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This paper revisits the empirical trade literature on East-West trade in the early 1990s and provides a replication of the traditional gravity findings of that period with the Baier-Bergstrand version of the model, providing thereby better estimates of the trade hindering impact of the Cold War by including multilateral and world resistance factors and simultaneously considering country fixed effects. Breaking down the Cold War Walls increased world trade by 2.7% of world GDP. The replication with the Baier-Bergstrand model also reveals that Cold War trade distortions also significantly impacted China’s trade with the West.

The interdependence is definitely the most common concept used to describe the relations between the EU and Russia. Nevertheless, despite their obvious interdependence, there are still a series of debates in literature which usually arise when it comes to describing its typology and its implications, especially in the analysis at the Member States level. Moreover, given the complexity and variety of relations between the EU-27 and the Russian Federation, the present study aims to outline a comprehensive picture of the interdependence between the two actors at a regional level by conducting a comparative analysis of the European Union Member States according to their interdependence with Russia, considering energy as the main aspect of their relations. In this sense, the scientific approach will focus on a comparative analysis of the mutual energy dependencies between the member states and Russia, in order to characterize the interdependence typologies, as well as to identify the distribution of cost and advantages.

Economically, the County of Sibiu has been characterized, especially after 2007, by an accelerated speed of development, the recorded increase pushing our County among the most dynamic economies at regional and national level as well. The present paper aims at analyzing the specificity of the economic development of Sibiu County, namely to identify the resources of the obtained economic progress. The purpose of this study also consists in identifying new opportunities for the local economy, outlining new sources of development that are more important as competition, both at regional and national level, is tighter and tighter.

This paper reveals some historical aspects and some common traditions of German and Romanian economies, justifying some of the trends of contemporary decades underlying the statistical gap. The specific method used in this article is a statistical confrontation based on historical variables and statistical data, graphs emphasizing the abnormalities in evolution, etc. After a brief introduction, inside the major part of the structure of this paper some selected economic and social evolutions are presented together for both German and Romanian economies, somehow becoming the limits of the European Union construction. Few general gaps of the two economic marginal models as performance and cohesion are detailed during the historical and statistical investigation and the conclusions anticipates some expectations in the medium term dynamics of these economies. At the same time the article discusses Berlin’s position within EU and argues that Germany remains a selective continental hegemon, bent on securing national primacy and profit more than generating win-win solutions for its neighbours.

This article surveys independent Ireland’s economic policies and performance. It has three main messages. First, the economic history of post-independence Ireland was not particularly unusual. Very often, things that were happening in Ireland were happening elsewhere as well. Second, for a long time, we were hampered by an excessive dependence on a poorly performing UK economy. And third, EC membership in 1973 and the single market programme of the late 1980s and early 1990s were absolutely crucial for us. Irish independence and European Union (EU) membership have complemented each other, rather than being in conflict: Each was required to give full effect to the other. Irish independence would not have worked as well for us as it did without the EU; and the EU would not have worked as well for us as it did without political independence.

International trade became much less multilateral during the 1930s. Previous studies, looking at aggregate trade flows, have argued that discriminatory trade policies had comparatively little to do with this. Using highly disaggregated information on the UK’s imports and trade policies, we find that policy can explain the majority of Britain’s shift towards Imperial imports in the 1930s. Trade policy mattered, a lot.

In this article, we reflect on how patents of introduction or importation, which compose an institutional policy related to weak IPR systems, could influence long-term international technology transfer. Both theoretically and empirically, the consequences of strengthening IPRs in lagging economies for technology transfer and innovation remain unclear. Although the mainstream literature tends to link stronger patent enforcement with better invention and innovation markets now and in the past, new theoretical and historical evidence supports extreme complexity in the relationship between IPR extension and scope and technological diffusion. For the first time, in this study, we analyze a large series of patents of introduction, which were a common feature of the early stages of almost all patent systems designed to favor technology transfer and innovation above original inventor property rights. Though typically used by pioneers, followers, and latecomers, we know little of how they functioned and their consequences. In this study, we analyze the use of patents of introduction throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Spain, which was a lagging country on the European periphery. The results demonstrate that this institutional policy could facilitate technology transfer, innovation, and advancement at earlier stages of industrialization. As additional research has demonstrated, such evidence may have serious implications for IPR treatment in both developing and underdeveloped economies.

There were substantial fluctuations in the number of American overseas travelers, especially before World War Two. These fluctuations in travel around the long-term upward trend are the focus of this paper. We first identify those fluctuations in the data and then try to explain the patterns. We show that, despite the impact of a myriad of episodic events, fluctuations in travel can be explained to a large extent by changes in the direct price of travel, changes in per capita GDP and wealth in the United States, and by periods of armed conflict.

