Innovation in Eastern Europe : a case study of Czech Republic

In this study we evaluate innovative performance of the economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) based on the available statistics of innovation processes. We compare such country-level indicators as educational levels, investments in R&D, FDI, trade and licensing flows, patents and scientific articles, and find that the most developed CEE economies are also the most innovative. At the same time, as supported by the results of the interviews in Czech Republic, one of the top performers in the CEE region, its economy is facing a number of challenges that are similar to other middle-income countries around the world. We suggest addressing these challenges from the prospective of the Middle Income Trap, when a middle-income economy to sustain growth must learn to compete with advanced economies in high-skill innovation. Development of effective innovation policy should be a priority for the CEE countries to escape from the middle income trap.

Post Roads, Central and Eastern Europe Regions, 1802 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: A new map of the post roads of Germany and Hungary with the adjacent kingdoms, republics and states : from the large map published at Vienna, with additions and improvements by J. Enouy, geogr. It was published by Laurie & Whittle, 53 Fleet Street in 1802. Scale [ca. 1:2,500,000]. Covers the Central and Eastern Europe regions. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the Europe Lambert Conformal Conic coordinate system. All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, index maps, legends, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as drainage, cities and other human settlements, postal roads, territorial and administrative boundaries, shoreline features, and more. Relief shown pictorially.This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps from the Harvard Map Collection. These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features. The selection represents a range of originators, ground condition dates, scales, and map purposes.

Forecasting migration between the EU, V4 and Eastern Europe. Impact of visa abolition. OSW Report, July 2014

This book is the result of one year of solid work among a multinational research team assembled from seven states (Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova). It aims at a detailed analysis of migration patterns and migration forecasts from Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova to the EU/V4. In particular, the nexus between EU visa policy and migration dynamics as well as the impact of economic, political and institutional factors on migration from Eastern Europe have been investigated. The importance of migration policy must be stressed here. Together with demand for the foreign labour force (labour market needs, level of wages, existing work opportunities) and migration networks (including ethnic links), migration policy has a powerful influence on the scale, directions and characteristics of human flows.

Mixed Public-Private Enterprises in Europe: Economic Theory and an Empirical Analysis of Italian Water Utilities. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 4/July 2006

Mixed enterprises, which are entities jointly owned by the public and private sector, are spreading all over Europe in local utilities. Well aware that in the vast majority of cases the preference of local authorities towards such governance structure is determined by practical reasons rather than by the ambition to implement new regulatory designs (an alternative to the typical “external” regulation), our purpose is to confer some scientific value to this phenomenon which has not been sufficiently investigated in the economic literature. This paper aims at proposing an economic analysis of mixed enterprises, especially of the specific configuration in which the public partner acts as controller and the private one (or “industrial” partner) as service provider. We suggest that the public service concession to mixed enterprises could embody, under certain conditions, a noteworthy substitute to the traditional public provision and the concession to totally private enterprises, as it can push regulated operators to outperform and limit the risk of private opportunism. The starting point of the entire analysis is that ownership allows the (public) owner to gather more information about the actual management of the firm, according to property rights theory. Following this stream of research, we conclude that under certain conditions mixed enterprises could significantly reduce asymmetric information between regulators and regulated firms by implementing a sort of “internal” regulation. With more information, in effect, the public authority (as owner/controller of the regulated firm, but also as member of the regulatory agency) can stimulate the private operator to be more efficient and can monitor it more effectively with respect to the fulfilment of contractual obligations (i.e., public service obligations, quality standards, etc.). Moreover, concerning the latter function, the board of directors of the mixed enterprise can be the suitable place where public and private representatives (respectively, welfare and profit maximisers) can meet to solve all disputes arising from incomplete contracts, without recourse to third parties. Finally, taking into account that a disproportionate public intervention in the “private” administration (or an ineffective protection of the general interest) would imply too many drawbacks, we draw some policy implications that make an equitable debate on the board of the firm feasible. Some empirical evidence is taken from the Italian water sector.

