Suchergebnisse

The EU's cohesion policy should now be confluent with the goals of the Lisbon strategy by promoting growth and employment. In this context, the promotion of a concept called regional innovation system has recently become important in the EU for guaranteeing long-term regional economic growth. This paper attempts to explain the determinants of the varying degrees of innovation promotion by the EU from one region to another. Since regional-policy strategies should have been subject to a new orientation towards more innovation promotion, we are particularly interested in whether the EU's co-financing policy of innovation projects changed for the 2007-2013 program period compared with the 2000-2006 period. According to our empirical analysis, which controls for various determinants of innovation promotion, there has been no significant change in the EU's regional policy strategy in general. We confirm this result when focusing on less-developed Objective 1 regions, where we would have expected the new policy strategy to show up more pronounced in particular.

The additionality principle says that the funds of the European Union should not replace, but be an addition to national regional policy funds. The benchmark for the co-funding is that the EU bears 50% of total costs associated with regional projects eligible for EU support. In some regions, however, the EU contribution has reached 85% of total costs. This study examines how such additionality degrees are determined. Our findings indicate that the regional variation of additionality degrees is largely in line with EU cohesion policy goals. Most notably, higher shares of EU funds are provided to regions with lower GDP per capita. Furthermore, while the share of service-sector employees in a region is negatively related to the additionality degree, the impact of the rate of long-term unemployment is positive.

The planned movement to the origin principle with the cross-border pre-tax system on a full-scale would lead, ceteris paribus, to changes in VAT revenues in the individual EU countries. For instance, the member countries with trade surpluses and higher VAT rates would be significantly better off. For this reason, a clearing mechanism is necessary to rectify this type of revenue imbalance among the EU nations. The introduction of the Single Market in 1993 appears to have further encouraged firms' and households' evasive behaviour in paying VAT in the EU. In order to estimate its relevance, this study quantifies the annual amount of hypothetical VAT revenues for the individual countries on the basis of the national accounts data. The relation between the calculated hypothetical and the (current) collected revenues in a fiscal year largely determines the extent of VAT evasion of a country when the time-lag problem between the creation of tax liability and the VAT collection in cash terms can be adjusted. The macroeconomic clearing is supposed to take place based on the share of hypothetical revenues of the member countries. Consequently, such a system seriously suffers from the adverse incentives for the individual nations since countries with a lower evasion ratio than the weighted average of all EU countries would lose the VAT revenues, whereas those with a higher evasion ratio would gain.

The recent process of political and economic transformation in eastern European countries has not only contributed to the decentralisation of political structure but also significantly enhanced the fiscal autonomy of municipalities belonging to these countries. Although the degree of self-governing ability of municipalities seems to vary from one country to another, many similar types of public activities have recently been assigned to local governments, and some taxes were also declared to be so-called local taxes. To be sure, this type of fiscal decentralisation has caused some additional problems, particularly for safeguarding the quality of publicly provided goods and services and for coordinating intergovernmental fiscal transfers between the central and local governments in an efficient way. For instance, some criticise that a large number of small-sized municipalities in the transition economies have suffered from financial bottleneck and have not been able to receive financial support from the central government that was necessary for their economic development. However, such a fiscal devolution trend appears to continue, in parallel to the ongoing democratisation and decentralisation. This study primarily deals with crucial issues surrounding the impact of national fiscal policy and the regulatory framework on local governments' expenditure behaviour and their ability to mobilise necessary revenues (i.e. tax income, grants and municipal borrowings) under the particular consideration of the institutional and administrative cooperation with the central government and of the (still existing) lesswell developed financial market in Poland, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The persistent economic difficulties and poverty in North Korea have forced the ruling communist regime to adopt an open-door policy. The Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) – the second free economic and trade area in the North and an outcome of Seoul's sunshine policy towards this country – is designed to attract South Korean small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and develop the area as an export-oriented base. This project promotes inter-Korean economic cooperation, combining the South's capital and technology with the North's abundant land and cheap labour. Despite its promising start in 2003, the actual performance of the project has been disappointing. Moreover, the renewed inter-Korean political hostility and the demise of the sunshine policy have made the KIC's mid- to long-term future uncertain. This study investigates the major reasons for weak participation of South Korean SMEs in the KIC and highlights the necessity of mid-course amendment of its plan, objectives and the relevant development strategies.

The historic June 2000 summit between the two Koreas has played an important role in the intensification of inter-Korean economic cooperation, traditionally acknowledged as one of the most crucial prerequisites for peaceful coexistence and eventual unification on the Korean peninsula. This study primarily deals with the motivations, problems and prospects for different types of future private and public economic relations between the two Koreas. Furthermore, taking into account the North's specific political structure and depressed economic situation as well as its poor location quality and the unfavourable experiences hitherto made by foreign firms, this study suggests that the ideal and efficient inter-Korean economic cooperation should be based on the North's ambitious economic reform combined with an active open-door policy, the achievement of co-prosperity led by the continuous growth of the North Korean economy, the limitation of South Korea's financial burden to an affordable level, the prudent marketoriented calculation and sectoral as well as regional targeting of South Korean investments in the North and the immediate reduction of military tension on the Korean peninsula.

The persistent economic difficulties and poverty in North Korea have forced the ruling communist regime to adopt an open-door policy. The Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) - the second free economic and trade area in the North and an outcome of Seoul's sunshine policy towards this country - is designed to attract South Korean small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and develop the area as an export-oriented base. This project promotes inter-Korean economic cooperation, combining the South's capital and technology with the North's abundant land and cheap labour. Despite its promising start in 2003, the actual performance of the project has been disappointing. Moreover, the renewed inter-Korean political hostility and the demise of the sunshine policy have made the KIC's mid- to long-term future uncertain. This study investigates the major reasons for weak participation of South Korean SMEs in the KIC and highlights the necessity of mid-course amendment of its plan, objectives and the relevant development strategies. (Internationales Asienforum/DIE)

The recent process of political and economic transformation in Eastern European countries has not only contributed to the decentralisation of political structure but also significantly enhanced the fiscal autonomy of municipalities in these countries. In this context many similar types of public activities have recently been assigned to local governments, and some taxes were also declared to the local taxes. To be sure, this type of fiscal decentralisation has caused some additional problems, particularly for safeguarding the quality of publicly provided goods and services and for co-ordinating intergovernmental fiscal transfers between the central and local governments. For instance, some criticise that many small-sized municipalities in the transition economies have suffered from financial bottleneck

Abstract
In the current economic policy debate, there are often calls to reverse advanced developments in globalisation and the international division of labour. Reasons such as greater business resilience, political independence and, from a climate perspective, less harmful production argue for not abolishing trade, but at least bundling a larger part of the value chain locally. However, such considerations are de facto made from the perspective of a highly developed and globally networked industrialised country. In contrast, this paper argues that trade activities can never be considered from the perspective of only one partner, but must always take into account the needs of all stakeholders, which in turn depend on the respective level of development.