In this qualitative sociological and quantitative economic policy paper, we start out from the assumption of a very recent European Commission Background paper on the "Efficiency and effectiveness of social spending", which says the effectiveness of social spending can be defined by the degree...

In the past decade, the European agricultural sector has undergone rapid structural change. Part of that change is manifested in extended early retirement plans. As pensions play a crucial role in determining the characteristics the change, it is important to establish the factors determining...

This paper investigates the time-path of efficiency and productivity change in the case of the Romanian cement industry 1966-1989. The analysis is based on different specifications of stochastic frontier models. The efficiency scores and the time paths of efficiency and technical change are...

This paper deals with a dynamic adjustment process in which adjustment of a key variable input (labor) towards its desired level is modeled in a panel data context. The partial adjustment type model is extended to incorporate firm- and time-specific adjustment parameter. A flexible (translog)...

The availability of new internationally-harmonized innovation survey data collected from OECD countries has created some interesting opportunities for studying the following two key areas: (1) the determinants of innovation behavior at firm level, and (2) innovation as an important factor...