Suchergebnisse

The relationship between economic development and energy consumption has important policy and geopolitical implications intersecting with future energy demand, economic growth and climate change. All countries in the GCC share a common goal to transition to economies less reliant on oil and gas. As part of this transition diversification and energy efficiency strategies have become major strategic priorities. If successful, such policies are likely to significantly change the relationship between domestic energy consumption and GDP. To inform discussion on this topic, this paper assesses the relationship between energy consumption at a sector level and GDP in the GCC relative to a reference group of OECD countries. While there is variation within each grouping and across sectors, the clear result is that energy consumption and economic growth are strongly linked to all sectors in the GCC. This is in contrast to the OECD group where energy and GDP have decoupled. These results highlight both the scope for further improvement in energy efficiency and the need for deeper integration of energy-intensive industry and higher value-added activities and services. We suggest a greater focus on energy productivity— or how maximum value can be obtained from energy consumption—can help guide industrial policy and increase the profile of energy efficiency efforts across the GCC.

AbstractEmpirical evidence suggests that exporters are, in addition to being more productive, significantly more skilled‐labour intensive than non‐exporters. In a setting that captures both these features, we show that the firm selection induced by trade liberalization works along two dimensions. First, export growth increases competition for skilled labour. This leads to the exit of some of the skilled‐labour intensive firms, while benefitting unskilled‐labour intensive ones. Second, within the group of firms with the same factor intensities, the reallocation of factors is towards the exporters. We show that the increased competition for skilled labour dampens the positive effect of trade liberalization on sector‐wide TFP and real income.

The paper presents the analysis of sigma (σ) and beta (β) convergences of the selected indicators as those that best represent the level of local self-government and fiscal decentralization systems across the selected EU member states. Through research we wanted to establish how EU integration process influenced the area of local self-government in selected EU member states and if we witness also the unification of this aspect among EU member states. Results confirm that convergence really occurred at the significant rate during the whole period 2004 to 2013 and also during the sub periods 2004 to 2009 and further, although in latter period some divergence or slowing down in convergence has been also present. Nevertheless, we can confirm that EU integration process has also influenced the area of local self-government and that EU member countries are converging to the commonly adopted criteria are principles as stated in EU charter of local self-government.