Price Convergence in the European Union: Within Firms or Composition of Firms?

In this paper we use data on French export prices at the disaggregated firm and product level to evaluate the effect of economic integration on price convergence. We use the European integration ‘experiment' and firm-level data on export prices to distinguish between two possible margins of adjustment: At the intensive margin economic integration induces different pricing strategies within the firm, whereas at the extensive margin it affects the composition of firms with different pricing strategies. In our sample price convergence is 40 percent faster in the European Union than in an appropriately defined control group. 30 percent of this effect can be attributed to the fact that a higher share of firms with a low propensity to price discriminate serve European markets

Macroeconomic Consequences of Global Endogenous Migration: A General Equilibrium Analysis

In this paper, we analyze the demographic and economic consequences of endogenous migrations flows over the coming decades in a multi-regions overlapping generations general equilibrium model (INGENUE 2) in which the world is divided in ten regions. Our analysis offers a global perspective on the consequences of international migration flows. The value-added of the INGENUE 2 model is that it enables us to analyze the effects of international migration on both the destination and the origin regions. A further innovation of our analysis is that international migration is treated as endogenous. In a first step, we estimate the determinants of migration in an econometric model. We show, in particular, that the income differential is one of the key variables explaining migration flows. In a second step, we endogenize migration flows in the INGENUE 2 model. In order to do so, we use the econometrically estimated relationships between demographic and income developments in the INGENUE model, which enables us to project long-run migration flows and to improve on projections of purely demographic models.CGEM, Migration, International capital flows

Essays on the political economy of trade and migration policies

Defence date: 12 July 2005Examining board: Giovanni Facchini, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ; Eckhard Janeba, University of Mannheim ; Massimo Motta, Supervisor, European University Institute ; Francis Vella, European University InstitutePDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017-- Bargaining over the transfer in preferential trade agreements : the case of a customs union with a common budget -- Who is against free migration? : lobbying, the non-traded sector and the choice between the customs union and the common market -- The effect of immigration on native wages in the traded and the non-traded sectors : an empirical investigatio

Who is Against Free Migration?: Lobbying, the Non-Traded Sector and the Choice between the Customs Union and the Common Market

http://www.iue.it/PUB/ECO2005-6.pd

Achieving Higher Performance: Enhancing Spending Efficiency in Health and Education in Mexico

Despite progress over the past two decades Mexico?s health and education indicators remain well below the average of the OECD and some of its Latin American emerging market peers. Health insurance coverage is incomplete, especially for low-income families, and access to health services is highly uneven. There are several separate vertically integrated insurance networks, which increases administrative costs and results in an inefficient use of facilities. In education, lower secondary schools enroll only two thirds of the relevant age group and the quality of education is low, as indicated by poor PISA scores. This reflects poor teaching quality, a consequence of non-transparent teacher selection processes until recently, and limited school autonomy in budgeting, instruction and personnel decisions. Accountability to the government and parents is also low as there is no national exit exam after secondary education and the existing evaluation schemes are fragmented. Recent health and education reforms have started to address these issues, but more needs to be done to increase the efficiency of spending by increasing the coverage of health insurance, reducing the fragmentation of the health system, increasing enrolment in lower secondary education, and improving the quality of teaching. Améliorer les performances : renforcer l'efficience des dépenses de santé et d'éducation au Mexique Malgré les progrès réalisés ces vingt dernières années, les indicateurs du Mexique dans les domaines de l’éducation et de la santé restent nettement inférieurs à la moyenne OCDE et aux indicateurs de certains pays émergents d’Amérique latine. La couverture par l’assurance-maladie est incomplète, en particulier pour les familles à bas revenu, et l’accès aux services de santé est très inégalitaire. Plusieurs systèmes d’assurance verticalement intégrés coexistent, ce qui accroît les coûts administratifs et empêche une utilisation efficiente des services. Dans le domaine de l’éducation, seuls deux tiers des enfants en âge d’être scolarisés dans le premier cycle de l’enseignement secondaire le sont effectivement et la qualité du système éducatif laisse à désirer, comme en témoignent les mauvais résultats obtenus dans le cadre de l’enquête PISA. Cette situation résulte d’une mauvaise qualité de l?enseignement, qui s’explique par le manque de transparence qui, jusqu’à une période récente, caractérisait les procédures de sélection des enseignants et par le manque d’autonomie des établissements scolaires sur les plans du budget, de l’enseignement et des décisions relatives au personnel. La responsabilité du système éducatif vis-à-vis du gouvernement et des parents est également limitée du fait qu’il n’y a pas d’examen de fin d’études au terme de la scolarité secondaire et que les systèmes d’évaluation existants sont fragmentés. Les réformes engagées récemment dans les domaines de la santé et de l’éducation ont commencé à remédier à ces faiblesses, mais des efforts supplémentaires s’imposent pour améliorer l’efficience des dépenses en étendant la couverture par l’assurance-maladie, en réduisant la fragmentation du système de santé, en augmentant le taux de scolarisation dans le premier cycle du secondaire et en améliorant la qualité de l’enseignement.Mexico, education policy, health policy, data envelopment analysis, politique de santé, analyse d'enveloppement des données, politique d'éducation, Mexique

La directive services : une analyse économique

La Commission européenne a présenté en janvier 2004 un projet de directive qui vise à éliminer les barrières aux échanges de services au sein de l'UE. Cette directive a déclenché une vaste controverse. D'un côté, ses partisans font valoir que les services constituent 70% du PIB et des emplois de l'Union et qu'étendre la libéralisation à ce secteur bénéficiera à la croissance et à l'emploi. De l'autre, ses adversaires avancent que cette libéralisation, intervenant peu après l'élargissement à l'Est, pénalisera, à l'Ouest, l'emploi et les salaires dans les activités de services comparativement désavantagées. Ils redoutent aussi un nivellement par le bas des normes réglementaires. L'examen du contenu de la directive permet de relativiser les risques dans ce domaine. L'analyse des gains d'efficience et des effets redistributifs de la libéralisation permet ensuite d'envisager les mesures qui, tout en préservant le plus possible les premiers, permettraient de réduire les seconds et d'assurer ainsi la viabilité politique de la directive.

The Effect of Domestic Regulation on Services Trade Revisited

services;Gravity model;Regulation

Who is against Free Migration? Lobbying, the Non-traded Sector and the Choice between the Customs Union and the Common Market

While economists usually resort to redistribution between individuals of different skill levels and majority voting when explaining migration policies, the present political economy model of preferential trade and migration agreements suggests an alternative approach based on the following two observations. Firstly, in the presence of free trade in goods between the member states of the EU, migration between the member states mainly redistributes income between individuals employed in the traded and the non-traded sectors. Secondly, various episodes of restrictive migration legislation suggest that lobbying from vocal interest groups rather than majority voting shapes migration policies in the EU.Trade Negotiations, International Migration, Lobbying, European Enlargement