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This paper studies the effects of delivery costs on cross-border e-commerce flows in the EU. For this purpose, we use surveys carried out in 2015 on firms and consumers, to analyse the supply and demand side separately. The paper first offers some descriptive statistics on the issues of delivery and e-commerce. In addition, the paper provides some indirect and descriptive evidence about the effects of delivery costs on cross-border e-commerce. Finally, a more robust econometric analysis is carried out to assess the effects of a hypothetical reduction of concerns about delivery cost on cross-border e-commerce in the EU, from the perspective of both consumers and firms. On the consumers' side, the results indicate that concerns about long delivery times reduce expenditure in other countries more strongly if the consumer has had more experience with shopping in non-neighbouring countries. The results on the supply side indicate that removing delivery cost concerns would increase the overall number of firms selling online across the border by 6.2 percentage points. Similarly, an increase of 5 percentage points would be registered in the volume of online trade. Finally, we compute the implied reduction in cross-border trade costs that would result from a hypothetical policy intervention to eliminate these delivery cost concerns. We plug this trade cost estimate into a macro-sector multi-country CGE model. The macro-economic results indicate that, even though the impact on GDP would be tiny, an important effect would come from reduced overall price levels. Consumer prices would be significantly reduced due to a productivity shock in the retail sector.

Search engines are one of the main channels to access news content of traditional newspapers. In the European Union, organic search traffic from Google accounts for 35% of news outlets' visits. Yet, the effects of Google Search on market competition and information diversity are ambiguous, as the firm indexes news outlets considering both domain authority and information accuracy. Using detailed daily data traffic for 606 news outlets from 15 European countries, we assess the effect of Google Search's indexation on search visits. Our identification strategy exploits nine core algorithm updates rolled out by Google between 2018 and 2020 in order to achieve exogenous variation in news outlets' indexation. Several conclusions follow from our estimations. First, Google core updates overall reduce the number of keywords that news outlets have in top positions in search results. Second, keywords ranked in top search position have a positive effect on news outlets' visits. Third, our results are robust when we focus the analysis on different types of news outlets, but are less conclusive when we consider national markets separately. Our paper also analyzes the effects of Google core updates on media market concentration. We find that the three "big" core updates identified in this period reduced market concentration by 1%, but this effect was mostly compensated by the rest of the updates.

In February 2018 the EU adopted the Geo-Blocking Regulation that prohibits any attempts to restrict consumer access to e-commerce websites on the basis of their nationality or country of residence. This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of that policy on crossborder e-commerce. We use page view data for about 10k e-commerce websites over the period February 2018 to October 2019, approximately 10 months before and after the entry into force of the regulation in December 2018. We classify the data in cross -border country pair traffic between countries of origin of visitors and countries of establishment of websites. Despite the fact that there may still be a significant amount of delivery restrictions in cross-border trade, we conjecture that any variation in traffic to e-commerce websites will correlate with variations in monetised e-commerce, even if modest. We find that the regulation increased real cross-border e-commerce activity inside the EU from 9.2% to 13%, depending on model specifications. It increased cross-border trade between EU consumers and e-commerce sites anywhere in the world by 11.2% to 11.9%. Applying different criteria for the definition of purely domestic websites slightly weakens the results for intra-EU cross-border trade and gives it a further boost for worldwide cro ss-border trade.

This report presents empirical evidence about the obstacles that European consumers face when trying to buy online goods and services in other EU Member States. It relies on data from a consumer survey carried out in February-March 2015 in the EU28. By comparing named websites with respondents' answers on the location of web shops, we find that 77% correctly assess whether a website is located domestically or in a foreign country. We also find that survey results are biased because cross-border purchases are under-reported. In addition, the report finds that prices, variety and transaction costs are strong drivers to shift consumer purchases of goods from offline to online shops, as predicted by economic theory. Consumers' perceptions of risk still hold them back from online transactions, which leaves some margin for policy makers to improve the regulatory and institutional setting. The results are less conclusive for online access to digital media content and for shifting online purchases from domestic to foreign markets.

