There is often a gap between the prescriptions of an optimal tax system and actual tax systems, some of which can be neither efficient economically nor efficient at redistributing income. With a focus on personal income taxes, this paper reviews the political economics literature on tax systems...

The EU's cohesion policy should now be confluent with the goals of the Lisbon strategy by promoting growth and employment. In this context, the promotion of a concept called regional innovation system has recently become important in the EU for guaranteeing long-term regional economic growth....

Using enterprise data for the economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS, this study examines the effects of corruption on productivity. Corruption is defined as a 'bribe tax' and is compared to another form of institutional inefficiency, which is often believed to be closely linked...

We analyse the location decisions of 8,468 foreign affiliates in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector established in 224 regions in the European Union over the period 1998-2008. Our results suggest that on average, the location probability of foreign affiliates in ICT...

In this paper we seek to put Irish poverty rates in a comparative European context. We do so in a context whereby the Irish economic boom and EU enlargement have led to increasing reservations being expressed regarding rates deriving from the EU 'at risk of poverty' indicator. Our comparative...

In this paper, we study the impact of energy taxes and the EU ETS on a large number of firms in Europe between 1996 and 2007. Using company level micro-data, we examine how firms in different sectors were affected by environmental policies. Aspects of behaviour and performance studied include...

Following the Euro changeover in January 2002, consumers across the Euro Area perceived a sharp rise in inflation, in contrast to official figures. Several theories have been advanced to explain this apparent economic illusion, but they struggle to account for its striking scale and persistence....

This paper uses EU-SILC data from 2005 and 2006 to explore the hypothesis that international differences in rates of return to education reflect variations in the level of risk associated with educational investments. While there was some evidence to support this hypothesis with regards to...

Three computable general equilibrium models are used to estimate the economic implications of a stylized version of EU climate policy. If implemented at the lowest possible cost, the 20% emissions reduction would lead to a welfare loss of 0.5-2.0% by 2020. Second-best policies increase costs. A...

We examine the impacts of the EU-US Open Skies agreement on the environment, in particular looking at the effect of the agreement on emissions from the aviation sector. We use the Hamburg Tourism Model, a model of domestic and international tourist numbers and flows, to estimate these impacts....