Education, migration, and job satisfaction: The regional returns of human capital in the EU. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 1/November 2004

The paper looks at the link between human capital and regional economic performance in the EU. Using indicators of educational stock, the matching of educational supply and labour demand, and migration extracted from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), it identifies that the economic performance of European regions over the last few years is generally associated with differences in human capital endowment. However, and in contrast to previous studies, the results highlight that factors such as the matching of educational supply and local labour needs, job satisfaction, and migration may have a stronger connection to economic performance than the traditional measures of educational stock.

Regional business cycles and the emergence of sheltered economies in the southern periphery of Europe. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 7/November 2006

Recent research has highlighted that in the last few years the evolution of regional disparities in many European states has become pro-cyclical. This represents a change with respect to the predominantly anti-cyclical pattern of the 1960s and 1970s. This paper addresses the question of whether and when this change has taken place in the southern periphery of Europe, before analyzing the factors that may have played a role in such a change. The analysis relies on a regional database that includes the evolution of the GDP per capita of NUTS II regions in five European countries (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) between 1980 and 2000. The results of the analysis support the hypothesis of a change towards a pro-cyclical evolution of regional disparities in the cases of Italy, Portugal, and Spain, but not in those of Greece and France. A relationship between these pro-cyclical patters and the emergence of less dynamic sheltered economies is also detected in peripheral regions. This lack of dynamism is related to the fact that numerous peripheral areas in southern Europe have become increasingly dependent on factors such as transfers or public investment and employment, and therefore are less exposed to changes in market conditions.

Towards a Eurasian Economic Union: the challenge of integration and unity. CEPS Special Report No. 75/December 2012

In the lead-up to the creation of a Eurasian Economic Union in 2015, the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan represent two elements of the most ambitious regional integration project launched in the post-Soviet era since 1991. This CEPS Special Report examines both the potential and the limits of Eurasian economic integration. For the purpose of assessing the Eurasian integration process, CEPS applied a modified version of a framework first developed by Ernest B. Haas and Philippe C. Schmitter in 1964 to project whether economic integration of a group of countries automatically engenders political unity. Taking the data available for the early stages of the European integration process as a benchmark, the results for the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space point to a rather unfavourable outlook for Eurasian economic integration.