the Statute of the ESCB and which are to be amended, modified or removed. At the same time, it states that the provisions of national law which contravene EU secondary legislation have to be abolished or amended. Since Romania aims to adopt the euro on 1 January 2019, will mean that up to January 1, 2017 (deadline for entry into ERM II) Romanian law must be fully compatible with EU law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The considerable differences between Member States of the European Union not only creates specific EU cultural diversity, they are also with an economical nature, with local specificities in each region of the Member States. In order to reduce the economic gaps between different EU Member States, each Member State being in turn divided into various regions, European Union grants financial assistance to Member States in the form of structural funds. In context of the efforts aimed at improving the overall competitiveness of the European Union, European cohesion policy is the most important financial instrument to support the Member States under the Convergence objective, namely to promote economic and social cohesion by reducing disparities starting from regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper presents the progress made by Romania in the process of convergence1 in view of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]