Since its latest enlargements, the European Union has constantly developed various actions and initiatives in order to secure its borders and consequently to be surrounded by countries with dynamic economies and secure and stable political situations. So far, the presence of the union in its Eastern neighbourhood did not have the expected outcome. Where has the European Neighbourhood Policy failed?How is the European Union perceived by its neighbours: social partner, protector, sponsor or regional hegemonic? Is the Eastern Partnership sufficient to revive the Eastern dimension of the ENP? This paper will focus on answering these questions by connecting the theoretical framework of the neighbourhood policy with the existing empirical evidence through an interdisciplinary approach.

Disposal of cars and light commercial vehicles at the end of their operational lives(- ELVs) is estimated to generate over ten million tones of material requiring treatment and disposal in 2005 within the European Union. This volume is projected to increase to fourteen million tones by 2015 as the number and average weight of vehicles increases. The company Adam Opel AG operates as a subsidiary of General Motors Europe AG, which is a major part of General Motors Corporation. Adam Opel AG is working on environmental protection for a long time ( before 1990) since they realized they must act responsibly with the resources and they must invested decades of work into environmental innovation to reduce pollution and raise their sustainability. In terms of product development Opel’s recycling strategy is based on two cornerstones: recycling –oriented design and development and implementation of material cycles for vehicle production.

The interwar period constituted a “golden age” for cartels. A lot of entrepreneurs or politicians considered even cartels as a good way to rebuild the European economy and to resolve the difficult problem of Reparations. It was the case of Louis Loucheur. Big contractor of civil engineering, Loucheur controlled, at the eve of the World War I a powerful group of construction, electricity and transport. During the war, he became the most important organizer of the French industrial mobilization, with his predecessor, Albert Thomas, a socialist. Taking his inspiration of the Walter Rathenau’s action in Germany, Loucheur surrounded himself of a brain trust of brilliant engineers, accelerated the rationalization process of the French industry and opened the way to an independent national oil policy. After the War, he played a determining role in the French reconstruction. Become a leader of the Republican Left Party, Loucheur campaigned for the development of the international inter-firms agreements and cartels. Loucheur considered that cartels were the only mean to reconcile France and Germany and to compete with us economy. Very active within the League of Nations, he saw cartels as a tool to open the way to United States of Europe. Classification JEL: D43, F23, F53, L26, N73, N74

L’article 194 du TFUE a conféré de nouveaux pouvoirs aux instances européennes notamment dans le domaine de l’énergie. Une politique énergétique peut être menée dans une logique de solidarité afin de garantir des objectifs communs, tels la sécurité d’approvisionnement. Ce faisant le Traité de Lisbonne semble donner de nouveaux leviers à la Commission dans le domaine de l’énergie en addition des politiques de concurrence et environnementale. Cependant, ces possibilités semblent entravées par leur subordination aux Etats membres qui demeurent libres de déterminer leur mix énergétique et leur politique d’approvisionnement extérieur. Ce faisant, la politique de concurrence semble s’avérer le seul levier de mettre en œuvre une politique énergétique européenne. Cependant, dans le même temps, la capacité de l’outil concurrentiel à créer des marchés dans le secteur de l’énergie reste questionnable. Notre article montre sous quelles conditions une action publique européenne basée sur les principes de solidarité et de subsidiarité pourrait répondre aux limites des « energy only markets ». A cette fin, nous nous penchons plus en détail sur la question des contrats de long terme et nous mobilisons le cadre théorique de l’économie des conventions.

We analyse trade between countries of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance in Eastern Europe between 1950 and 1990. Despite central planning of the CMEA, we show that trade could be explained by standard demand factors surprisingly well. We document that the oil price crisis had several repercussions on Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union as a supplier of crude oil benefited from the energy crisis in the 1970s. By contrast, the individual CMEA countries in Central Europe did not enjoy improved terms of trade with the rest of the world and the CMEA as a whole responded to the oil crisis by intensifying intra-CMEA trade and turning inwards

In the last decade we have seen the creation process of a common Energy Policy, which was gradually adopted by all Community countries, and has promoted an integrated competitive European energy market, increased security of supply and supported the use renewable energy sources. But in order for this policy to work efficiently, it also had to promote international cooperation with its neighbors and energy suppliers. With the view of establishing an Integrated Energy Market Organization in South-Eastern Europe, the European Community, along with nine other countries, has signed on 25 October 2005 the treaty establishing the Energy Community. Our research aims to investigate the potential of the European Union to promote security of energy supply and energy markets integration through the Energy Community. The article uses data from theoretical and empirical research on the economic and politic relations between the members of the Energy Community in order to establish the positive and negative outcomes of six year of collaboration.

