Gazprom's position on the Russian gas market weakening. OSW Commentary No. 70, 2012-02-23

As the difficulties Gazprom has faced in recent years on the European market have multiplied1, so more and more symptoms have appeared which may suggest that the company’s dominant position is deteriorating. The decision made by the Russian government in June 2011 to double the tax Gazprom has to pay on the extraction of gas, which was later approved by parliament, was the first time in many years when the company’s fiscal privileges were withdrawn. The process of Gazprom’s assets being taken over by private companies and business partners from within Vladimir Putin’s closest circle is underway. More and more frequently attempts are being made to challenge the company’s monopoly in areas of key importance for the functioning of the entire gas sector, such as Gazprom’s exclusive right to dispose of the Russian gas transportation system and its exports monopoly. Competition from independent gas producers on the domestic market is growing, and Gazprom is gradually being pushed out of some of that market’s most profitable segments (industrial clients). The emerging tendencies in the Russian gas sector derive from a number of factors – from the situation on the European gas market, through difficulties hampering the development of the sector in Russia itself, to the private interests of the current ruling class and its business partners. The plans for a structural reform of the monopoly (including isolating gas transportation system from Gazprom), presented since 2000 by the Ministry for Economic Development and since 2003 by the Russian Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), suggest a direction for the changes necessary to stimulate the sector’s development and improve the efficiency of Gazprom itself. However, the monopolist’s current business model gives the government full control over this strategic enterprise, which is a core of Putin’s concept for developing Russia as a global energy power. Despite Putin’s recent statement that he “does not rule out privatising Gazprom in the future” (made at a meeting with political scientists in Moscow on 6 February this year), any structural reform of Gazprom (and consequently, a weakening of the state’s control over it) seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. Still, the developments on the domestic market – growing pressure from other gas companies (oil corporations and independent producers) and changes on the European market2 – may result in the weakening of Gazprom’s monopoly privileges and a gradual deterioration of its special status within Russia.

Analysing the Contribution of Business Services to European Economic Growth. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 9/February 2007

The sector business services contributes directly and indirectly to aggregate economic growth in Europe. The direct contribution comes from the sector’s own dynamism. Though the business-services industry appears to be characterised by strong cyclical volatility, there was also a strong structural growth. Business services actually generated more than half of total net employment growth in the European Union since the second half of the 1990s. Apart from this direct growth contribution, the sector also contributed in an indirect way to economic growth by generating knowledge and productivity spill-overs for other industries. The knowledge role of business services is reflected in its employment characteristics. The business-services industry created spill-overs in three ways: original innovations, knowledge diffusion, and the reduction of human capital indivisibilities at firm level. The share of knowledge-intensive business services in the intermediate inputs of the total economy has risen sharply in the last decade. Firm-level scale diseconomies with regard to knowledge and skill inputs are reduced by external deliveries of such inputs, thereby exploiting positive external scale economies. The process goes along with an increasingly complex social division of labour between economic sectors. The European business-services industry itself is characterised by a relatively weak productivity growth. Does this contribute to growth stagnation tendencies à la the socalled “Baumol disease”? The paper argues that there is no reason to expect this as long as the productivity and growth spill-overs from business services to other sectors are large enough. Finally, the paper concludes by suggesting several policy elements that could boost the role of business services in European economic growth. This might to achieve some of the ambitious Lisbon goals with respect to employment, productivity and innovation.

American Attitudes on European Political Integration — The Nixon-Kissinger Legacy. IES WORKING PAPER 2/2007

This paper concentrates on the Nixon-Kissinger view of European political integration. In contrast with the mainstream position of the American Administrations during the 1950s and 1960s, Kissinger was convinced that by encouraging European unity, the United States was in fact creating its own rival. The start of a new system of European foreign policy cooperation in 1970 was seen by Kissinger as a particularly important example of Europe’s attempt to challenge the American hegemony. Kissinger emphasized the need to maintain Western Europe in a subordinate role. Three main lines of action were pursued to keep the development of the European Community under control: maintaining bilateral contacts with key European allies, requesting a seat at the Community's decision-making table, and linking "obedient" European behavior to American military presence in Europe. The legacy of this policy still seems to influence the current American policy on the European Union. The Nixon-Kissinger term was, however, detrimental to rather than conducive of harmonious transatlantic relations. Tendencies to emulate it should therefore be discouraged.

