We study the impact of changing relative market access in an enlarged EU on the economies of incumbent Objective 1 regions. First, we track the impact of external opening on internal spatial configurations in a three-region economic geography model. External opening gives rise to potentially...

This paper suggests that the process of economic integration can generate positive effects for peripheral economies by increasing their attractiveness as a production base for multinational companies. Such investment is likely in the case of goods for which transportation costs are relatively...

The paper uses a regional Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to analyse the effects of immigration on three small remote EU regions located within Scotland, Greece and Latvia. Two migration scenarios are assessed. In the first, total labour supply is affected. In the second, the...

In a world of globalisation, it is tempting to foresee the 'death of distance' and, once the impediments to mobility have declined sufficiently, to wait for the predictions of the neo-classical theory of factor mobility to materialise. According to this theory, production factors respond to...

We examine the economic implications of infrastructure investment policies that try to improve economic conditions in Russia's peripheral regions. Our analysis of firm-level industrial data for 1989 and 2004 highlights a 'death of distance' in industrial location, with increasing concentration...

This paper investigates whether failure in innovation at the firm level can account for cross-country heterogeneity in manufacturing productivity growth. There is no strong evidence in the literature on the existence of such link. Our work, however, differs in a number of ways from much of the...

Cross-national comparative analysis of generalised social trust in 60 countries shows that it is associated with, and is an integral part of, a tight syndrome of cultural, social, economic, and political variables. High trust countries are characterized by ethnic homogeneity, Protestant...

In this paper we investigate crude oil and products price dynamics. We present a comparison among ten price series of crude oils and fourteen price series of petroleum products, considering four distinct market areas (Mediterranean, North Western Europe, Latin America and North America) over the...

Recent research in natural sciences shows that boreal forests' dynamics are much more complex than what many models traditionally used in forestry economics reflect. This essay analyses some challenges of accounting for such complexity. When forest owners continuously harvest several species,...

Under the Nordic dual income tax system, the taxpayer's total tax bill depends not only on his total income but also on the division of that income between capital income and labor income. This has created new room for tax avoidance, especially for active owners of (closed) corporations. For...