How far can the media protect or undermine democratic institutions in unconsolidated democracies, and how persuasive can they be in ensuring public support for dictator's policies? We study this question in the context of Germany between 1929 and 1939. Using geographical and temporal variation in radio availability, we show that radio had a significant negative effect on the Nazi electoral support between 1929 and 1932, when political news were slanted against Nazi party. This effect was reversed in just 5 weeks following Hitler's appointment as chancellor and the transfer of control of the radio to the Nazis. Pro-Nazi radio propaganda caused higher vote for the Nazis in March 1933 election. After full consolidation of power, radio propaganda helped the Nazis to enroll new party members and encouraged denunciations of Jews and other open expressions of anti-Semitism. The effect of Nazi propaganda was not uniform. Depending on listeners' priors about the message, propaganda could be very effective or could backfire. Nazi radio was most effective in places where anti-Semitism was historically high and had a negative effect on the support for anti-Semitic policies in places with historically low anti-Semitism.

Every EU enlargement signified a step towards Central and Eastern Europe, therefore, the 2004 „big bang enlargement”, followed by the one in 2007, modified the geopolitical context within the „old continent” and also increased the importance of the European Union regionally, as well as globally. Integrating the ex-soviet countries into the EU meant taking them out of the Russian sphere of influence, as well as attempting to super size the EU territory in order to increase the European power on a long term. Despite the weakening of Russia after the Cold War, the federation still represents a challenge regarding „pax europea”, as Russia still has an amazing military capacity, as well as important natural resources. The entrance into the Russian sphere of influence, the European energetic dependency on Russia, the conflicts within the separatist regions situated at the EU eastern borders are just few of the many challenges regarding the relations between the European Union and Russia.

Many papers have been written about the effect of firm size on innovativeness, revealing a positive, a negative or a mixed impact. To this day, the so-called Schumpeterian hypothesis of the above-average innovativeness of large firms has neither been confirmed nor rejected, often because of insufficient data or a too-short observation period. Many studies concentrate only on a specific region or sector, or they analyze a very short time period. Windows of technological opportunities, providing technological booms for both firms and sectors, have not yet been investigated. An analysis of Germany’s chemical, metal and electrical-engineering sectors between 1877 and 1932 reveals that the sector-specific long-term relationship between firm size and innovativeness is negative, except during times of specific technological booms. In combination with firm-specific characteristics, this new aspect can contribute to a better understanding of the long-term relationship between firm size and innovativeness.

A central prediction of a large class of theoretical models is that industry location is not necessarily uniquely determined by fundamentals. In these models, historical accident or expectations determine which of several steady-state locations is selected. Despite the theoretical prominence of these ideas, there is surprisingly little systematic evidence on their empirical relevance. This paper exploits the combination of the division of Germany after the Second World War and the reunification of East and West Germany as an exogenous shock to industry location. We focus on a particular economic activity and establish that division caused a shift of Germany's air hub from Berlin to Frankfurt and there is no evidence of a return of the air hub to Berlin after reunification. We develop a body of evidence that the relocation of the air hub is not driven by a change in economic fundamentals but is instead a shift between multiple steady-states.

Since its inception, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been discussed controversely. Data from the OECD and the World Bank show that the protectionist effects of the CAP between the 1960s and the 1980s were larger than those of its national predecessors. Moreover, there is evidence that already the piecemeal reforms of the 1980s re-duced the level of protection and support in the EU, that is prior to the MacSharry reform of 1992.

In this paper we intend to present the new power which is given to Russia upon EU due to her great natural resources and due to her control upon pipelines. Now Moscow can exert influence upon countries in Europe not through its revolutionary zeal and its tanks and army, but through its resources. And she knows how to use them and how make the EU dependent on her will: this is a new geopolitics, a 21-th century geopolitics, which is centered upon the control of gas pipelines in Central Asian states and upon EU states' great dependence on Russian pipeline system.

Renewable energy brings an attractive horizon for Romania, the projects can generate jobs, cooperation between the interested countries, the increase of living standards and environmental protection. Renewable energy will considerably grow up in coming years thanks to environmental trends exhibited more intense in our country. Beyond the inconveniences inherent in any investment and the related risks, also beyond the natural equilibrium changes, the energy plants’ using new green technology offers many advantages. Their quantification can be statistically correlated leading to a rethinking of models that shape the parameters of competitiveness. In this research we started with the assumption that the potential of renewable energy allows Romania to get a favourable competitive position, mainly if we relate to the role of geostrategic pillar in the energetic system in this region of the continent. Although our research is in early stages, we develop two models of diagnosing the renewable energy sources capacity and efficiency and also their attractiveness for entrepreneurial initiatives.

