The study presents an overview of the impact of the main investment tools of the EU budget. The focus is on the increasing role of the financial instruments, which are fundamentally changing the budget’s nature and reach. Through these instruments, the EU can invest more efficiently in more...

The euro crisis has forced member states and the EU institutions to create a series of new instruments to safeguard macro-financial stability of the Union. This study describes the status of existing instruments, the role of the European Parliament and how the use of the instruments impinges on...

What share of the EU’s collective GDP should the EU budget represent? 1%? 1.05%? 0.95%? A Task Force set up by CEPS to explore this question finds that the EU member states, once again, are locked in a pointless battle. Their report argues that the amount is not decisive when it comes to EU...

The targeted increase of renewable energy sources in the European energy mix to 20% by 2020, and the goal of an 80-95% CO2 emissions reduction by 2050, will require changes to and extensions of the electricity grid. The integration of increasing shares of fluctuating renewable electricity,...

The background to this study is the establishment of the Single Payment Scheme (SPS), providing decoupled support to farmers, which was the central element of the 2003 CAP reform. The Member States of the EU-15 had to implement the SPS at the latest by 2007. The Member States had some...

In this paper, we describe the regulations governing the rental markets for agricultural land in selected EU member states and candidate countries. The analysis focuses on various kinds of regulations and institutions connected with the land rental market, including price, tenancy duration,...

This paper criticises the neo-classical assumptions of perfect factor markets and of complete information, which constitute central elements in labour market theory. Based on a literature review and on economic reports from transition economies, as well as developing countries and more advanced...

This paper aims to identify drivers of physical capital adjustments in agriculture. It begins with a review of some of the most important theories and modelling approaches regarding firms’ adjustments of physical capital, ranging from output-based models to more recent approaches that consider...

The objective of this paper is to explore the determinants to leave agriculture and change occupational sector. We adopt a 3-step multivariate probit where we control for selection bias at two stages in the decisions to work and, at a later stage, exit agriculture. The analysis is based on the...