The Theoretical Framework and Methodology to Estimate the Farm Labour and Other Factor-Derived Demand and Output Supply Systems. Factor Markets Working Document No. 44, May 2013

This paper provides a conceptual framework for the estimation of the farm labour and other factor-derived demand and output supply systems. In order to analyse the drivers of labour demand in agriculture and account for the impact of policies on those decisions, it is necessary to acknowledge the interaction between the different factor markets. For this purpose, we present a review of the theoretical background to primal and dual representations of production and some empirical literature that has made use of derived demand systems. The main focus of the empirical work is to study the effect of market distortions in one market, through inefficient pricing, on the demand for other inputs. Therefore, own-price and cross-price elasticities of demand become key variables in the analysis. The dual cost function is selected as the most appropriate approach, where input prices are assumed to be exogenous. A commonly employed specification – and one that is particularly convenient due to its flexible form – is the translog cost function. The analysis consists of estimating the system of cost-share equations, in order to obtain the derived demand functions for inputs. Thus, the elasticities of factor substitution can be used to examine the complementarity/substitutability between inputs.

Regulation on ‘cross-border portability’ of online content services: Roaming for Netflix or the end of copyright territoriality? CEPS Commentary, 15 February 2016

In a communication to the Parliament and the Council entitled “Towards a modern, more European copyright framework” and dated 9 December 2015,1 the European Commission confirmed its intention to progressively remove the main obstacles to the functioning of the Digital Single Market for copyrighted works. The first step of this long-term plan, which was first announced in Juncker’s Political Guidelines2 and the Communication on “A Digital Single Market strategy for Europe”,3 is a proposal for a regulation aimed at ensuring the so-called ‘cross-border portability’ of online services giving access to content such as music, games, films and sporting events.4 In a nutshell, the proposed regulation seeks to enable consumers with legal access to such online content services in their country of residence to use the same services also when they are in another member state for a limited period of time. On the one hand, this legislative proposal has the full potential to resolve the (limited) issue of portability, which stems from the national dimension of copyright and the persisting territorial licensing and distribution of copyright content.5 On the other hand, as this commentary shows, the ambiguity of certain important provisions in the proposed regulation might affect its scope and effectiveness and contribute to the erosion of the principle of copyright territoriality.