Suchergebnisse

One of the top priorities to improve the European Union's growth performance is the creation ofsingle market for services. The directive on services adopted by the Parliament and the Council by the end of 2006 aims at removing barriers to the free movement of service providers on the internal market. Previous studies quantified ex ante sizable effects of implementing the directive in its original form. This paper is a first attempt to evaluate ex post the trade effects induced by a directive - which excludes the country-of-origin principle - by performing a difference-in-difference-(in-differences) estimator on a sample of EU- and non-EU countries in the period 2004 to 2010. We account for non-tariff trade barriers and the endogeneity of regional trade agreements and find that deregulations foster a deeper integration of the new member states into the European value-added-chain and promote business service exports from third countries towards the EU. The reorientation of the new members is in turn associated with declining intra-EU10 business intensities while leaving business trade among the entire members largely unaffected.

Regional governments' discretion in allocating structural funds is mainly limited by the competences of the Commission to control implementation and fiscal activities of decentralized governments. In this paper, we analyse implementation of ERDF funds in Eastern Germany in the financial perspective 2007 to 2013 to show how allocation of the funds follows the objectives formulated in the programmes. We find that less rural regions and some economic sectors benefit by more than others. A few beneficiaries control the highest share of the funds. This indicates that political economy forces in the allocation process may benefit well organised groups.

Regional governments' discretion in allocating structural funds is mainly limited by the competences of the Commission to control implementation and fiscal activities of decentralized governments. In this paper, we analyse implementation of ERDF funds in Eastern Germany in the financial perspective 2007 to 2013 to show how allocation of the funds follows the objectives formulated in the programmes. We find that less rural regions and some economic sectors benefit by more than others. A few beneficiaries control the highest share of the funds. This indicates that political economy forces in the allocation process may benefit well organised groups.

Aus Sicht der Europäischen Union und der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit ihrer Unternehmen stellt das bilaterale Handelsbilanzdefizit mit China in keiner Weise ein Problem dar. China erzielt einen hohen Leistungsbilanzüberschuss aus binnenwirtschaftlichen Gründen, nämlich einer extrem hohen Sparneigung bei geringer Investitionstätigkeit im Lande selbst. Die EU kann nur geringe Teile dieser überschüssigen Ersparnis attrahieren, wie der nur sehr geringe Saldo der Leistungsbilanz der EU als Ganzes anzeigt. Einige Mitgliedsländer weisen hohe Defizite, andere hohe Überschüsse in der Leistungsbilanz auf. Dahinter stehen jeweils andere Kalküle und Ausgangspositionen, die mit dem bilateralen Handel mit China nichts zu tun haben. Es wäre fatal, wenn die Europäische Union eine eigentlich irrelevante Kennzahl - einen bilateralen Saldo nämlich - zum Anlass nähme, Handelsbarrieren zu erhöhen oder neue zu errichten bzw. die Offenheit der EU zu gefährden. Es war gerade das Binnenmarktprogramm, das konsequent durchgeführt zu den enormen Wohlstandszuwächsen in der Union geführt hat. Dieses Programm darf auf keinen Fall in Frage gestellt werden. (ICF2)

In this paper we develop a methodology which is based on two important criteria - sensitivity in delivery time and value-to-weight ratio - to classify products relevant for air transport. Detailed trade data by mode of transport are used to check the loading of an average airplane between South Africa and the European Union. The product classification is applied to evaluate the potential for air cargo transport in Southern Africa. We find that especially export of products with high and medium air cargo relevance grew much faster than exports of bulky goods and non air cargo products. South Africa´s most prominent export products to industrialized countries consist of diamonds, gold and platinum (HS71) which, however, are so precious that they tend to be transported in the hand baggage of a business or security person, because they leave the loading weight of an average airplane almost unaffected. When correcting South Africa´s trade for these invisible outliers in the loading freight we find that South Africa exports a much larger share of products with high air cargo relevance to its SADC partners than to industrialized countries. The results indicate that air cargo seems to be valuable option to overcome trade barriers associated with poor land transport infrastructure and corruption.

Sino-European trade relations have been controversially discussed mainly, if not only, because of the increasing European Union's bilateral trade deficit with China. As from the European perspective trade with China becomes more important, the structural adjustment process of the Chinese economy from inter-ndustry to intra-industry trade is not as intensively discussed. We show how the emergence of China on the world markets has affected European comparative advantages over time. The change in bilateral trade is compared to the overall development of European comparative advantages to highlight the features of the structural change in China. We show that China is increasingly specialising in technology intensive goods. This development is absolutely in accordance with the historical perspective on country's upgrading in technology while integrating into the world economy. Technology intensive Schumpeter goods are either of a mobile or an immobile type based on the selection criterion of separating research and production process. While China predominantly focuses on the mobile type of Schumpeter goods, the European Union maintains its comparative advantages in immobile technology intensive goods, which are harder to imitate. Based on technology intensity, the second issue presented in the paper focuses on the Chinese integration into the world-wide value-added chain, which has been fragmented across borders in recent years. Not least due to increasing FDI, intra-industry trade has become more prevalent in bilateral trade relations with China.