This paper makes two important contributions. Firstly, it uncovers some of the main economic determinants driving the dynamics of public education spending in Europe. Drawing mainly on the insights provided by Baumol's cost theory, the baseline specification uses unit labour costs and real GDP...

Public services are a key facet of everyday life for all citizens and societies, so it is surprising that only scant attention has been paid to the emergence of the new approaches to them in an increasingly integrated EU. We critically examine these new approaches in this article. We show how...

This paper sheds new light on the economic logic of voluntary associations and the relationship between individual contribution and collective action. The aims are twofold.Firstly, we seek to explain how “team reasoning” (Bacharach et al. 2006) can deeply change the functioning of voluntary...

No good comparable data on sizes of cultural sectors of the countries of Europe exist. Still, local and national governments of Europe spend substantial resources on culture and cultural sectors contribute significantly to employment and national income. After briefly describing special features...

Climate disaster events are expected to displace at least 1.2 billion people by 2050. However, “climate refugees,” or individuals displaced in the context of disasters and climate change, lack international legal recognition and protection. In 2020, an international tribunal acknowledged in...

Der Erfolg einer Politik wird häufig mit dem Umfang der eingesetzten Finanzmittel gleichgesetzt. Die Autoren dieses Beitrag halten eine solche Einschätzung für verfehlt. Vielmehr sollten die Kosten dem Nutzen gegenübergestellt und einzelne Instrumente nicht mit unterschiedlichen Zielen...

The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) developed by Xavier Salai-Martín, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, has been measuring the factors that drive the growth and prosperity since 2005. This paper focuses on grouping the European nations according to global competitiveness. It...

This paper studies the causes and consequences of political centralization and fragmentation in China and Europe. We argue that a severe and unidirectional threat of external invasion fostered centralization in China while Europe faced a wider variety of smaller external threats and remained...

This paper discusses rising enrolment rates, access, governance, underperformance in research and teaching, lack of internationalisation, private returns to education and the funding problems of European universities. Our proposals for reform are based on more autonomy for universities, higher...