Resumen En el ultimo tercio del ochocientos, depositos y zonas francas surgieron en distintos paises europeos como una herramienta mas al servicio de la politica economica. En el cambio de siglo varios puertos espanoles quisieron dotarse de esta institucion para remediar la perdida de las ultimas colonias de ultramar, atraer trafico y, en el mejor de los casos, ayudar a la exportacion. Tras quince anos de debates parlamentarios y polemicas, fueron autorizados durante la Primera Guerra Mundial los Depositos Francos de Barcelona, Bilbao, Cadiz y Santander. Ademas de las transformaciones que inicialmente contemplaba el regimen franco, como el tostado del cafe o la extraccion de aceite de copra, no tardaron en desarrollarse otras actividades, principalmente el montaje de automoviles. La instalacion de Ford fue un hecho decisivo tanto para los recintos francos como para la empresa norteamericana, que puso la franquicia arancelaria al servicio de su estrategia multinacional. El Deposito Franco permitia montar automoviles empleando componentes foraneos o nacionales, segun conviniera, retrasando el pago del Arancel al momento en que el vehiculo fuese importado a Espana o quedando libre de ese derecho si el destino del producto era otro pais. La planta de ensamblaje barcelonesa casi alcanzo antes de la Guerra Civil un 40 por ciento de cuota del mercado interno. Ademas, la filial hispana de Ford tuvo un cierto exito montando y vendiendo coches en Portugal, el norte de Africa, Italia o la Europa adriatica.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss problems and prospects of tourism clusters development in Russia. The Russian tourism market has huge potential, due to its history, culture, extremely diverse landscapes, rivers, lakes, mountains, flora and fauna, “hidden gems” of small towns with their ancient churches, original local museums and unique sights. In the last decade Russia has witnessed rapid quantitative growth as well as significant changes in strategic development of the tourism industry. Russian Government initiated a number of Federal target programs important for tourism and hotel industry development. In particular, tourism clusters are now in the focus of interest. In 2008, the Russian Government adopted the Concept of cluster policy in the Russian Federation, laying the cluster approach in the basis of the strategy of socio-economic development and considering it as a tool to raise competitiveness of industries and territories. However, the formation of clusters in Russia faces a number of problems due to the peculiarities of the Russian institutional environment. The main challenges facing tourism clusters development in Russia are described. The importance of development joint marketing strategy is underlined. The case of "Big Volga" tourism cluster in the Nizhny Novgorod region is presented.

This article takes Spain’s dairy chain as a study case of the transformations in the political economy of the food system in the West since the Second World War. I find that there is much to support the prevailing narrative in food regime analysis: the organised capitalism of 1952-1986 was gradually weakened by a policy agenda of deregulation stemming from both internal and external pressures. I also find, however, a thread of continuity between the period 1952-1986and the post-1986 period – in both periods there were strategies of supply chain management by means of which the power of political or business elites joined the market as a mechanism for the coordination of decisions. I argue that there is a case for reassessing the degree up to which the term “neoliberalism” does a good job at describing the new historical era that started in the food system in the latter decades of the twentieth century.

The objective of this study is to analyse the factors determining the process of internationalisation of the Spanish agrifood industry from a long-term perspective. The paper concentrates on the empirical verification of the existence of a home market effect and on the effects on trade flows of integration into the European Union. With this aim in mind, we estimate a gravity equation for a sample of export flows from 13 agrifood subsectors between 1970 and 2012, with a destination of 175 markets. The existence of the “home market effect” stands out as the determining factor of the increasing process of internationalisation in the majority of the subsectors of the food industry. The presence of this effect is remarkable in the most dynamic industries, where the process of restructuring caused by the development of the internal market was more intense. Furthermore, the influence of the process of European integration has been shown to be a very important factor. Our results qualify in part the results of previous studies, since the positive effect appeared later than expected. The positive effects did not appear until the completion of the process of transition in the dismantling of the barriers established in the accession treaty.

The impact of protection on economic growth is one of the traditional issues in economic history, which has enjoyed a revival in recent times, with the publication of a number of comparative quantitative papers. They all share a common weakness: they measure protection with the ratio of custom revenues to imports, which is bound to bias results if imports are not perfectly inelastic. In this paper, we show that the measure of protection matters, by estimating the Trade Restrictiveness Index (TRI) by Anderson and Neary (2005) for Italy from its unification to the Great Depression. We put forward a different interpretation of some key moments of Italian trade policy and we show that the aggregate welfare losses were small in the long run and mostly related to the outlandish protection on sugar in the 1880s and 1890s. We also show that different measures of protection affect considerably the results of econometric tests on the causal relation between trade policy on economic growth in Italy and in the United States. Accordingly, we argue that the economic history of trade policy needs a systematic re-estimating of protection.

This discussion paper is a follow-up to a previous bibliometric analysis of articles published in The International Journal of Maritime History and maritime-themed articles published in other economic and business history journals over the last 25 years. The paper looks more closely at articles dealing with the Mediterranean and articles written by scholars from the Mediterranean countries. The article is structured around five propositions about current trends in Mediterranean maritime history publishing in English-language journals.