Micro-based evidence of EU competitiveness: The CompNet Database. National Bank of Belgium Working Paper No. 253, March 2014

Drawing from confidential firm-level balance sheets in 11 European countries, the paper presents a novel sectoral database of comparable productivity indicators built by members of the Competitiveness Research Network (CompNet) using a newly developed research infrastructure. Beyond aggregate information available from industry statistics of Eurostat or EU KLEMS, the paper provides information on the distribution of firms across several dimensions related to competitiveness, e.g. productivity and size. The database comprises so far 11 countries, with information for 58 sectors over the period 1995-2011. The paper documents the development of the new research infrastructure, the construction of the database, and shows some preliminary results. Among them, it shows that there is large heterogeneity in terms of firm productivity or size within narrowly defined industries in all countries. Productivity, and above all, size distribution are very skewed across countries, with a thick left-tail of low productive firms. Moreover, firms at both ends of the distribution show very different dynamics in terms of productivity and unit labour costs. Within-sector heterogeneity and productivity dispersion are positively correlated to aggregate productivity given the possibility of reallocating resources from less to more productive firms. To this extent, we show how allocative efficiency varies across countries, and more interestingly, over different periods of time. Finally, we apply the new database to illustrate the importance of productivity dispersion to explain aggregate trade results.

Houdon in America : a collection of documents in the Jefferson papers in the Library of Congress /

Mode of access: Internet.

Batiste's voluntaries : fifty pieces for the organ, not difficult and carefully fingered : consisting of offertoires, elevations, communions, versets, sorties, preludes, etc. : op. 24 and 25 /

Mode of access: Internet.

Catalogue of a collection of pictures, including examples of the works of the brothers Le Nain, and other works of art.

"Suggested classification of the works of the brothers Le Nain," signed R. C. W. [i.e. Robert C. Witt]: p. 7-20.

Minnesota and its resources : to which are appended Camp-fire sketches, or, Notes of a trip from St. Paul to Pembina and Selkirk settlement on the Red River of the north /

Advertisements on front end-paper and fly-leaf.

A chronological abridgment of the history of Great-Britain, from the first invasion of the Romans, to the year 1763. With genealogical and political tables ...

Mode of access: Internet.

The face upon the floor: and other ballads.

See the Bibliographical File.

A bibliographical sketch of the Aldine press at Venice: forming a catalogue of all works issued by Aldus and his successors, from 1494 to 1597, and a list of all known forgeries or imitations ; translated and abridged from Ant. Aug. Renouard's "Annals de l'imprimerie des Aldes" ; revised and corrected by Edmund Goldsmid.

Includes index.

Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte. To which are now first added an account of the important events of the hundred days, of Napoleon's surrender to the English, and of his residence and death at St. Helena, with anecdotes and illustrative notes from all the most authentic sources.

Mode of access: Internet.

A history of banking in all the leading nations /

v. 1. The United States, by W. G. Sumner.--v. 2. Great Britain, by H. D. Macleod; The Russian empire, by A. E. Horn; Savings banks in the United States, by J. P. Townsend.--v. 3. The Latin nations, by P. Des Essars; The banks of Alsace-Lorraine after the annexation, by A. Raffalovich; Canada, by B. E. Walker.--v. 4. Germany and Austria-Hungary, by M. Wirth; The Netherlands, by R. van der Borght; The Scandinavian nations, by A. Jensen; Japan, by J. Soyeda; China, by T. R. Jernigan.

Quarante ans de théâtre (feuilletons dramatiques) ...

On cover of v. 1: 7. édition.