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At the heart of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) are substantial trade preferences, which coupled with the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) grant a wide range of goods produced in qualified African countries duty-free access to the USA. To be AGOA-eligible, countries are assessed annually on their progress in undertaking appropriate economic, institutional and human rights reforms. This paper seeks to cover new grounds by exploring whether exports of apparel to US crowds out EU-15's imports from Africa.

This paper employs the gravity model to gauge trade displacement effects from the EU to the US due to AGOA, and whether the more relaxed special waiver embodied in AGOA's apparel provision causes non-knitted exports to EU-15 to be crowded out. The basic gravity model, which posits that trade between two countries is positively influenced by the economic size and negatively affected by the distance between them, is augmented with other trade inhibiting and trade facilitating variables.

The gravity model provides no evidence of trade displacement but, instead, provides support for the hypothesis of complementarity of African exports to the two key markets. A strong positive impact of the bilateral trade between the US and Africa on the EU–African trade is evident mainly before the phasing out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC). This paper finds that Special Rule beneficiaries' exports to the two markets still complement each other, but for every percentage increase in exports to the USA, there is a less than proportionate increase in exports to EU-15 indicating a higher utilisation of the special waiver. This paper also provides evidence for complementary apparel exports to both LDCs (least developing countries) and non-LDCs, with stronger effects on non-LDCs and the non-knitted sector.

Future work could consider the longer lifespan of AGOA following its latest renewal in 2015. This would allow one to also capture the ongoing changes in EU trade arrangements in particular implementation of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). This new agreement comes with more flexible rules of origin requiring single transformation step instead of the double step. As most African nations are still in the process of adopting EPAs, new research can shed more light on complementary or displacement effects once these agreements are adopted.

Since the main intent of AGOA is to enhance Africa's integration into the global economy by encouraging trade and investment, generate employment and increase productivity and per capita income growth, its impact on Special Rule beneficiaries' exports to the US has been extensively examined. However, the indirect effects of this trade agreement on African exports to other key markets providing similar preferences such as the EU has not been fully explored. This study also covers new grounds by examining whether there has been any apparel trade displacement from the EU to the US, as a result of the Act, over 2001–2016 period right from AGOA's inception.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ex ante projected future trajectories of real tourism exports and relative tourism export prices of the EU-15, conditional on expert real gross domestic product growth forecasts for the global economy provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for the years 2013-2017.

To this end, the global vector autoregression (GVAR) framework is applied to a comprehensive panel data set ranging from 1994Q1 to 2013Q3 for a cross-section of 45 countries. This approach allows for interdependencies between countries that are assumed to be equally affected by common global developments.

In line with economic theory, growing global tourist income combined with decreasing relative destination price ensures, in general, increasing tourism demand for the politically and macroeconomically distressed EU-15. However, the conditional forecast increases in tourism demand are under-proportional for some EU-15 member countries.

Rather than simply relying on increases in tourist income, the low price competitiveness of the EU-15 member countries should also be addressed by tourism planners and developers in order to counter the rising competition for global market shares and ensure future tourism export earnings.

One major contribution of this research is that it applies the novel GVAR framework to a research question in tourism demand analysis and forecasting. Furthermore, the analysis of the ex ante conditionally projected future trajectories of real tourism exports and relative tourism export prices of the EU-15 is a novel aspect in the tourism literature since conditional forecasting has rarely been performed in this discipline to date, in particular, in combination with ex ante forecasting.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the structure of overall inequality in the EU-15 by investigating the extent to which total inequality is attributed to inequality between or within the individual countries. Also, the paper examines whether the contribution of between-country and within-country components changed in the period between 1996 to 2008, before the outbreak of the economic crisis.

The paper applies a decomposition analysis by population subgroup utilizing micro-data from the ECHP and EU-SILC surveys. A number of inequality indices are employed to capture the different aspects of inequality and test the robustness of the results.

The analysis shows that the between-countries differences account only for a small part of overall inequality in the EU-15. Furthermore, the contribution of the between county component to total inequality has shrunk dramatically during the examined period. The overall EU inequality has been affected disproportionally by income disparities at the various parts of the income distribution in different countries.

Policies aiming to reduce inequality within each country would be far more effective in reducing overall inequality in the EU than policies targeting to reduce only disparities between member states.

The findings question the effectiveness of EU policy priorities to decrease inequality that have mainly focused on reducing cross-country and/or regions differences regarding certain macroeconomic indicators such as per-capita income (or GDP). The evidence suggests that the social protection system provides a useful tool in explaining the differences in inequality between countries and their contribution to overall EU inequality.

The banking sector in the new European Union Member States (NMS)¹ has changed dramatically since the transition from centrally planned to market-based economies.² In 1993, the ratio of average banking assets to gross domestic product (GDP) was 53 per cent, and this had increased to 72 per cent by 2000. However the banking sector in NMS is, however, still relatively small compared to the former European Union 15 (EU-15), for which the same ratio was 140 per cent in 2000. In NMS the level of bank intermediation is also low. In 2000, the ratio of private sector credit to GDP was less than 40 per cent, whereas in the euro area it was 100 per cent. A third distinguishing feature of NMS banks is that foreign investors now dominate ownership. In 1995, 8 per cent of banking assets were in foreign hands, and by 2002 this had increased to 88 per cent.³ In contrast, banks in the former EU-15 are mainly domestically owned or are traded on national stock markets.

The purpose of this paper is to provide assessment of the current status of economic development and policy suggestions as to how Slovenia can catch up with developed countries and close the development gap.

The paper first analyses world development scenarios. Part two is devoted to the calculation of development gaps by novel time distance methodology in order to identify major reasons for lagging behind and concludes by providing policy ideas how to close these gaps.

