Suchergebnisse

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.

AbstractStudies have shown that citizens' risk-perceptions and risk-assessment are affected by large scale terrorist acts. Reported evidence shows that individuals are often willing to trade-off civil liberties for enhanced security particularly as a post-terrorist attack reaction as well as adopting more conservative views. Within this strand of the literature, this paper examines whether terrorism and in particular mass-casualty terrorist attacks affect citizens' political self-placement on the left-right scale of the political spectrum. To this effect the Eurobarometer surveys for 12 European Union countries are utilized and ordered logit models are employed for the period 1985–2010 with over 230,000 observations used in the estimations. On balance, the findings reported herein seem to be pointing to a shift in respondents' self-positioning towards the right of the political spectrum.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the similarities and differences in the development of psychological therapies in three European Union countries (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France) in the context of national policies about health services and public mental health.Design/methodology/approachThree case studies are utilised for this purpose as historical descriptions. The latter are then discussed in the light of traditional approaches to the sociology of the professions.FindingsWhilst some similarities are identified across the three countries (for example the recent convergence of policy interest in "evidence‐based practice") it is also clear that the particular national cultures have shaped developments and their different forms of healthcare organisation have been reflected in national legislative and regulatory arrangements.Research limitations/implicationsThese case studies draw attention to the need to explore national variations in policy formation about the same matter (in this case the professionalization of psychological therapies) and to extend discussions within the sociology of the professions to ones of healthcare organizational contexts. In addition, the contested nature of applied psychology may require special attention relative to other forms of health work practice.Originality/valueThis paper provides a particular form of understanding about psychological practices within modern healthcare and public health policies, in the light of the peculiar and contextualised aspects of the case studies provided.

AbstractThe literature on fiscal policies is paying increasing attention to the impact of the composition of public expenditures on long‐term economic growth. Public policy endogenous growth models recommend to change the composition of public expenditures to items considered productive expenditures. In this sense, European institutions are encouraging the rise in the share of productive outlays like public investments, R&D, and active labor market policies, among others. The article analyzes whether these recommendations are followed by European Union countries and whether a convergence to a new pattern of public finances with a higher share of those items considered productive expenditures by European institutions is arising.

AbstractIndustrial policy is an important tool of economic policy‐making, and this has been the case especially since the onset of the current global financial crisis in 2008. However, only relatively few empirical studies consider the macroeconomic effects of industrial policy, especially for European Union countries. In this study we investigate the effect of state aid policy on economic growth and investment, using a panel data set which covers 27 European Union countries over the period 1992–2011. Our results suggest that state aid policy is not an effective tool to achieve higher economic growth and investment rates.