Innovation is a policy area in which the European Union (EU) has the competence to support, coordinate and supplement Member States policies according to the new Lisbon Treaty (2007). The Member States (MS) have the primacy in this area and the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality...

Innovation seldom has purely domestic causes and consequences, but how can a European innovation policy complement or substitute national policies? Taking the subsidiarity principle as a starting point, this report discusses the economic rationale of a European innovation policy. Explorative...

With a novel approach this paper sheds light on the international tax planning possibilities of multinationals. The international corporate tax system is considered a network, just like for transportation, and ‘shortest’ paths are computed, minimizing tax payments for the...

Consolidation of the tax base in the European Union is expected to curve compliance costs and reduce profit shifting. A number of proposals for consolidation from the European Commission are simulated with the applied general equilibrium model CORTAX. We show that the benefits from...

Education has always been regarded as a national matter. According to the subsidiarity principle power may only be shifted to a higher level of coordination when solid arguments exist that this will improve welfare. This paper aims at answering the question if these arguments exist. We find no...

We analyse the effects of financial shocks on economic development in the euro area and the Netherlands in particular. We develop VAR models that take account of feedback loops between financial-market conditions and the real economy. These feedback loops operate via the aggregated euro-area...

Exchange rate risk will only have a small effect on international transactions as long as this risk is easily tradable. We find evidence indicating that the availability of currency futures can explain the relatively small impact of exchange rate volatility on trade. The impact of exchange rate...

Structural funds are the most intensively used policy instrument by the European Union to promote economic growth in its member states and to speed up the process of convergence. This paper empirically explores the effectiveness of European Structural Funds by means of a panel data analysis for...

WorldScan is a recursively dynamic general equilibrium model for the world economy, developed for the analysis of long-term issues in international economics. The model is used both as a tool to construct long-term scenarios and as an instrument for policy impact assessments, e.g. in the fields...

Enlargement of the EU with ten Central and Eastern European Countries is a major item on the EU's policy agenda. Assessing the economic consequences of the accession to the internal market is not obvious. This paper provides a new method to quantify the impact of the accession. The assessment...