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Recently, studies with different methods (computable general equilibrium models, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, structural gravity equations) evaluated the European Union's Single Market. The problem with all these studies is that they use complex models with datasets that are not always replicable. This paper demonstrates that even a simple model of the European Union can capture the most important effects of European economic integration: the European Union's Single Market, the introduction of the Euro, and the following European Union enlargements. A simple European Union model, built with the publicly available program, EViews, serves this purpose. The dataset is also freely available from the European Commission. This makes the model results replicable. Evaluation of Austrian membership in the European Union is in the foreground of the analysis with the simple European Union model, followed by the next steps of integration, such as the introduction of the Euro and the big European Union enlargements. However, this prototype model is also able to estimate the integration effects of other European Union member states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portugal's high public debt, its weak economic growth and its great attractiveness for foreign tourists are legend. Less well known is its unstable system of public pensions. This article addresses the underlying economic and political reasons, such as poor labour productivity, low real wages, insufficient immigration of trained people and the failure to find alternative ways of financing retirement. NextGenerationEU will effectively soften Portugal's macroeconomic budget constraints, but it carries the risk of further postponement of necessary policy changes and reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to analyse the fiscal-budgetary measures, which have been taken by almost all governments around the world, including EU countries, in an attempt to limit the negative impact of the pandemic blockade. In most cases, these measures concerned the granting of technical unemployment, the postponement of tax payments, and the suspension or postponement of loan instalments or their maturity. The present study focuses especially on tax and expenditure measures that EU countries have introduced in response to the COVID-19 crisis. With this purpose, a paired sample t-test and multiple linear regression are used based on balanced panel data for the 27 EU countries for the period 2000Q1–2020Q3. The obtained results show that COVID-19 crisis had a significant negative impact on GDP growth. At the same time, a significant increase in public debt and government deficit occurred due to COVID-19 crisis. However, resuming the findings, the intensity, and implicitly, the effect of these measures depends on the specifics of each economy.

The aim of this study is to examine the digital gender divide in the European Union (EU) countries by applying two widely used indicators: percentage of the population who has used the Internet in the last 3 months (ICT-USE indicator) and percentage of the population who has made an online purchase in the last 3 months (ICT-PURCHASE indicator). With these indicators, the digital gender gaps are shown in absolute and relative terms. In addition, the European convergence beta and sigma, between the years 2007 and 2019, is also analyzed. The results among European countries show that the ICT-USE indicator has a lower dispersion than the ICT-PURCHASE indicator; hence, in general, the digital gender divide or gap is usually lower when ICT-USE is used in comparison with ICT-PURCHASE. The highest values of the digital gender gap in the EU, regardless of the indicator used, are found in Croatia and Italy, reflecting an unfavorable position for women. Ireland is also in this group, but in its case, the results show an unfavorable position for men. Additionally, Cyprus does not register gender differences in either of the two indicators analyzed. Finally, the convergence between European countries is corroborated, both in the indicators analyzed and in the different gender digital gaps built.

This paper presents a development accounting framework in order to quantify the determinants of disparities in GDP per hour worked within the EU in 2016. Its originality is twofold insofar as, on the one hand, it theoretically extends the existing framework from 2 factors up to n explanatory factors and on the other, it numerically illustrates this same framework in case where n = 3 factors. This illustration is made macro-economically between 19 EU countries—representing 90% of its aggregate GDP—and sectorally between their market, state, and mixed sectors. The calibration data come from the latest EU-KLEMS and PWT versions. Examination of the results by decomposition shows a strong proximity of macroeconomic standard deviations ($ 13.74/h) and the market (13.38) and non-market (12.34) spheres. The differences between countries are fundamentally (around 90% according to each of the three spheres) explained by the disparities in labor quality (and around 10% by the disparities in capital deepening). The profile, however, is not at all the same in real estate activities (mixed sector) whose GDP per hour' standard deviation reaches $ 570.28/h and is completely explained by the disparities in capital deepening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, over 96% of EU27 oil needs, nearly 90% of natural gas and over 43% of solid fuels were met by net imports, with the largest share coming from Russia (35% of oil, 40% of natural gas and 20% of solid fuels consumed in EU27). The decline in the share of oil since 2016 was more than off-set by the increase in gas and solid fuels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public procurement amounts to around 14% of European Union GDP and, given this size, could well represent an important tool to foster the green transition. However, green public procurement continues to be underutilised in Europe, as several barriers to its application persist. A new EU regulatory action in this field could unlock the potential of green public procurement and add an important element to the European Green Deal toolbox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question as to why Germany is cautious towards a faster enlargement of the euro area. The usual explanation focuses on concerns that some of the candidate countries are not economically ready to adopt the common currency and their membership could destabilize the monetary union. However, such an approach does not take into account other factors that may influence Germany’s reluctance to speed up the enlargement process. One of them is the conviction that the existing division of integration does not translate into economic costs and a long-term political cleavage in the EU. Another argument explaining Germany’s position is their doubt about the economic policy preferences of the candidates which may prove to be crucial in the upcoming reform of the euro area governance. Some of them can drift towards more interventionism and support for the debtors’ positions which is at odds with German interest.

The position of information and communication technology (ICT) services is growing in the European Union (EU) trade, however to different extend in different EU countries. The article aims to identify trade positions of the EU Member States in intra-EU trade and extra-EU trade in ICT services and to assess changes that have taken place in the years 2013–2018. The importance of the EU Member States in trade in ICT services is assessed, followed by the analysis of their trade positions in terms of selected indices. We discovered that countries of the highest importance for the intra-EU and extra-EU trade in ICT services are not holding the best positions in trade in this area, except for Ireland. Additionally, leaders in ICT services trade do better in extra-EU trade rankings than in the EU Internal Market, since the distance does not matter to business operations consequent to the digitalization of economic activities.

Using a recursive bivariate probit model and survey data covering the period 2014–2018, the present paper aims to assess which factors in the financial market (supply side) have a higher impact on firms' likelihood to be financially constrained. The results show that after controlling for potential endogenous bias due to unobservable firm characteristics, being an innovative firm increases the probability of being financially constrained between 21 and 32%. The nature of the innovation strategy also seems to influence the severity of financing constraints. For financially constrained firms, the main factors that limit future financing for growth ambitions are the lack of collateral, bureaucracy, and too high a price. Findings also indicate that measures to facilitate equity investments and making existing public measures easier are the most important factors for future financing while tax incentives only play a minor role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]