One size fits all? Accession to the internal market; an industry level assessment of EU enlargement

Enlargement of the EU with ten Central and Eastern European Countries is a major item on the EU's policy agenda. Assessing the economic consequences of the accession to the internal market is not obvious. This paper provides a new method to quantify the impact of the accession. The assessment is based on a gravity-equation, estimated for 16 industries. The estimations exploit the fact that the current EU members already operate in a Single Market since 1992. The estimations provide information on the barriers, at the level of industries, that the Single Market program succeeded to remove. This is used to assess the industry-level impact of enlargement, for the current EU members and for the accession countries. � This approach yields different estimates for the impact of accession to the internal market for the different industries and different countries. The impact of accession to the internal market is notably large in Agriculture, Textiles, Trade Services, Transport Equipment, Non-metallic Minerals and Food Processing. Moreover, the aggregate excess trade within the internal market is comparable to what other studies find. The shock of accession to the internal market is plausibly largest for the accession countries. For the current members of the EU the upcoming enlargement likely has the largest impact for Austria, Greece and Germany.

The Rising Skill Premium, Technological Change and Appropriability

In the US the skill premium and the nonproduction/production wage differential increased strongly from the late 1970s onwards. Skillbiased technological change, trade with unskilledabundant countries and changes in the (domestic) supply of skilled workers have been proposed as explanatory factors. By the method of eliminating the impossible, skillbiased technological change is argued to be the dominant explanation. This paper shows that the dismissal of the increased supply of skill which is argued to be countervailing rising skill premiums is premature. In a simple model, well embedded in the literature on R&D, knowledge accumulation and (semi)endogenous growth, it is shown that the demand curve for skilled labour might well be upward sloping. Our key assumption is that skilled labour is employed in nonproduction activities that both generate and use knowledge inputs. It is shown that the tension between nonrivalness and appropriability of R&D output is crucial for the sign of the slope of the skilldemand curve. A necessary condition for an upward sloping demand curve is the ability of firms to appropriate the intertemporal returns from nonproduction activities.

Factor mobility and regional disparities; east, west, home's best?

Unemployment rates as well as incomes per capita differ vastly across the regions of Europe. Labour mobility can play a role in resolving regional disparities. This paper focuses on the questions why labour mobility is low in the EU and how it is possible that it remains low. We explore whether changes in labour participation act as an important alternative adjustment mechanism. We answer this question in the affirmative. Furthermore, we argue that labour participation of young females is very important in adjusting to regional disparities. Finally, we examine whether part time work is an adjustment mechanism that is comparable to labour force participation. It turns out not to be.

Environmental policy competition and differential tax treatment; a case for tighter coordination?

The Kyoto Protocol binds the level of greenhouse gas emissions in participating countries. It does not, however, dictate how the countries are to achieve this level. The economic costs of reaching emission targets are generally evaluated to be low. For example, evaluations with applied general-equilibrium models estimate the costs to be in the range of 0.2% to 0.5% of GDP, when international trade in emissions rights among governments is allowed for. We argue that important costs are overlooked since governments have an incentive to choose highly distorting tax schemes. This paper shows that governments generally choose different energy tax rates for households and for internationally operating firms as the result of tax competition or pollution competition: in the first case, governments try to undercut other governments to attract firms to their country, whereas in the second, they try to push dirty industries across the border. In both cases, the incentive for firms and households to use or save energy is different at the margin. Both cases call for coordination of climate change policies that goes beyond a binding ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions and international trade in permit rights among governments alone.

Competition and quality in the notary profession

The 1999 Dutch Notary Act has initiated an ambitious deregulation process in the market for notary services in the Netherlands. We evaluate the impact of this liberalisation policy on (i) the level of competition in the profession and (ii) the quality of services. We compare the level of competition before and after the liberalisation using two different indicators, namely a relative-profit indicator and a variation of the Bresnahan-Reiss indicator. Using the relative profit indicator, we find that the level of competition has increased after 1999. We find, however, no significant difference between the level of competition in 1996 and in 2002. This is particularly clear when we measure competition taking the local market as the relevant market for notary services. The results on the national market are more mixed and there is some evidence that competition in 2002 is higher than in 1996. Using the Bresnahan-Reiss indicator, we find that entry does affect conduct in the notary market, but again that the level of competition in the local market for notary services in 2003 does not significantly differ from the 1995 level. We also examine whether competition affects the quality of notary services. We use both subjective and objective measures for quality of notary services. We find that subjective quality - the perceived level of service by clients - is, if anything, negatively affected by competition. Using objective quality, i.e. quality that is not observable to clients, we find that in 2003 competition leads to a deterioration of quality, as the quality of monopoly notaries outperforms the quality of oligopoly notaries. This was not the case in 1995. Confronting our empirical findings with qualitative insights, we present options for policy.