In this paper we provide a survey of the long term evolution of the Italian “National innovation system” since the unification. . First we provide a broad reconstruction of long term trends by examining a wide range of quantitative indicators of science and technological activities in comparative perspective. Second, on the basis of this quantitative picture, we put forward a conjectural interpretation of the fundamental features of the Italian national innovation system. Our conclusion is that Italy has approached the process of Modern Economic Growth following a peculiar path characterized by a limited commitment to investments in science and technology in combination with low real wages and the intense use of unskilled labour.

This paper presents the new yearly series of the value-added of services for Italy, from 1861 to 1951, at current prices. For each sector, after discussing sources and methodology, the results are compared with the early Istat (1957) series. By looking at the production value of specific activities, it is possible to reveal the strong underestimation of the early series. From 1861 to 1911, our new estimate is consistently higher: the gap increases while the Italian economy grows strongly, which may lead to a more favourable evaluation of the contribution of services to the industrialization of the country. Between 1911 and 1938, our series is more cyclical, performing better in the twenties, worse during the 1929 crisis, but then again showing faster recovery in the 1930s. Finally, the changes between 1938 and 1951 are essentially due to the heavy underestimation of services found in the early series for 1951.

This paper searches for roots of current spatial pattern of professional services in location of Soviet-era R&D sector. The Soviet economy sponsored massive R&D oriented mainly on military purposes. Research was carried out in large institutions affiliated with academia or industry. After the collapse of socialism, military spending and related R&D decreased dramatically. Many researchers left Soviet-style institutions and succeed in the market economy. Did however this process mean anything for geography? Under the centrally planned economy, locational decisions were driven by non-market motives. Moreover, it was near-impossible for planners to anticipate which regions would be more promising under market. I focus on professional services since these industries do not rely on physical capital endowments, so sunk costs are unlikely to impose path-dependence. Professional services in Russia typically hire young educated persons which are expected to be mobile, so imperfect labor market is also unlikely to stick people to places ? unlike human capital externalities which are plausibly to do so. I regress employment in professional services in 2009-2011 by 76 Russian regions on the number of R&D staff in 1991. I consider three industries: architecture and engineering; information technology; accounting, auditing and management consulting. Controls to capture industry location fundamentals include modern-day gross regional product or overall employment, number of employees with university degree, number of R&D staff and urbanization. It should be noted that present-day number of R&D staff comprises primarily employees of state-owned Soviet-style institutions while professional service providers are typically up-to-date privately-owned firms. Results reveal that employment in Soviet R&D positively and significantly affects present-day employment in engineering and in IT. No such evidence is found for accounting, auditing and management consulting in which industries researchers' skills were less relevant. Results remains when shares in employment of professional services and R&D sector are plugged into regression instead of absolute numbers. I consider different explanations for this phenomenon. I attempt to track influence of 1991 R&D-related employment on current output-per-worker in IT and engineering and find positive correlation, although marginally significant. So, it is unlikely that Soviet-era pools of human capital created regional poverty traps due to low migration rates, and human capital externalities theory seems plausible. I also find that regions with greater number of R&D staff in 1991 now have greater number of SMEs both in business services and in the rest of economy, so entrepreneurship is a likely mechanism to impose path-dependence.

This paper looks at how "Globalisation" – narrowly defined as the causes and effects of increased international economic integration – has influenced the demand for and supply of maritime products and services, with a particular emphasis on maritime labour. A central argument is that the manner in which maritime labour has been affected varies enormously among the maritime industries, and there is also variation among different occupations. Today, the Norwegian maritime industries have found "a new equilibrium", where old and national traditions have successfully merged with the new and global realities. The discussion paper is structured around six propositions about the relationship between globalisation and Norwegian maritime labour, and these propositions are discussed and linked to empirical data.

The first of July 1952, the moped was legislatively excluded from existing restrictions for heavier two-wheeled motorized vehicles. A driver/owner of a “bicycle with auxiliary engine” – this was the original denomination of the vehicle – thus needed no registration, driver’s license or insurance, nor pay any vehicle tax. The legislators did, however, postulate some technical requirements. Besides regulation of the engine, the vehicle should be “bicycle-like” and have pedals. It should thus be driven primarily by means of human, not mechanical, power (i.e., it was not supposed to be a lighter version of a motorcycle). In terms of social and economic goals, the state assumed workers to be the primary users, and a utilitarian use rather than one connected to pleasure and spare time. Very quickly, however, the moped lost all resemblance with the ordinary bicycle (except for the pedals). In a new legislation in 1961, the state yielded to the technical development. The moped no longer needed to resemble a bicycle or have pedals. Meanwhile, the moped also became more of a toy for boys – a vehicle for freedom – rather than the useful tool the state had wished for. In fact, we argue that the demands from user groups not foreseen played a crucial role in changing the legal technical requirements of the moped.This paper deals with the co-evolution, technically and institutionally, of the moped during the period 1952–75. Using a method inspired by evolutionary theory, the moped models released in Sweden in these years are grouped in “families” with distinctive technical features and accompanying presumed uses. We analyze this development using concepts from the theoretical fields of innovation studies and the history of technology (STS/SCOT).

