scholarly journals Determinants of Public Indebtedness in European Union Countries

e-Finanse ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 76-86
Author(s):  
Janusz Kudła

AbstractThe paper strives to determine the impact of fiscal variables on factors determining the dynamics of public debt in European Union countries. Based on the literature, the dynamics of public debt are determined by changes of three elements: the primary balance, interest-rate-growth-differential and the change of government assets. Therefore, it seems reasonable to estimate the dynamics of these three values to find the variables crucial for limiting the growth of public debt. Three groups of dynamic panel regressions were estimated based on the one-step Generalized Method of Moments. The data was collected for the 1995-2015 period for 27 EU countries. Dependent variables included: primary balance, interest-rate-growth-differential and change of government assets. Independent variables consisted of: interest payable to GDP ratio, unemployment rate, squared unemployment rate, FDI stock to GDP, net FDI inflow to GDP, general government expenditures to GDP, share of social security expenditures and openness of the economy measured by the ratio of export and import to GDP. On the basis of statistical data, three components of debt changes were distinguished, and estimations of the dynamic panel regressions were applied to find the impact of independent variables. According to the basic models, the primary balance is lower for: countries with higher unemployment, greater FDI stock and higher general government expenditures. The interest-rate-growth-differential is lower in the case of: high subsidies and for a more open economy. However, unemployment and FDI remain the most important determinants of this variable. The change of government’s assets ratio decreases as FDI net inflows or the share of expenditures to GDP increase as well as in the case of very high unemployment.

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-139
Author(s):  
Zigmas Lydeka ◽  
Akvile Karaliute

Innovation and unemployment are two economic elements related to each other that have been constantly analyzed in the economic debates from the beginning of the 21st century. A classical question is whether innovation creates or destroys jobs. The conventional approach contemplates innovation as a transformation instrument of an economy, resulting in economic growth and jobs creation. Another approach points out to various mechanisms which can compensate the primary effect of innovations and cause an ultimate effect of innovations on labour demand to be unclear. In view of the fact that there are many different explanations about the impact of innovations on labour demand, this paper, after the analysis of theoretical and empirical scientific literature in this field, provides an empirical analysis with unemployment as the dependent variable. The authors use data from 28 European Union countries for the period of 1992–2016 and pursue to research how technological innovations affect unemployment rate. There are two core independent variables – expenditure on R&D (research and development) and number of patent applications – as the main proxies for technological innovations. Control variables that affect unemployment are included to the model as well. The model was estimated using a dynamic two-step System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM-SYS) of a panel data system. After the composition of 12 different estimations of the model, the results suggest that, in some cases, technological innovations affect unemployment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-284
Author(s):  
Ranjan Kumar Mohanty ◽  
Sidheswar Panda

The study investigates the macroeconomic effects of public debt in India during 1980–2017 using a structural vector autoregression framework. The objective is to examine the impact of public debt on the interest rate, investment, inflation and economic growth in India. The results of the impulse response functions show that public debt has an adverse impact on economic growth but a positive impact on the long-term interest rate in the short run and a mixed effect (both negative and positive) on investment and inflation. We also find that domestic debt has a more adverse impact on the economy than external debt. The estimated variance decomposition analysis finds that much of the variation in selected macro variables are explained by public debt and growth in India. This study suggests that public debt especially domestic debt should be controlled and channelled productively to have a favourable impact on the economy. JEL Classification: H63, O40, C40


2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Alonso ◽  
Judith Clifton ◽  
Daniel Díaz-Fuentes

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (No. 12) ◽  
pp. 550-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Tłuczak

Models and methods of spatial econometrics are gaining more and more popularity. Their advantage is the opportunity to examine the interrelationships between individual territorial units. These methods, apart from the own potential of the region, take into account the impact of neighbouring objects and location in space. The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between the potential and the level of competitiveness of individual European Union countries in the field of slaughter cattle production. In addition, the paper attempts to determine the specialisation of individual EU countries in the production of slaughter animals by sector. The analysis covered the years 2010–2016, using Eurostat data. The obtained results allow indicating countries in which there is a strong concentration of income potential (Sweden, Spain, Great Britain, France and Belgium). Countries in which the highest values of the potential quotients in the entire European Union are distinguished (Poland, Finland and Belgium).<br />


2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. A17.3-A18
Author(s):  
Emile Tompa ◽  
Amirabbas Mofidi ◽  
Young Jung ◽  
Thijmen van Bree ◽  
Swenneke van den Heuvel ◽  
...  

