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The aim of this paper is to analyse tax revenues and examine similarities of selected tax revenues (mainly VAT, CIT, PIT and excise duty) in the European Union countries. The analysis of the EU members concerns the period between 2003 (i.e. the year preceding the biggest enlargement of the EU) and 2012 (due to data completeness). Tax rates and the structure of tax revenues in the EU countries were compared and then the cluster analysis was applied to assess the similarity of tax revenues. The analysis suggests that the process of tax harmonization, which took place in the period considered, did not exert a significant impact on the similarity of the structure of tax revenues in the EU countries. The structure seems to be still determined by e.g. social, economic or historical factors, which influenced the tax systems creation in particular EU countries.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine Okun's Law in European countries by distinguishing between the transitory and the permanent effects of output changes upon unemployment and by examining the effect of labor market protection policies upon Okun's coefficients.


Design/methodology/approach
– Quarterly data for 13 European Union countries, from the second quarter of 1993 until the first quarter of 2014, are used. Panel data techniques and Mundlak decomposition models are estimated.


Findings
– Okun's Law is robust to alternative specifications. The effect of output changes to unemployment rates is weaker for countries with increased labor market protection expenditures and it is more persistent for countries with low labor market protection.


Originality/value
– The paper provides evidence that the permanent effect of output changes upon unemployment rates is quantitatively larger than the transitory impact. In addition, it provides evidence that increased labor market protection mitigates the adverse effects of a decrease in output growth rate upon unemployment.

This article investigates the competitiveness of agri-food exports of the European Union (EU-27) countries on global markets, using the revealed comparative advantage (B) index over the years 2000-11. Panel unit root tests, mobility index and the Kaplan-Meier survival rates of the B index are used. The majority of agri-food products in the EU-27 countries show a comparative disadvantage on global markets. The B indices of the EU-27 countries tend to convergence. Most of the old EU-15 Member States experienced a greater number of agri-food products having a longer duration of revealed comparative advantages than have most of the new EU-12 Member States. Among the most successful Member States in agri-food export competitiveness on global markets are the Netherlands, France and Spain. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract
Background
Circular economy (CE) is a development priority of the European Union and it is part of the EU industrial strategy. The transition to a more circular economy is an essential contribution to the EU's efforts to develop a sustainable, low carbon, resource-efficient and competitive economy. The author focuses her CE-related reflections and research in this paper on the macro-level (research subjects: 28 EU countries), the level which is least represented in scholarly publications addressing CE (as follows from the analysis of literature in the Scopus database). This study aims to fill this gap partially. The aim of this paper is to identify and group the EU-28 countries according to their advancement towards circular economy. CE indicators proposed by the European Commission were used for the analysis. Given the research subjects and after an analysis of the literature they were concluded to be the most adequate. The theoretical part was based on an analysis of the literature, whereas the empirical work used the principal components analysis, hierarchical and k-means clustering and a grade correspondence-cluster analysis.

Results
On the basis of the research, the existence of a "two-speed Europe" was identified in terms of EU countries' advancement towards CE. Leading countries, those most advanced in pursuing operation according to CE principles, include Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The second pole accommodates EU countries in which transformation towards CE is happening at the slowest pace. This group includes mainly countries of the Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the south of Europe.

Conclusions
Differentiated levels of advancement of individual countries towards CE result inter alia from the adoption by some of the latter of different development strategies for their economies' transitioning to circular economy (according to recommendations of EU ministers at the Environment Council in June 2016) and also from the differences occurring in social and economic development (it is mostly noticeable between the EU-15 and the EU-13 countries). Unfortunately, as can be concluded from the effects obtained so far, only a few of the adopted development strategies may be considered effective in meeting the challenges of circular economy according to the European Union's standards.

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Unrecorded alcohol, that is, alcohol not reflected in official statistics of the country where it is consumed, contributes markedly to overall consumption of alcohol. However, empirical data on unrecorded alcohol consumption are scarce, especially in high-income countries. This study measures the contribution of unrecorded alcohol in 7 member states of the European Union. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Two categories of unrecorded consumption were assessed in general population surveys (reducing alcohol related harm Standardized European Alcohol Survey; <i>n</i> = 11,224): home-made alcohol and cross-border shopping. Country-specific logistic regressions were used to link respondent characteristics to odds of acquisition of unrecorded alcohol. Total <i>per capita</i> alcohol consumption was estimated under different assumptions of calculating unrecorded alcohol consumption. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Individuals with higher drinking levels were more likely to acquire unrecorded alcohol in all 7 countries. In some countries, male sex and more affluent social class were also positively linked to acquisition of unrecorded alcohol. There was a substantial contribution of unrecorded alcohol to overall consumption in 5 out of 7 member states (Croatia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Portugal), but not in Poland or Spain. In Greece, up to two-thirds of all alcohol consumed was estimated to be unrecorded.<b><i> Conclusion:</i></b> Unrecorded alcohol contributes to overall consumption even in high-income countries, and thus needs to be monitored. In monitoring, as many categories of unrecorded alcohol as possible should be clearly defined (e.g., surrogate alcohol) and included in future surveys.

The article presents research results on the analysis of green jobs in the European Union countries with respect to selected indicators characterizing the member states. For the empirical analysis a regression model was applied. As a dependent variable a number of jobs in the renewable energy sector in 2012 per million inhabitants of the countries was used. In the linear regression model the explanatory variable was a share of expenditure on R&D in GDP [%]. Studies show that the increase in research and development expenditures have a real, measurable impact on the availability of green jobs in the EU countries. Research results were presented on the background of the strategy "Europe 2020".

Innovation is one of the main determinants of economic development. Innovative activity is very complex, thus difficult to measure. The complexity of the phenomenon poses a great challenge for researchers to understand its determinants. The article focuses on the problem of innovation-related geographical disparities among European Union countries. Moreover, it analyses the principal components of innovation determined on the basis of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) dimensions. The aim of the paper is to identify the principal components of the innovation index which differentiate countries by analysing the structure of the correlation between its components. All calculations were based on indicators included in the EIS 2020 Database, containing data from the years 2012–2019. A comparative analysis of the studied countries' innovation performance was carried out, based on the principal component analysis (PCA) method, with the purpose of finding the uncorrelated principal components of innovation which differentiate the studied countries. The results were achieved by reducing a 10-dimensional data set to a 2-dimensional one, for a simpler interpretation. The first principal component (PC1) consisted of the human resources, attractive research systems, and finance and support dimensions (understood as academia and finance). The second principal component (PC2), involving the employment impacts and linkages dimensions, was interpreted as business-related. PC1 and PC2 jointly explained 68% of the observed variance, and similar results were obtained for the 27 detailed indicators outlined in the EIS. We can therefore assume that we have an accurate representation of the information contained in the EIS data, which allows for an alternative assessment and ranking of innovation performance. The proposed simplified index, described in a 2-dimensional space, based on PC1 and PC2, makes it possible to group countries in a new way, according to their level of innovation, which offers a wide range of application, e.g. PC1 captures geographic disparities in innovation corresponding to the division between the old and new EU member states.