To analyse the mutually dependent relationship between local economic performance, de- mand for and supply of transport services, we employ the structural panel VAR method that is popular in the macroeconomic literature, but has not previously been applied to the modelling of the within-city dynamics of transportation. We focus on a within-city panel of Berlin, Germany during the heyday of the construction of its dense public transit network (1890–1914). Our results suggest that economic out- comes and a supply of transport infrastructure mutually determine each other. We find a short-run (long-run) elasticity of property prices with respect to transport supply of 2% (8.5%). Both transport demand and supply seem to be driven more by firms than by residents.

De país rezagado en el turismo internacional durante el primer tercio del siglo XX, España pasó a convertirse en una potencia turística. ¿Cómo y por qué se produjo esta transformación? ¿Qué papel jugó el turismo de masas en el modelo de desarrollo español entre 1939 y 1975? ¿Qué consecuencias socioeconómicas tuvo? Las respuestas a estas cuestiones son el objeto principal de este trabajo

La crisis abierta en el sector aceitero en el último tercio del siglo XIX obligó a un profundo cambio en los distintos ámbitos del mismo. El presente trabajo busca analizar la actividad empresarial en el sector exportador, poniendo el acento en su destacable incremento, así como en los protagonistas, en las estrategias empresariales planteadas y en las redes que se establecieron tanto entre las empresas exportadoras, como entre estas y el resto de la actividad económica andaluza.

New Economic Geography (NEG) models stress the importance of access to demand as a key driver of the spatial and temporal distribution of economic activity (Krugman, 1991). Therefore, in order to test the theoretical predictions emanating from NEG a sound measure of accessibility is required. In line with Crafts (2005b), this paper constructs market potential estimates for Spain at the province level (NUTS3) between 1867 and 1930 using Harris’s (1954) equation. This period is particularly appealing as it was during these years that the Spanish market became integrated thanks to the fall in transport and trade costs. A number of key processes, including the substitution of traditional transport modes and the improvement in transport technologies (the railways and steam navigation), were set in motion. At the same time, the Spanish economy was experiencing the early stages of industrialization in a context characterised by changing trade policies. Interestingly, these long-term processes brought about asymmetric changes in regional accessibility, thus potentially affecting the evolution of Spain’s regional economies. The results show that the main changes to regional market accessibility in Spain can be traced to the second half of the 19th century, a period characterised by centrifugal tendencies. The availability of this dataset is essential for undertaking empirical exercises, through the lens of NEG, examining the Spanish experience up to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), when an increasing spatial concentration in the country’s manufacturing sector and an upswing in regional per capita income inequality took place.

This paper analyzes the impact of the German autobahn net on the economic performance of German regions. To address endogeneity and reverse causation problems, we use historical instrument variables, i.e. a plan of the railroad net in 1890 and a plan of the autobahn net in 1937. We find a statistically and economically significant causal effect of transport infrastructure investments as measured by changes in the length of the autobahn net of West German NUTS 3 areas on regional employment and the wage bill.

The common European electricity market requires both market integration and transmission grid expansion, including trans-border interconnectors. Although the benefits of increased interconnectivity are widely acknowledged, expansion of interconnectors is often very slow. This paper gathers insights on the reasons behind this "grid-lock" drawing on the study of the German-Polish border. Although two interconnectors already exist, the trade is blocked by unplanned electricity loop flows. A third interconnector has been discussed for years, but saw little progress in spite of declarations of support on both sides. Drawing on the existing literature on the topic of grid expansion we identify four hypotheses for the grid-lock: inadequate financing; diverging interests; governance and administration problems; and different actors' motivations, trust and security perceptions. We evaluate them using the empirical material gathered through document analysis and stakeholder interviews conducted in Germany and Poland. None of the hypotheses on its own can explain the "gridlock". However, while financing has not been a major obstacle, divergent interests had an impact on the project delay, administrative and governance problems are a great hindrance on the technical level, while motivations influence interstate political relations and policy shaping. EU support and closer bilateral cooperation provide opportunities to address these challenges.

Newly assembled macroeconomic statistics for early modern Portugal reveal one of Europe's most vigorous colonial traders but one of its least successful growth records. Was the empire a blessing or a drag to the economy? Using an estimated dynamic model, we conclude that intercontinental trade had a substantial and increasingly positive impact on economic growth. In the heyday of colonial expansion, eliminating the economic links to empire would have reduced Portugal's per capita income by at least a fifth. While the empire helped the domestic economy, it was not sufficient to annul the tendency of the latter toward decline in relation to Europe's advanced core, which began to set in from the seventeenth century onward, but only became definite after 1800. We conclude that the explanation for Portugal's long-term backwardness must be sought primarily in domestic conditions.

