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This PhD thesis addresses three questions. First, to what extent was the EU’s vision of ‘active ageing’ adopted in EU15 nations between 1995 and 2005? Second, what was the nature of policy reforms in these nations over this time period? Finally, which sub-groups within the older age cohort (here defined as between 50-74)1 were subject to active ageing policies in these countries? The methodology employed was cross-national policy analysis of EU15 nations’ policies for employment and retirement, encompassing the retention and re-engagement of older individuals in the labour market. The policy areas included are unemployment benefits, active labour market policies, state pension ages, early retirement routes and incentives for the deferral of pension receipt, in line with the EU targets and guidelines regarding ‘active ageing’. In addition, model biographies (divided according to age and contribution records) were employed to address the differential policy treatment of individuals within the older age cohort in terms of the various eligibility criteria and policy options available over the ten year period. The data indicates that though EU15 nations have made progress towards the EU policy prescriptions for active ageing, there is variation in a number of respects. First, nations differed in terms of their policy contexts, and as a result had lesser or greater distances to travel towards the EU vision of active ageing. Second, and related, these policy contexts to a degree directed subsequent national reforms and retrenchment, thus resulting in different policy approaches. Finally, at the micro-level, there is variation with regard to the policy treatment of individuals within the age cohort in EU15 nations. As a result, the active ageing policy logic is applied to older individuals differently. In terms of its contributions to knowledge, this thesis therefore provides more nuanced accounts of both the recommodification and reserve army of labour literatures. The recommodification of labour argument suggests that nations are moving away from decommodifying welfare arrangements to focus on the recommodification of labour yet the data demonstrate a great deal of variation in EU15 nations, in terms of their original policies for decommodification, their subsequent retrenchment and the type of policies introduced that recommodify labour. With regard to the reserve army of labour literature, the shift towards active ageing policies is part of a cyclical process whereby older workers are drawn into and ejected from the labour markets in periods of low and high unemployment respectively. The data however indicate that as the political economy of ageing literature suggests, ageing is not a homogenous experience and differential policy treatment within age cohorts maintains and exacerbates divergence at the micro level. Thus whilst the recommodification and reserve army of labour literatures suggest all individuals are being drawn into the labour market, the data emphasises differences at the micro level in terms of policy treatment, in line with the political economy of ageing literature

<p>The Hungarian agricultural sector has undergone substantial changes between 1992 and 2003, which was a period of transformation from command economy to an EU-conform market economy. The question is whether the Hungarian agricultural sector was able to keep its competitiveness despite the extensive transformation. The aim of this paper is to measure the competitiveness of Hungarian agri-food product groups in relation to the ones of the EU-15 during the transformation period. Results indicate that the competitiveness, measured by revealed comparative advantage (RCA), of the studied agri-food product groups has not changed considerably. The strong position of the Hungarian agricultural sector could be maintained because its competitiveness is based on factor endowments, which are not affected by changes of economic policy. The observed moderate fluctuations of competitiveness can be derived to trade concession changes.</p>

The Hungarian agricultural sector has undergone substantial changes between 1992 and 2003, which was a period of transformation from command economy to an EU-conform market economy. The question is whether the Hungarian agricultural sector was able to keep its competitiveness despite the extensive transformation. The aim of this paper is to measure the competitiveness of Hungarian agri-food product groups in relation to the ones of the EU-15 during the transformation period. Results indicate that the competitiveness, measured by revealed comparative advantage (RCA), of the studied agri-food product groups has not changed considerably. The strong position of the Hungarian agricultural sector could be maintained because its competitiveness is based on factor endowments, which are not affected by changes of economic policy. The observed moderate fluctuations of competitiveness can be derived to trade concession changes.

In this thesis, intra and extra European Union-15 agricultural trade is investigated for the period 1985 - 2005. The main purpose of this study is to find out to what extent the two major events of this period, the CAP reform of mid-1990&rsquo / s and the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) of 1995, changed the relative shares of extra and intra trade in overall agricultural trade. The efforts to make European agriculture more competitive and more integrated with the world market have not concluded in a way that the dominance of intra trade over extra trade is relieved. The intra trade still dominates the EU-15 agricultural trade as it has been dominating since 1985. European agricultural market has become more open to world products only in some product groups. Similarly, liberalizing reforms had limited impact on EU-15 countries on individual basis. The shares of intra trade and extra trade remained more and less stable in most of the member states.

This thesis investigates the relation between trade and convergence for Turkey and EU-15 in the period 1980-2008. The countries and time period are selected because Turkey has intensive trade relation with EU-15, and these economies had experienced conversion in their economic structures and adopted liberal economic policies, as well as liberal trade policies in this period. Using panel data methods two equations are estimated / an income dispersion equation for the impact of bilateral trade on per capita income differences and a gravity model of trade for the impact of per capita income differences on bilateral trade. Overall findings of this study give strong evidence for the hypothesis that trade causes convergence, whereas weaker support for the thesis that convergence causes trade.

In April 2019 the European Parliament adopted its position on the so-called Mobility Package, a set of proposals for new rules for the transport sector within the European Union. Ever since the Mobility Package was first laid forward by the European Commission in 2017, it has been a contentious issue both within and outside of the European institutions and has often been framed as a conflict between “old” and “new” member states of the European Union.  This study seeks to investigate whether the voting pattern of the European Parliament on the issue of the Mobility Package was divided between old and new member states, or if the party groups of the European Parliament had a stronger influence. As such, the study can contribute to the research debate surrounding what role nationality and party group affiliation play in influencing the voting patterns of the European Parliament. The results of this study show that nationality seems to have had a stronger influence on the voting pattern than the party groups had. The level of cohesion was higher within member states than within party groups. Overall, the division between old and new member states seems to be a stronger predictor of voting behavior than the party groups as well. Still, within the groups of old and new member states, there are differences in voting patterns between different party groups, which means that party groups also seem to affect voting behavior. While this study cannot in itself explain the specific reasons behind the parliamentarians’ voting choices, hopefully, it can contribute to the aggregated knowledge of the political conflict lines facing European cooperation.

