Poverty Transitions and Trigger Events across EU Groups of Countries: Evidence from EU-SILC

AbstractThe dynamics of income poverty in European countries have been extensively analysed using the ECHP dataset, run from 1994 to 2001 in the ‘old’ fifteen member states. Using EU-SILC longitudinal data, the purpose of this paper is to update this type of analysis to 2006 by including the ‘new’ EU member states and focusing on poverty mobility. The demographic and economic events associated with households falling into or exiting poverty are analysed through both descriptive analyses and logit regressions. The analysis compares six groups of countries clustered according to welfare regime typologies. The results reveal that most poverty transitions are associated with economic events, but the entry rates after the occurrence of demographic events are also crucial. With respect to poverty entry rates, differences among groups of countries are consistent with their welfare regime typologies, but a less clear ranking among them emerges when considering poverty exit rates and when regressions are estimated while controlling for household characteristics.

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Welfare reforms and socio-economic trends in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe

Communist and Post-Communist Studies ◽

10.1016/j.postcomstud.2011.07.005 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 44 (3) ◽

pp. 211-219 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Jolanta Aidukaite

Keyword(s):

Welfare State ◽

Eastern Europe ◽

Central And Eastern Europe ◽

Social Protection ◽

Welfare Regime ◽

Member States ◽

Eu Member States ◽

New Eu Member States ◽

Better Than ◽

The Eu

The paper reviews recent socio-economic changes in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe and the earlier and latest debates on the emergence of the post-communist welfare state regime. It asks two questions: are the new EU member states more similar to each other in their social problems encountered than to the rest of the EU world? Do they exhibit enough common socio-economic and institutional features to group them into the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime that deviates from any well-known welfare state typology? The findings of this paper indicate that despite some slight variation within, the new EU countries exhibit lower indicators compared to the EU-15 as it comes to the minimum wage and social protection expenditure. The degree of material deprivation and the shadow economy is on average also higher if compared to the EU-15 or the EU-27. However, then it comes to at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers or Gini index, some Eastern European outliers especially the Check Republic, but also Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary perform the same or even better than the old capitalist democracies. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, however, show many similarities in their social indicators and performances and this group of countries never perform better than the EU-15 or the EU-27 averages. Nevertheless, the literature reviews on welfare state development in the CEE region reveal a number of important institutional features in support of identifying the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime. Most resilient of it are: an insurance-based programs that played a major part in the social protection system; high take-up of social security; relatively low social security benefits; increasing signs of liberalization of social policy; and the experience of the Soviet/Communist type of welfare state, which implies still deeply embedded signs of solidarity and universalism.

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Effects of Foreign Ownership On Innovation Activities: Empirical Evidence for Twelve European Countries

National Institute Economic Review ◽

10.1177/00279501082040011001 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 204 ◽

pp. 85-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Martin Falk

Keyword(s):

Decomposition Analysis ◽

Foreign Ownership ◽

European Countries ◽

Community Innovation Survey ◽

Member States ◽

Oaxaca Decomposition ◽

Domestic Firms ◽

Eu Member States ◽

Innovation Activities ◽

New Eu Member States

In the present study we investigate the relationship between foreign ownership and innovation activities using the firmlevel data of the third Community Innovation Survey (CIS) covering twelve European countries. Probit estimates based on 28,000 firms' observations show that foreign-owned firms are more innovative than domestic firms, particularly in the New EU Member States. However, results from the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of the differences in the percentage of innovating firms between foreign-owned and domestic firms reveals that the differences are mainly due to the different firm characteristics rather than the differences in coefficients. In particular, the dominance of foreign-owned firms in the largest firm size group is the main factor contributing to the gap in the percentage of innovators between foreign-owned firms and domestic firms. Furthermore, using the fractional logit model, we find that in the New EU Member states, foreign ownership has a positive and significant impact on the share of market novelties as well as on the share of new products in turnover. In this case, the results from the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis indicate that the ownership difference in the share of innovative sales is not due to the differences in the observed firms' characteristics.

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