A key prediction of a large class of theoretical models is that the location of economic activity is not necessarily determined by fundamentals. To test the empirical relevance of these ideas requires a natural experiment in which a large but ultimately temporary shock dislocates economic activity. Following Davis and Weinstein (2002) a number of papers have used war-time destruction as such a temporary shock. In this paper we revisit this debate and use the cities that were part of pre-war Germany and become part of Poland after the Second World War as a natural experiment. We show that also in this case cities recover surprisingly fast from the war-time shock despite heavy destruction and the expulsion of the entire population. Our results suggest that either the location and size of cities is indeed determined by fundamentals or that even heavily destroyed cities are rebuilt because the ruins contain valuable surviving structures. We provide suggestive qualitative evidence that the second interpretation is more likely correct.

Infrastructure and especially mass transit play a major role in urban economics and are the centre of many research questions. Probably due to simultaneous determination of infrastructure supply and demand most research is only carried out on the supply side driven relationship explaining how transport leads to urban development. The intention of the paper is to provide a new and purely empirical perspective on the chicken-and-egg-problem. We propose a panel VAR approach employing a unique data set for historic Berlin between 1870 and 1936. We argue that it is of a planner?s interest to not only incorporate the supply side driven relationship but also the demand sided one. We turn the simultaneity problem into a purely empirical question since in practice it becomes difficult to derive theoretical implications from a comprehensive model that fully reflects all mutual interactions. Our analysis follows a twofold approach: Firstly, we estimate the interaction between population and transport. We then secondly extend the analysis by looking into the relation between land values and transport. Our estimates suggest a supply side driven relationship between transport and population and a positive reciprocal one between transport and land values. We conclude that new lines are not built entirely into undeveloped land but need to be connected to areas characterised by high land values to serve as a commuting mode.

The article offers an approach to the westward reorientation of foreign trade by the post-communist economies of East-Central Europe at the micro--i.e. enterprise--level. Having presented the dynamics of reorientation and its theoretical/historical underpinnings, the writer then goes on to underline the surprisingly large number of microeconomic determinants behind the strong westbound export surge. The article starts with the most often cited factor, namely the distressed sale argument, and then shifts the focus to determinants that have received far less attention: an unusual extension of the "distressed sale" argument and another, more important one, namely the legacy of the oversized industrial sector and resultant availability of firms ready (or forced) to test their mettle on the world markets. The following section extends the list of determinants to foreign direct investment and the growing export activity of domestic de novo firms. The linkages between the determinants are also pointed out. The final section sums up the observations. JEL Codes: N74, N84, P33, PSL Quarterly Review, V. 53, N. 213 (2000)

The question of why certain regions are more efficient in creating new knowledge is one of the main research issues in Regional Science. In the recent past, inter-regional knowledge networks - defined as the inter-linkage of collaborative endeavours in knowledge creation across regional boundaries - have been increasingly considered as important element for knowledge generation processes. Such inter-regional knowledge networks may constitute promising channels to tap knowledge that is widely dispersed in geographical space. This paper investigates the position of regions in inter-regional knowledge networks at the European level, taking a comparative perspective on the R&D collaboration network as given by the European Framework Programmes (FPs), the co-patent network and the co-publication network. The aim is to identify how region-specific and spatial factors explain positioning in European knowledge networks. In order to take account of structural properties of each network type, we apply a Social Network Analysis (SNA) perspective, defining a region's network position in terms of its centrality according to inter-regional collaboration intensities. By this, we use eigenvector centrality, placing the region in a central hub position, and betweenness centrality, assigning central regions the ability to control knowledge diffusion in the network. In modelling network centrality we distinguish between regional characteristics that reflect a region's knowledge production capacities (capacity dimension), and the variety in a region's knowledge production activities (relational dimension). Our empirical model specification in form of a mixed effects panel version of the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) allows accounting for the spatial autocorrelation in explaining network position by differentiating between direct, region-internal, and indirect, region-external impacts arising from our set of explanatory characteristics. The results provide first empirical evidence on regional factors that influence position in inter-regional knowledge networks from a comparative perspective on three different network types, given their distinct network structure in relational as well as spatial terms. The results reveal that internal capacity- and technology-related aspects but also spatial spillover impacts from surrounding regions prove to be particularly important for centrality in the co-patent network. We also find significant - region-internal and region-external - impacts of general economic conditions on a region's centrality in the FP network. However, we cannot observe substantial spillover effects of region-external factors on centrality in the co-publication network. Thus, the distinctive knowledge creation foci in each network seem to find expression in its regional determinants.

