Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of public governance quality on tax evasion levels in old (pre-2004) and new (post-2004) European Union (EU) members before and after the 2004 EU-enlargement.

This study uses panel data of 28 EU countries over the period 1996-2015. Tax evasion is measured using an updated version of the shadow economy size based on the light intensity, as calculated by (Medina and Schneider, 2018). The World Bank’s worldwide governance indicators are used as a measure of public governance.

The results indicate that new EU members have higher tax evasion levels compared to the old ones before and after the 2004 EU enlargement. The findings also report that the public governance quality is superior in old members throughout the 1996-2015 period. Furthermore, the authors found that after the EU enlargement, tax evasion levels decreased in both EU groups; however, the authors noticed an improvement in the public governance quality in new members and a deterioration in old ones. Additional analysis confirms the impact of public governance quality as an effective tool for reducing tax evasion behavior in both EU groups before and after the EU enlargement.

The findings are potentially useful for EU policymakers in identifying the most effective tools that can minimize tax evasion levels in EU countries. Additionally, the results are alarming as they show the negative consequences of the EU enlargement in old EU members. Thus, policymakers should consider them when setting their rules and regulations to reduce the significant differences between both EU groups to prevent member states from potentially exiting the EU.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study that examines the tax evasion behavior and public governance quality in the EU before and after the EU enlargement.

Accession to the European Union is one of the most powerful foreign policy tools exercised within the European arena and enlargement negotiations have been a major stimulus to reform in Central and Eastern Europe. Conditionality has evolved as over time into a dynamic instrument used to ensure that new members are sufficiently prepared to take on the responsibilities of EU membership, whilst also satisfying existing member states that new members will not prove too burdensome. This paper aims to examine some of the lessons learnt from the first stage of the Fifth Enlargement and the stricter use of conditionality mechanisms for Romania, Bulgaria and beyond.

The article is based on interviews with EU officials involved in the enlargement process.

The article finds that the use of conditionality in the 2004 enlargement has had a far from uniform effect on candidates and policy areas and that the commission has learnt much from this experience. The integration of Bulgaria and Romania will offer more significant challenges and conditionality has evolved as a mechanism to address these.

The article offersboth an empirical as well as theoretical evaluation of the use of conditionality in the context of the EU enlargement process.

The difficulties of enacting a constitution for the European Union (EU) reflect the basic problem: What kind of federation is it? The Union has gone through a number of extensions and at the same time has been capable of deepening the integration between member states. The huge 2004 enlargement of the EU to 25 member states poses the question whether this combination of extension and deepening really will go on any longer in the coming years. The risks connected with the entire endeavour have increased with the huge enlargement in 2004, as reflected in the still unresolved issue of the decision-making rules of the key body, the Council.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of the enlargement process of the European Union as a factor fostering international competitiveness of EU Member States. The paper argues that the economic integration process has reduced the technological gap between old and new EU Member States, and this pattern of technological innovation can partially explain the strong impulse on the export dynamics of European countries.

The paper builds an augmented gravity model by including the role of technological innovation, proxied by the stock of knowledge at the sector level. The authors gather together information on patents applied to international offices and bilateral export flows available from COMTRADE dataset.

By using a dynamic panel data estimator the authors find three main empirical evidences. First, the enlargement process has produced an overall larger positive impact on export flows for new Members than for old ones, and more importantly that sectors with the higher technological content have received the strongest impulse. Second, the augmented gravity model allows shaping the crucial role of technological innovation in fostering export competitiveness. Third, this impact seems to be stronger for old EU Member States than for new ones.

The major limitation concerns time span adopted in this work. By expanding the dataset to further years it could be possible to better disentangle the effects also related to the new wave of the EU enlargement.

The policy implication derived is that the more the new EU Members catch up technologically as a result of the integration process, the more they will benefit in terms of economic development.

The major originality of this paper is the construction of an augmented gravity model by including the role of technological innovation, applied to distinguished manufacturing sectors in a dynamic panel setting.

