This Report analyses and compares a number of indicators related to the evolution of the competitive behaviour of firms in the Single Market, from 1999 to 2007, in a selected number of both manufacturing and services industries and eight EU countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Poland,...

Many governments in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) have offered significant incentives in order to attract foreign investments, motivated by expectations on possible spillover benefits. FDI is usually perceived as a vehicle for transferring technology not only across national...

offered significant incentives in order to attract foreign direct investments (FDI), being motivated to do so by expectations of possible spillover benefits. Using an unbalanced panel of firm level data in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania over the 1995-2003 period, we examine the impact of foreign...

In this paper we analyse whether and to what extent MNEs can generate positive externalities for the host economies by allowing for spatial dependence patterns in TFP growth rates at sectoral and regional level. In order to achieve this research objective we use spatial econometric techniques,...

Several papers have proven that the institutional environment of the receiving country can influence the choice to establish an FDI. Property rights theory suggests that contract enforcement matters differentially across sectors. This paper is the first attempt to test whether institutions...

This paper evaluates if and how speculation affects the volatility of commodity futures: it distinguishes between short term and long term measures of speculation and investigates if the impact on volatility is different. Speculation is measured by means of four indexes: scalping, Working’s T,...

This article investigates how the general principles of the Treaty have been applied to the car sector in the EU, where the soft law provisions are of particular interest. A detailed quantitative analysis from 1990 to 2008 highlights a reduction of aid over time. A shift from sectoral to...

Our study contributes to the literature in two directions. First, we investigate the behaviour of futures prices returns for different energy and agricultural commodities, over the period 1986-2010. Second, we measure the market vulnerability to financial speculation for energy commodities over...

The economies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have always been characterized by economic volatility and social disparities. The recent ‘Arab Spring’ wave of protests has increased political uncertainty and instability in the region, and this timely book provides an...