In the face of continuing financial and economic crises, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has been criticized for being overly-conservative in its loans to Europe. Critics in particular have called on the EIB to vastly increase its investment in utilities as a counter-cyclical measure. To take stock and, in order to evaluate the role of the EIB in financing utilities over time, we compile and analyze an original database of all EIB utilities project loans from 1958 to 2004. We find the EIB started out by functioning as a regional development bank, prioritizing utilities finance in its members’ poorer zones; however, energy crises in the 1970s marked a shift whereby the logic of EIB finance to utilities became more politically-oriented. By the 1980s, utilities projects supported by the EIB were intimately related to those required for the Single Market. The origins of the EIB’s current conservative approach to utilities loans was born in the 1970s and fully consolidated by the 1990s.

We devote this paper to reflecting on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in the long run, particularly analyzing the case of Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the interactions between IPRs and FDI have attracted significant research efforts in distinct economic and business areas, the results lack permanent answers. Our findings demonstrate that, from a macro-level perspective, 1) FDI and IPRs are effectively related in the long term; 2) weak IPR protection does not seem to have stopped FDI; and 3) the countries with major FDI in Spain were less worried about IPR management than others with less FDI.

The supply of electric energy and natural gas is a service of general interest, with a vital importance in satisfying the consumer’s basic needs. The conducted research is descriptive and its main focus is on the study of the field literature, aiming at aspects such as identifying the historic evolution of the electric energy and natural gas markets in Romania, the behaviour of companies operating on these markets and their impact on the consumers’ rights. The research methodology has been established starting from a synthetic analysis of the most recent published studies on the observation of the European policy in the energy field and EU’s efforts to build up a single, competitive market, including two sectors that not long ago were dominated by monopolistic national actors: electric energy and gas. The research methods imply study monitoring and reports as well as forecast analyses regarding the capacity of the Three Energy Packages, once implemented, to support the creation of competitive, transparent and uniformly regulated energy markets within the EU countries, in order to ensure the protection of the consumers of these general interest services. The research has a dual approach, combining quantitative and qualitative elements as well as conducting the analysis of the correlations between the efforts and effects registered in the field of consumer protection. The first section of the article offers conceptual clarifications regarding both the European policy in the energy field and the consumers of general economic services. The second section gives an insight into the energy and gas markets in Romania as well as the main obstacles in the way of their liberalization. The third section presents the efforts made with respect to consumer protection in the field of energy, analyzing the European Directives’ fundamental ideas regarding the protection of consumers and the phase of their embedment into our legislation in order to achieve a full legislative harmonization.

This paper develops a new insight enabling the empirical study of media capture: minority shareholders of newspapers and readers face similar risks. Both are adversely affected when corrupt insiders use the newspaper for personal profit and receive invisible revenues. This means that relevant data on influence and exploitation of newspaper has been hiding in plain sight in stock exchange or over-the-counter prices, since stock transactions reflect the value of this capture. Empirical data is consistent with increasing levels of looting in France during the 1930s. We provide a comparison with Britain and argue that Britain managed to protect its newspapers better.

The methodology presented here allows to measure and monitor road congestion across Europe using data from TomTom in-vehicle navigation systems. The approach is based on the analysis of a large number of real vehicle speeds that have been measured on each road link and the application of algorithms that allow the estimation of congestion indicators for specific types of roads during selected time periods. The results include the detailed mapping of recurrent congestion both geographically and temporally, as well as the comparison of the quality of service of road networks between different zones.

This paper analyzes the international competitiveness of the Spanish wine industry at the stage of 'wine globalization'. The comparative advantage through the Revealed Competitive Advantage Index (RCA) or Balassa Index and the behavior of the wines types, and the relative weight of exports in volume, value and unit prices in the world market since the 1960's are examined. The article reports the exports increasing of bottled quality wines with Appellations of Origen and, overall, wine exports growth in recent decades. Spanish wine industry has become a net exporter, challenging the fall in domestic consumption and increased foreign competition; however, the bases of its competitiveness are low-cost wines, quality economic wines, and particularly the bulk wines, which show higher dynamism in the last decade.

Este trabajo analiza la evolución y competitividad de las exportaciones españolas de vino en el mercado mundial desde la década de 1960. Con ello explora las respuestas de la industria vinícola durante la globalización del vino. Analiza el comportamiento evolutivo del sector por tipos de vinos y el peso relativo de las exportaciones en volumen, valor y precios unitarios en el mercado mundial. El estudio de la ventaja comparativa del comercio exterior se realiza a través del índice de Ventaja Competitiva Revelada (VCR) o Índice de Balassa. Demuestra que pese al fabuloso crecimiento de las exportaciones entre 1960 y 2011 la industria española sigue especializada en vinos de bajo coste y en exportaciones a granel. Aunque mejoró la calidad y crecieron las exportaciones de vinos embotellados con denominación de origen, la competitividad del sector muestra serias debilidades que la sitúan entre las más bajas de los países especializados.