Exports and Firm Productivity: The effect of US steel safeguards. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 19/January 2011

This paper investigates possible negative effects of the 2002 US steel safeguards on productivity of Eurozone steel companies. The analysis is based on an extensive literature which predicts that exporting firms not only are bigger and more productive, but also that exporting itself has positive effects, improving efficiency and leading to better utilization of firm resources. The paper investigates a large sample of EU-13 steel producing firms, in the 1998 - 2005 period. Using three methods of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) estimation among which the Olley-Pakes semiparametric estimator, we first calculate the productivity levels of companies, and then check for any unusual fluctuation in this performance variable. We find that in 2002 there has been a significant drop in TFP. The paper is an invitation for further research in this field, given the possible important effects of safeguard measures on exporters.

EU-Spotlight: Keep calm and carry on. What Europeans think about a possible Brexit.

From the Executive Summary. A majority of Europeans would like the UK to remain a member of the European Union (EU), but at the same time they do not think that a Brexit would be the end of Europe. Whereas age or gender do not have a pronounced effect on how one views these matter, one factor clearly does: the more people support their own country’s membership in the EU, the more they want the UK to remain a member as well. The opposite is not true, however. Eurosceptics are not rooting for the UK to leave. These public opinion trends are demonstrated by the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s latest eupinions survey. eupinions conducts regular polls in all European member states to explore what European citizens think about current political issues. The latest wave of the survey is devoted to their views on the British referendum on membership in the EU.