We take stock of what is known about public investment in the member states of the European Union, old and new alike. The interesting features about the long-term evolution of public investment have been its downtrend in old EU member states, bar the cohesion countries, and its volatility in new...

This paper observes that de-industrialisation has been mostly relative in Europe, with industrial value added and employment shrinking in relative terms, but industrial value added growing in absolute terms – at least until recently. Qualitatively, this relative de-industrialisation has been...

Highlighting the revival of industrial-policy thinking in an era of globalisation and disenchantment with free trade, this paper reviews alternative and, in part, competing theoretical foundations of industrial policy: neoclassical foundations, structuralist approaches, and pragmatic approaches...

The main purpose of this paper is to preview the other contributions to this volume of the EIB Papers. In this context, it offers a few additional perspectives. One highlights why energy issues have re-emerged as a matter of policy interest. Another concerns the difference between the...

The paper critiques current European energy policy. The key market failures are identified and the reasons for intervention set out. In addition to the traditional concerns with monopoly and market failures, the public goods aspects of diversity and security of supply, together with...

Countries thus far realise their energy security predominantly with energy policies (e.g., diversifying the energy mix and suppliers) and their energy security risk instruments mostly address the risk of shortterm supply disruptions. Lack of commercially viable sustainable energies and a renewed...

This paper analyses the role of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure development in the new EU member states and candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We survey projects in transport, water, energy, and telecommunications sectors and then focus on the highway...

Ireland is the most successful EU economy in attracting export-platform foreign direct investment (FDI), and the increased FDI inflows of the 1990s are widely agreed to have been one of the most important factors in generating the remarkable boom that the country experienced over that decade....

This paper examines the UK experience of PPP/PFI from a value for money perspective. It argues that a rounded view of overall performance has to consider the procurement process, the construction of the asset procured, and the operational performance that follows. Important changes have been...

Analysing the evolution and determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, this paper argues that sound economic policies have created an environment conducive for FDI. Overall, FDI has contributed to economic growth in the Baltic economies, having financed...