While conventional farming systems face serious problems of sustainability, organic agriculture is seen as a more environmentally friendly system as it favours renewable resources, recycles nutrients, uses the environment's own systems for controlling pests and diseases, sustains ecosystems, protects soils, and reduces pollution. At the same time organic farming promotes animal welfare, the use of natural foodstuffs, product diversity and the avoidance of waste, among other practices. However, the future of organic agriculture will depend on its economic viability and on the determination shown by governments to protect these practices. This paper performs panel regressions with a sample of Catalan farms (Spain) to test the influence of organic farming on farm output, costs and incomes. It analyses the cost structures of both types of farming and comments on their social and environmental performance.

Many regional governments in developed countries design programs to improve the competitiveness of local firms. In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of public programs whose aim is to enhance the performance of firms located in Catalonia (Spain). We compare the performance of publicly subsidised companies (treated) with that of similar, but unsubsidised companies (non-treated). We use the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) methodology to construct a control group which, with respect to its observable characteristics, is as similar as possible to the treated group, and that allows us to identify firms which retain the same propensity to receive public subsidies. Once a valid comparison group has been established, we compare the respective performance of each firm. As a result, we find that recipient firms, on average, change their business practices, improve their performance, and increase their value added as a direct result of public subsidy programs.

Many regional governments in developed countries design programs to improve the competitiveness of local firms. In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of public programs whose aim is to enhance the performance of firms located in Catalonia (Spain). We compare the performance of publicly subsidised companies (treated) with that of similar, but unsubsidised companies (non-treated). We use the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) methodology to construct a control group which, with respect to its observable characteristics, is as similar as possible to the treated group, and that allows us to identify firms which retain the same propensity to receive public subsidies. Once a valid comparison group has been established, we compare the respective performance of each firm. As a result, we find that recipient firms, on average, change their business practices, improve their performance, and increase their value added as a direct result of public subsidy programs. ; - Muchos gobiernos regionales en los países desarrollados diseñan programas para mejorar la competitividad de las empresas locales. En este papel, evaluamos la efectividad de programas públicos cuyo objetivo es reforzar la actuación de las empresas localizada en Cataluña (España). Se compara la actuación de empresas subvencionadas (tratadas) con empresas similares, pero no subvencionadas (no tratadas). Se utiliza el Propensity Score Matching (PSM) para construir un grupo de control que, con respecto a las principales características, es muy similar al grupo tratado, lo que permite identificar empresas que presentan la misma propensión a recibir subvenciones. Una vez se ha establecido un grupo de comparación válido, se comparan los resultados de cada empresa. Como resultado se encuentra que, en promedio, las empresas tratadas cambian sus prácticas comerciales, mejoran su actuación, y aumentan su valor añadido como resultado directo de los programas públicos.

Despite the rapidly growing volume and economic importance of data in the digital economy, the legal framework for data ownership, access and trade remains incompletely defined in the EU and elsewhere. De facto data ownership dominates and often leads to fragmentation or anti-commons problems in data. Combined with limited access and trade, this inhibits the realisation of the full economic benefits of non-rival data. It may slow down innovation and affect the efficiency of data markets. We examine three potential sources of data market failures: externalities related to economies of scope in data, strategic behaviour of data owners and transaction costs in data exchanges. We link the legal debate on data ownership with relevant branches of the economics literature, including intellectual property rights economics, the commons and anti-commons literature, models of trade under the Arrow Information Paradox and multi-sided markets. Economists are inclined to think that well-defined private property rights are a necessary condition for an efficient resource allocation. The question in this paper is to what extent this view holds for non-rival data. We show that the allocation of data ownership or residual control rights matters, not only for private benefits but also for social welfare. The outcomes of bargaining over data ownership and access rights do not necessarily maximize social welfare. Can regulators intervene to improve these outcomes? Would a better specification of legal ownership rights or introducing access provisions to improve efficiency and reduce data market failures? There are no easy answers to these largely empirical questions. We offer no policy solutions yet and more research is required to bring economics up to speed with these questions.