The time lag for GDP per capita with the EU 15 average is 18 years, and larger when Slovenia is compared to the successful small EU member states. The optimistic scenario of catching up in 16 years would require 2 per cent higher growth rate than EU 15 average. This time would be shorter if the government policy would promote the knowledge‐based economy, internationalisation, innovative capabilities and become more effective, responsive, flexibile and closing persistent implementation and co‐ordination gaps.

The application of a different way of measuring development gaps by time distance methodology is applicable also for other small transition economies. The paper also provides a source of policy ideas for a development strategy of Slovenia and small transition countries in general.

The paper makes original calculations of development gaps by time distance methodology for, e.g. GDP per capita, productivity, export per capita, export of technologically intensive products as well as policy suggestions how to close development gap.

The purpose of this paper is to participate in the convergence‐divergence debate related to the trends in European human resource management (HRM). The paper evaluates the converging vs diverging implications in Estonia and Finland by comparing HR strategies, policies and practices between the two countries in the context of HRM in the Nordic and EU‐15 countries.

The research is part of a large international comparative HRM project (CRANET), which covers over 30 countries. Empirical data were collected by a survey questionnaire mailed to large private and public organisations employing over 200 employees. The Estonian survey data involve 69 organisations and the Finnish data 269. The data cover private companies and public sector organisations.

The comparison of HRM in Estonia and Finland revealed a few interesting empirical observations: First, in spite of Estonia's short history as an independent Baltic state, HRM has stabilised its position at both strategic and policy level's as well as in HR practices. Second, there is a converging (directional) trend between Estonian and Finnish HRM. Third, the Estonian HRM matches with the EU‐15 HRM; Estonia does not increase diversity in the European HRM.

The main limitation of the study is related to survey methodology. In further research longitudinal data as well as case studies and triangulation are needed to open country‐level trends in the convergence‐divergence debate.

Estonian companies and public organisations might need to pay more attention to equality/diversity policy. Special attention should be paid to HRM in public organisations.

The main value of the paper is related to the contribution to the convergence debate in HRM.

This article presents an analysis of some particular aspects of European public opinion with respect to defence and security issues under the threat of international terrorism after September 11, 2001.

It is based on secondary data analysis from standard EUROBAROMETER surveys, Candidate Countries EUROBAROMETER surveys and Flash EUROBAROMETER surveys carried out in 2000–2006.

The analysis shows that there is an increase in the level of anxiety across European public opinion in the ‘Age of the War on Terror’ related to international terrorism and proliferation of nuclear, bacteriological or chemical weapons of mass destruction.

The existing divergence in the threat perception in Western and Eastern parts of Europe in the first years following the end of the Cold War significantly diminished after September 11, 2001, is based on the common perception of the threat from international terrorism.

How do traditional state interests fit into a new Europe in which globalization may seem to render them irrelevant? Globalization is often thought of as undermining the sovereignty of states. States are forced to work through multilateral institutions in a globalizing world, which may seem to render states largely irrelevant. As this chapter will show, though, some countries are able to use multilateral institutions (such as the European Union, EU) as a new arena to advance their national goals. Germany is a classic example of such a state. Since its history of aggression has left the country distrusted by its neighbors, Germany has found that it can best advance its national goals by embedding them in multilateral processes – such as European integration.

The following chapter will examine this process by focusing on one case: the role of German–Polish relations in the 2004 expansion of the EU. After an introductory section, the chapter will first focus on Germany's goals, showing how it hoped that expansion would further German national interests, including its economic and security needs and the historical necessity of atoning for the Second World War. Yet Berlin also was careful to avoid overt unilateral actions, working carefully through the EU to advance its agenda. Next, the chapter will trace Germany's actions, showing how it worked to support the 2004 expansion and Poland's inclusion in it, often over the objections of some of its EU partners. Finally, the chapter will detail the outcome of the process, showing that the results were positive for both Germany and Poland, as well as for the overall cause of European integration. Thus, for the Germans at least, the seeming dichotomy between “doing good and doing well” can be reconciled. This may offer a model for other countries to follow, showing that a careful use of state power can advance national goals even in a globalizing world.

The economic literature starting with Borjas (2001) suggests that immigrants are more flexible than natives in responding to changing sectoral, occupational and spatial shortages in the labor market. The purpose of this paper is to study the relative responsiveness to labor shortages by immigrants from various origins, skills and tenure in the country vis-à-vis the natives, and how it varied over the business cycle during the Great Recession.

Using data primarily from the EU Labor Force Survey and the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, the authors calculate a wage-based measure of labor shortages in the first stage while in the second stage the authors use them in a first-differences fixed-effects model as a regressor to explain changes in immigrants’ distribution across sectors, occupations and countries vis-à-vis the natives.

The authors show that immigrants have responded to changing labor shortages across EU member states, occupations and sectors at least as much and in many cases more flexibly than natives. This effect is especially significant for low-skilled immigrants from the new member states or with the medium number of years since migration, as well as with high-skilled immigrants with relatively few (one to five) or many (11+) years since migration. The relative responsiveness of some immigrant groups declined during the crisis years (those from Europe outside the EU or with 11 or more years since migration), whereas other groups of immigrants became particularly fluid during the Great Recession, such as those from new member states.

The results suggest that immigrants may play an important role in labor adjustment during times of asymmetric economic shocks, and support the case for well-designed immigration policy and free movement of workers within the EU. Some limitations include alternative interpretations of the wage premium as our measure of shortage, as well as possible endogeneity of this measure in the model.

The results provide new insights into the functioning of the European Single Market and the roles various immigrant groups play for its stabilization through labor adjustment during the times of uneven economic development across sectors, occupations and countries.