EU-12 Countries In The Context Of European Social Model Types

The European social model is a vision of society that combines sustainable economic development with ever-improving living and working conditions. The issue whether or not it is possible to use one so-called European social model in the European Union countries, including in new member states and what it should be like, has been a topic of debates for a long time already. In reality, there are several different social models used in Europe, which interpret the concepts of efficiency and equality differently. The theoretical part of this paper will discuss the European social model and its typology based on research by various authors. We shall compare the social outputs of countries grouped into different model types on the basis of different socio-economic indicators. In the empirical part, we carry out a cluster analysis for positioning new European Union (EU-12) countries into mix of European social models. We concentrate on two of the most important aspects of social systems - monetary poverty/inequality and public policy - and try to classify European Union countries according to their social policy. In the analysis, we also evaluate whether the distribution of EU-15 countries, on the basis of Esping-Andersen’s typology, is the same today after a major enlargement of the European Union. We use different clustering methods such as hierarchical and k-means clustering. The analysis is based on EUROSTAT data; clusters are formed on the basis of 2008 socio-economic indicators for EU-27 countries

Health And Convergence Of Health Care Expenditure In EU

The objective of the paper is to review and analyze the health of population and health care expenditure and to examine the trends of convergence of health care expenditure in EU countries. One of the most often used indicators characterizing a populations health is life expectancy at birth. Comparative analyses show that the life expectancy at birth in EU-12 countries is much lower than in EU-15 countries. Although in 1992-2004 the life expectancy increased both in EU-15 countries and in EU-12 countries, the differences in the life expectancy have still remained more or less the same. Besides the low life expectancy in EU-12 countries, also the resources used in health care are below the EU-15 average level. In our paper we test the ?-, ?- and ?-convergence of the health care expenditure. For testing ?-, ?- and ?-convergence the authors have used cross-sectional data over the period 1992-2004 for health care expenditure as share of GDP and per capita health care expenditure. Data of the World Health Organization (WHO) were used for the research. The study demonstrates that although usually the increase of economic integration facilitates economic growth, the mere fact of the European Union enlargement does not bring along an automatic homogenization of health care expenditure and health policy in the EU-12 countries

Convergence Analysis of the Structure of Tax Revenue and Tax Burden in EU

Tax burden has a notable influence on economic development. In an open economy, tax policy of one country may affect economic activity and public revenue in other countries. This observation has led to calls for international tax coordination in the wake of deepening economic integration. The EU has harmonised standards and regulations in number of areas; however, there has been a lower degree of harmonisation in taxation. Significant measures towards the harmonisation have been raised strategically in the EU agenda. The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare the trends of the structures of tax revenue and tax burdens in the European Union countries and test for convergence using ?-convergence analysis and several unit root tests. We use harmonised data on the tax burdens and the structure of tax revenues in the European Union countries collected by OECD and Eurostat in the period 1970-2004.Convergence, taxation, tax burden, the structure of tax revenue

Social systems in the Baltic States and the European social model

The paper discusses ways in which the social systems in the European Union Member States, especially in the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), fit in the European social model typology. The theoretical part of this paper analyses the European social model and its typology based on research findings by various authors. We compare the social outputs of countries grouped into different model types on the basis of different socio-economic indicators. In the empirical part, we carry out a cluster analysis for positioning the Baltic States into a mix of European social models. We concentrate on the most important aspects of social systems, and try to classify European Union countries according to their social policies. We use different clustering methods such as hierarchical and k-means clustering. The analysis is based on Eurostat data; clusters are formed on the basis of socio-economic indicators for EU-27 countries. Our results suggest that the Baltic countries’ public policies are relatively similar, while the social situation in Estonia is somewhat better than in Latvia and Lithuania