Rising skill premia; you ain't seen nothing yet?

Increases in inequality between low and high-skilled workers are likely to affect welfare state policies in upcoming decades. Demand for redistribution puts pressure on marginal income-tax rates and other social security measures. We come to this conclusion by confronting expected supply and demand for skill. If demand for skill continues to increase at the pace of the last decades, supply has to keep up its high rate of growth of the last decades too. A priori, the former is plausible, the latter is not. This paper makes this point and sketches the major uncertainties surrounding the underlying trends.

Fertile soil for Structural Funds? A panel data analysis of the conditional effectiveness of European cohesion policy Author-Name: Sjef Ederveen

Structural funds are the most intensively used policy instrument by the European Union to promote economic growth in its member states and to speed up the process of convergence. This paper empirically explores the effectiveness of European Structural Funds by means of a panel data analysis for 13 countries in the European Union. We show that ? on average ? Structural Funds are ineffective. For countries with the ?right? institutions, however, Structural Funds are effective. The latter result is obtained for a wide range of conditioning variables, such as openness, institutional quality, corruption and indicators for good governance. JEL codes: F35, F36, O11, O40, O52, R58 Keywords: European Cohesion Policy, policy effectiveness, economic growth, European Union

EU enlargement: economic implications for countries and industries

This paper explores the economic consequences of the enlargement of the European Union with countries from Central and Eastern Europe. We focus on integration aspects that go beyond the reduction of formal trade barriers, namely accession to the internal market and free movement of labour. The economic implications for sixteen industries in several European countries are assessed by using WorldScan, a CGE model for the world economy. The results suggest that the candidate member states will gain substantially from accession to the internal market, although some sectors in these countries will shrink. Most EU countries will experience small welfare increases. We also find that the internal market effects are large compared to the economic effects of removing formal trade barriers and migration.

Is the American model Miss World? Choosing between the Anglo-Saxon model and a European-style alternative

In Lisbon, the European Union has set itself the goal to become the most competitive economy in the world in 2010 without harming social cohesion and the environment. The motivation for introducing this target is the substantially higher GDP per capita of US citizens. The difference in income is mainly a difference in the number of hours worked per employee. In terms of productivity per hour and employment per inhabitant, several European countries score equally well or even better than the United States, while at the same time they outperform the United States with a more equal distribution of income. The European social models are at least as interesting as the US model that is often considered a role model. In an empirical analysis for OECD countries, we aim to unravel 'the secret of success'. Our regression results show that income redistribution (through a social security system) does not necessarily lead to lower participation and higher unemployment, provided that countries supplement it with active labour market policies. Especially, spending on employment services like job-search assistance and vocational guidance, seems effective. Furthermore, the results suggest that generous unemployment benefits of short duration contribute to employment without widening the income distribution.

Strategic competition with public infrastructure; ineffective and unwelcome?

Countries invest in international infrastructure in an effort to attract firms. Acquiring the position of a hub would make this effort successful. We use a model of international trade with monopolistic competition, increasing returns to scale and transport costs to analyse policy competition through infrastructure investment. For a small or backward country the strategic effect of attracting firms is less important than for large or advanced countries. A country that acquires a hub-position sees its welfare improve. The other countries may gain or lose; they benefit from cheaper international trade, but suffer from the relocation of firms. In the case of line infrastructure the spoke countries will invest to eradicate the hub position, whereas in the case of point infrastructure they will not. Policy competition is more likely to deliver too much infrastructure investment when transport costs are low and the strategic effect is more important. A globalising world may thus call for international co-ordination.