R&D, Spillovers, Innovation Systems and the Genesis of Regional Growth in Europe. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 5/October 2006

Research on the impact of innovation on regional economic performance in Europe has fundamentally followed three approaches: a) the analysis of the link between investment in R&D, patents, and economic growth; b) the study of the existence and efficiency of regional innovation systems; and c) the examination of geographical diffusion of regional knowledge spillovers. These complementary approaches have, however, rarely been combined. Important operational and methodological barriers have thwarted any potential cross-fertilization. In this paper, we try to fill this gap in the literature by combining in one model R&D, spillovers, and innovation systems approaches. A multiple regression analysis is conducted for all regions of the EU-25, including measures of R&D investment, proxies for regional innovation systems, and knowledge and socio-economic spillovers. This approach allows us to discriminate between the influence of internal factors and external knowledge and institutional flows on regional economic growth. The empirical results highlight how the interaction between local and external research with local and external socioeconomic and institutional conditions determines the potential of every region in order to maximise its innovation capacity. They also indicate the importance of proximity for the transmission of economically productive knowledge, as spillovers show strong distance decay effects. In the EU-25 context, only the innovative efforts pursued within a 180 minute travel radius have a positive and significant impact on regional growth performance.

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.

The Determinants of Country Risk in Eastern European Countries. Evidence from Sovereign Bond Spreads. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 8/November 2006

The paper studies country risk in two Central and Eastern European countries - Bulgaria and Poland. The long run relationship between the yield differential (spread) of Eastern European national bonds (denominated in US dollars) over a US Treasury bond on one the hand and the country’s fundamentals as well as an US interest rate on the other hand, is examined. The cointegrated VAR model is used. First, the yield differentials are analyzed on a country by country basis to extract stochastic trends which are common for all bonds in a given country. Thereafter, the risk is disentangled into country and higher level risk. This paper is among the first ones which use time series data to study the evidence from sovereign bond spreads in Eastern Europe.

Localizing EU Gender Policy: The Diffusion of Gender Mainstreaming across Feminist Movements in Eastern Germany. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 08.1, June, 2008

Gender mainstreaming emerged in the mid-1990s as an innovative and controversial policy tool for reducing gender inequalities. The European Union seeks to propagate the practice of gender mainstreaming both within EU institutions and among member states. Feminist scholars and policy elites discuss and debate gender main-streaming widely, but have yet to consider how local feminist activists, who could play a central role in diffusing gender mainstreaming, understand, interpret and respond to this agenda. This paper examines whether and why local feminist movements in two cities in eastern Germany adopt gender mainstreaming. Consideration of the characteristics of the contexts in which local feminist movements are embedded clarifies the conditions under which social movements rally round new policy paradigms.

China on Central-Eastern Europe: ‘16+1’ as seen from Beijing. OSW COMMENTARY NUMBER 166/15.04.2015

From the Introduction. In 2012, China approached the countries of Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) with a proposal concerning regional cooperation in the ‘16+1’ formula. According to Chinese analysts, the rationale behind this breakthrough decision was Beijing’s acknowledgment of the growing importance of the region’s states within the European Union as well as a partial elimination of the ideological differences which had hamstrung cooperation in previous years. It seems that the eurozone crisis may be perceived as the reason for the CEE states’ increased interest in developing their cooperation with China. These circumstances have opened a ‘window of opportunity’ which Beijing has decided to exploit to create a kind of bridgehead in the region which it could later use in its further economic expansion in Europe. Apart from opening the CEE region up for investments, the ‘16+1’ format was intended to facilitate the shaping of relations between China and the EU and to become a tool in building a positive image for China. Chinese experts agree that after three years of functioning, the ‘16+1’ regional cooperation format has helped Beijing achieve its goals only to a limited extent. The major obstacles have included: the immense diversification of the region, barriers related to EU law, insufficient expertise on the part of Chinese companies, the asymmetry of economic needs on both sides, and no willingness within the region itself to develop cooperation. Regardless of the limited effectiveness of activities carried out so far, China has continued its ‘16+1’ initiative. This continuation and the progressing institutionalisation of cooperation in the ‘16+1’ format have often seemed superficial. China has been using this multi-party formula to improve its long-term bilateral relations with selected states in the region and thereby to create a basis for Beijing’s political and economic presence in Central-Eastern Europe.