In this article, fiscal redistribution in the European Union (EU) of 15 member states and the enlarged EU is analyzed. Specifically, net fiscal transfers between EU member states are analyzed, i.e. which countries are net beneficiaries, which are net contributors and what factors affect countries' net fiscal balances. The results show that, at present, fiscal transfers among EU member states are partly explained by differences in countries' relative economic prosperity and partly by institutional features that systematically favor smaller EU member states. Small member states can use their overrepresentation in the Council votes to obtain more benefits than their level of economic development alone would justify. If the pre-enlargement level of redistribution is extended to include the new member states, the net costs could amount to 60 billion euros. This means that the net fiscal balance of the current member states would decrease significantly. Furthermore, the Treaty of Nice does not change the malapportionment of Council votes and European Parliament seats, which gives an advantage to small member states in bargaining for transfers

Flexibility (enhanced cooperation) has arisen in the European Union (EU) agenda as a function of recent enlargement rounds and is now one of the key issues in the construction of the EU polity with respect to diversity management. Whether enlargement has provoked normative reform in the EU, taking flexibility as an example is the focus of this article. The author argues that the flexibility case indicates that pressures of enlargement have not produced radical normative change in the EU. Tracing the evolution of enhanced cooperation from the 2000 Treaty of Nice onwards, the evidence points towards the continued existence of the traditional ‘frame’ of the integration process rather than its rejection in favour of more radical and innovative solutions to the EU's governance problems.

Discusses the coming enlargement of the European Union by ten states, which also increases the population from 378 million to 483 million (if Bulgaria and Romania are also accepted in 2007). Notes that because of their membership, the new members will pay the price of reduced access to former trading partners and borders of new Member States will open up west and north, although some customs’ revenue will disappear there will be EU budget transfers to compensate.

This paper explores the regionalisation of the European Union’s supply chains and the impact of enlargement by looking at trends in trade in intermediate products between 1995‐2007. The findings show that enlargement has not significantly impacted overall levels of regionalization although it has led to quite major changes in the division of labor within the EU. In addition, the impacts have been very varied depending on the sector involved. There has been a greater consolidation of the EU supply chain in medium‐tech and up‐market goods while in low‐market and high‐tech goods, market share has been ceded to non‐EU sources.

The paper seeks to investigate the effects of the 2004 Central and East European EU Enlargement on labour mobility.

The paper is based on an analysis of recently available empirical evidence from the UK Labour Registration Scheme and EU comparative data based on administrative data and labour force surveys.

Only Ireland, Austria and Germany had significant migration from CEE migration and none of these exceeded 2 per cent of the labour force. The imposition of a transitional arrangement had little effect on migration flows. CEE workers were predominantly young, had above average education and yet did not fill UK skills gaps, but filled labour shortages for low paid, unskilled work.

This paper assesses the empirical evidence on labour mobility from Central and Eastern Europe, which is used to assess the current highly contentious debate.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not EU enlargement would cause companies to standardise their brand portfolios and the brands they offer, between Eastern and Western Europe.

The issue of standardisation versus localisation, and the impact of EU enlargement upon standardisation are examined based on the existing literature. The paper looks at whether fostering more member states within the EU would encourage standardisation. It also explores whether barriers for standardisation still exist. The research employs a case study methodology to set scenarios of possible outcomes.

The research findings imply that external factors, which are market‐based and product‐based elements, seem to encourage standardisation. The effect is brought about by the benefits standardisation offers in terms of efficiency. There are still some minor national barriers that impede standardisation. However, the main obstacles are endogenous to corporations and pertain to company structure, strategy and historic resistance to standardisation.

Standardisation of the marketing mix has been practised by managers as a way to combine customers' needs with cost‐effectiveness. The paper offers scope for further research into the application of various portfolio assessment tools to examine brands which will help managers to observe these relationships, and develop customised branding strategies.

The paper contributes to the marketing literature on branding and standardisation and supports the strategy of standardisation of brands for better performance.