In the thesis, we examine the necessity and impacts of measures adopted under the greenhouse gas emissions target in the Europe 2020 growth strategy in the EU-15 states. For testing the necessity of the measures, we use the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as the theoretical framework, the Autoregressive distributed lag model as the econometrical technique and annual data from 1970 to 2010 (1991 to 2010 in the case of Germany). The existence of the EKC is detected in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. However, only in Denmark the EKC hypothesis is supported significantly (on ten percent level of significance). Following the main implication of the EKC hypothesis, only in Denmark is the economic development sufficient enough to safeguard environmental quality; therefore, no additional measures are needed. In the remaining states, we tested Granger causality using the Toda-Yamamoto procedure to inquire about the impacts of the measures on gross domestic product (GDP). Our results indicate that only in Austria, Germany (with caution due to a limited number of observations) and Ireland, the measures may impede economic development. In the remaining states, no causality or only a causality running from GDP...

Aim of study – to identify the means of agricultural intensification, intensification level and determine tendency of variation. Tasks: 1. To analyze literature sources about treatment of agricultural intensification. 2. To estimate agricultural intensification and intensification level and its factors in EU countries. 3. To estimate agricultural intensifications influance to its surounding enviroment. 4. To substantiate agricultural intensifications and ekstensifications interaction means by link to sustainable development. Methods of the research – logical comparable analysis and synthesis of scientific literature, statistical and mathematical (even correlation analysis) and graphics methods.

Diese Dissertation besteht aus drei Aufsätzen, welche die Effekte von Geld- und Fiskalpolitiken für die Makroökonomie untersuchen. Der erste Aufsatz analysiert, wie das Verhalten der Inflation nach z.B. geldpolitischen Veränderungen erklärt werden kann. Mankiw und Reis (2002) propagieren klebrige Information als eine Alternative zu Calvo klebrigen Preisen, um drei konventionelle Sichtweisen über die Inflation zu modellieren. Ich verwende ein DSGE Modell mit klebriger Information und vergleiche es mit Calvo klebrigen Preisen mit dynamischer Inflationsindexierung wie in Christiano et al. (2005). Ich zeige, dass beide Modelle in meinem DSGE Rahmen gleich gut geeignet sind, die konventionellen Sichtweisen zu erklären. Der zweite Aufsatz untersucht, wie sich das Verhalten von Haushalten und Firmen in den USA und EU-15 infolge von Steuerveränderungen anpasst. Mittels eines neoklassischen Wachstumsmodells zeigt sich, dass die USA und EU-15 auf der linken Seite der Lohn- und Kapitalsteuer Laffer Kurve liegen. Die EU-15 befindet sich jedoch viel näher an der rutschigen Steigung als die USA. Eine dynamische Scoring-Analyse zeigt, dass Steuersenkungen in der EU-15 stärker selbstfinanzierend sind als in den USA. Es folgt, dass es in der EU-15 grössere Anreize durch Steuersenkungen als in den USA gibt. Der dritte Aufsatz analysiert, ob die Fiskalpolitik Steuerreformen vor deren Implementierung vorankündigen soll, um die Wohlfahrt zu maximieren. Domeij und Klein (2005) zeigen, dass Vorankündigung einer optimalen Steuerreform mit Wohlfahrtskosten verbunden ist. Ich prüfe diese Behauptung unter zusätzlicher Berücksichtigung von öffentlichen Gütern und Kapital nach. Ich zeige, dass nutzenbringende und produktive Staatsausgaben die Wohlfahrtskosten durch Vorankündigungen höchstwahrscheinlich reduzieren. Es zeigt sich weiter, dass kurzfristige Konfiszierung und/oder Subvention von Kapital und Löhnen nicht wichtig für die Wohlfahrsgewinne einer hinreichend vorangekündigten Steuerreform sind. / This dissertation consists of three essays which investigate the economic implications of monetary and fiscal policies on the macroeconomy. The first essay focuses on the question: how can we explain the behavior of inflation in response to e.g. monetary policy changes? Mankiw and Reis (2002) propose sticky information as an alternative to Calvo sticky prices to model three conventional views about inflation. We use a fully-fledged DSGE model with sticky information and compare it to Calvo sticky prices, allowing also for dynamic inflation indexation as in Christiano et al. (2005). We find that both models do equally well in our DSGE framework in delivering the conventional views. The second essay analyzes the question: how does the behavior of households and firms in the US compared to the EU-15 adjust if fiscal policy changes taxes? Using a calibrated neoclassical growth model we show that the US and the EU-15 are located on the left side of their labor and capital tax Laffer curves, but the EU-15 being much closer to the slippery slopes than the US. A dynamic scoring analysis shows that tax cuts in the EU-15 are much more self-financing than in the US. We conclude that there are higher incentive effects in the EU-15 compared to the US in response to tax cuts. Finally, the third essay focuses on the question: should fiscal policy pre-announce tax reforms before their implementation from a welfare point of view? Domeij and Klein (2005) show that pre-announcement of an optimal tax reform is costly in terms of welfare. We reexamine their claim by taking two additional features of government spending into account: public goods and public capital. We show that valuable and productive government spending is likely to reduce the welfare costs of preannouncement. As a further contribution, we show that short-run confiscation and/or subsidy of capital and labor income is not important for the welfare gains of pre-announced reforms with sufficiently long pre-announcement duration.