Flashlight Europe N°5–June 2015. OMT is Monetary Policy and Not Economic Policy

In January 2014, for the first time in its history, the German Federal Constitutional Court submitted several questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg and asked for a preliminary ruling. The questions had arisen within the framework of the OMT case, and the issue was whether or not the OMT (“outright monetary transactions”) programme announced by Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), is in compliance with the law of the European Union. The OMT programme (which has be-come well-known because Draghi said “what-ever it takes to preserve the euro” when he unveiled it) plays an important role in the stabilization of the euro area. It means that the European System of Central Banks will be empowered to engage in unlimited buying of government bonds issued by certain Member States if and as long as these Member States are simultaneously taking part in a European rescue or reform programme (under the EFSF ot the ESM). Hitherto the OMT has not been implemented. Nonetheless a suit contesting its legality was filed with the Federal Constitutional Court. The European Court of Justice now had to decide whether or not the activities of the ECB were in compliance with European law. How-ever, the ECJ had to take into account the prior assessment of the Federal Constitutional Court. In its submission the Federal Constitutional Court made it quite clear that it was of the opinion that there has been a violation of European law. But at the same time it did not exclude the possibility that the ECJ set up legal conditions for OMT in order to avoid a violation of European law.

Paper Tiger or Game-Changer? Challenges of and Opportunities for EU Engagement with the Eurasian Economic Union. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Papers (BRIGG) 1/2015.

The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) started work on 1 January 2015. Considered as Russia’s response to the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP), it has been almost ignored in Brussels. However, with the Ukraine crisis and the deteriorating relations with Moscow, some European leaders have begun to reconsider Putin’s proposal for a region-to-region engagement. This paper tries to analyse under which conditions this could represent a long-term solution for a new European order. First, it is argued that the EEU is still far from being a credible international interlocutor. Second, Russia’s commitment to international trade rules and liberalization is questioned, whereas its geopolitical objectives seem predominant. EU engagement with the EEU in Ukraine would mean, in the short term, legitimizing Russia’s vision of a ‘bipolar Europe’ divided in spheres of influence. In the long run, prospects for inter-regional cooperation remain open, but the way to go is long and full of obstacles.

The Importance of Foreign Language Skills in the Labour Markets of Central and Eastern Europe: An assessment based on data from online job portals. CEPS Special Report No. 129/January 2016

In a globalised world, knowledge of foreign languages is an important skill. Especially in Europe, with its 24 official languages and its countless regional and minority languages, foreign language skills are a key asset in the labour market. Earlier research shows that over half of the EU27 population is able to speak at least one foreign language, but there is substantial national variation. This study is devoted to a group of countries known as the Visegrad Four, which comprises the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Although the supply of foreign language skills in these countries appears to be well-documented, less is known about the demand side. In this study, we therefore examine the demand for foreign language skills on the Visegrad labour markets, using information extracted from online job portals. We find that English is the most requested foreign language in the region, and the demand for English language skills appears to go up as occupations become increasingly complex. Despite the cultural, historical and economic ties with their German-speaking neighbours, German is the second-most-in-demand foreign language in the region. Interestingly, in this case there is no clear link with the complexity of an occupation. Other languages, such as French, Spanish and Russian, are hardly requested. These findings have important policy implications with regards to the education and training offered in schools, universities and job centres.

A Look at worker rights in Eastern Europe, 1988-1989.

"The winds of change : can economic reform succeed without labor reform? : a synopsis and commentary on the May 15-17, 1988, seminar on East European labor sponsored by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor"--p. ii.