The effect of property rights on the relationship between economic growth and pollution for transition economies

The paper measures changes in environmental quality in transition countries from 1987 to 2000 because of economic growth and environmental reforms. Indication of property rights may accelerate the growth process, as well as the composition effect on the environment. Thus, we compare transition countries that are not yet members of the European Union offering poorly defined property rights with EU-member transition countries offering better-defined property rights. We find that although EU-member transition countries exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship between pollution intensity and economic growth, with a turning point at $5,710, non EU-member transition countries do not support such a relation. © 2007 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved

A Test for a Functioning Market Economy: Seton'S Eigenprices of Turkey

We use Seton's eigenprices to see if some evidence can be found in support of the European Commission's official statement that the Turkish economy can be considered as a functioning market economy. Given an input–output flows matrix, there is a unique set of prices for outputs and production factors compatible with final demand, generating demand for factors. The findings based on Turkey's most recent I–O table and comparable I–O matrices for Romania and Poland (two EU members) in 2005 show that price distortions were on average five times larger in Turkey. Hence, based on price distortions alone, there was no solid evidence in support of the statement that Turkey had a functioning market economy. © 2015 The International Input–Output Association