The objective of this study was to estimate the economic burden of occupational injuries and diseases in five European Union countries for the reference year 2015.We used a ‘bottom up’ approach to estimate the economic burden from a societal perspective for Finland, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Poland. Three broad cost categories were considered—direct health care, indirect productivity, and intangible health-related quality of life costs. The methods started with data on newly diagnosed occupational injuries and diseases from calendar year 2015. We considered lifetime costs for cases across all cost categories. Sensitivity analysis was undertaken to assess the impact of key parameters.Indirect costs represent the largest proportion of total costs (with the exception is Poland), ranging from 66% for The Netherland to 43% for Poland. Intangible costs are the second highest, ranging from 49% for Poland to 21% for Finland and The Netherlands. Direct costs range from 16% for Finland to 8% for Poland.Average per case costing is highest for The Netherlands (€75,342), followed by Italy (€58,411), German (€44,919), Finland (€43,069) and lastly Poland (€38,918). Total costs as a percentage of GDP are highest for Poland (10.4%), followed by Italy (6.7%), The Netherlands (3.6%), Germany (3.3%) and lastly Finland (2.7%). In terms of costs per working population, the value is highest for Italy (€4,956), followed by The Netherland (€2,930), Poland (€2,793), Germany (€2,527) and lastly Finland (€2,331).The economic burden of occupational injuries and diseases in the countries considered are substantial, despite efforts to reduce adverse workplace exposures. Our case costs and total economic burden estimates provide a basis for undertaking economic evaluations of prevention efforts and can serve as a template for monitoring and evaluation at the country level. We advance the methods on several fronts.


Author(s):  
Marcin Wiśniewski ◽  
Urszula Religioni ◽  
Piotr Merks

Community pharmacies are the primary entities providing drugs to individual patients in Poland. The pharmacy market has been changing for many years due to significant changes in market regulations. These changes significantly affect the profitability of pharmacies, which may impact the quality of pharmacotherapy. The small number of pharmacies, which resulted from changes in the law in 2017, can influence the level of patient care. The article presents the community pharmacies market in Poland. Particular attention is paid to the legal regulations affecting community pharmacies and the impact of these regulations on the overall shape of the market. The Polish system’s specificity, including the pharmacy market indicators, has been compared with data from other European Union countries.


Author(s):  
I. Marekha ◽  
V. Myrhorodska

The article substantiates the necessity to introduce systematic and effective tax eco-reforms in the context of resource-oriented economic development by the European Union countries. The performance and effectiveness of the reforms are estimated in relation to the main four groups of environmental taxes: energy taxes, pollution taxes, resource taxes and transport taxes. The macroecological policy of the European Union countries is the object of the undertaken analysis. The article examines the impact of macroeconomic factors on environmental taxes across the EU, using a correlation analysis toolkit. Four groups of macroeconomic parameters were selected for analysis: internal macroeconomic factors (nominal GDP, real GDP, inflation, business cycle stage, budget deficit, energy consumption level); external macroeconomic factors (government debt, exports, foreign direct investments); institutional macroparameters (environmental culture, shadow economy, trust in government) and fiscal macroparameters (tax culture and fiscal freedom). The economic interpretation of the obtained correlates is given. Based on the correlation analysis, stimulators and de-stimulators of tax environmental reforms across the EU were identified. It is established that the factors that positively influence on the tax environmental reforms are the overwhelming majority of the analyzed factors. The formation of indicators of the effectiveness of tax environmental reforms is undertaken for six countries of the Community. In particular, the analysis covers three economic leaders (Germany, the United Kingdom and France) and three leading EU countries in the field of environmental tax collection (Latvia, Greece and Slovenia). The article presents approaches to improving the assessment of the effectiveness of tax environmental reforms based on the consideration of fiscal (budget-filling) and reproductive (multiplicative) functions of environmental taxes. In this regard, the environmental tax multiplier and accelerator, as well as the GDP elasticity coefficient for environmental taxes, were calculated for the analyzed group of countries. The criteria of economic efficiency of tax eco-reforms are proposed. Keywords: environmental taxes, macroeconomic effect, macro-environmental policy, multiplier, accelerator, elasticity


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Michał Wielechowski

The aim of this article is the presentation and the attempt to analyse such phenomena as: an excessive general government deficit and public debt in EU Member States over the past 3 years. For the European Union the years 2008-2010 were the time when public finances of most member countries worsened dramatically. The average budget deficit in the EU increased during that period to a value of almost 7% compared to gross domestic product and public debt reached almost 80% of GDP. Referring the numbers to the principles of the budgetary policy in the Treaty on the European Union (the deficit should not exceed 3% in relation to GDP and public debt – 60% of GDP), the observance of budgetary discipline has been significantly violated. In consequence, the excessive deficit procedure has been initiated. in relation to almost all the countries of the EU, Its purpose was to force the member countries to take concrete actions to stabilize public finances. The economic crisis that began in the second half of 2007 in the United States of America which resulted in a significant deterioration of the finances of all the EU member countries might be regarded as the major source of violation of their budgetary discipline. The reactions of most governments TO the harmful effects caused by the financial crisis were to stimulate national economies and stem the decline of domestic demand. The higher level of public expenditures was simultaneously the cause of increased budget deficits,. To develop and present the problem of an excessive budget deficit and public debt in the EU countries some statistical methods were used and the data source statistics were mainly carried out by the European Commission and the European Statistical Office.


2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Heinemann ◽  
Viktor Winschel

Abstract EMU driven interest rates’ convergence has led to a significant reduction of borrowing costs for some European governments in the second half of the nineties. The paper deals with the possible consequences for deficit behaviour. Although the impact of interest rates on deficits is a crucial element of the market discipline hypothesis, it has widely been neglected in the literature. In the theoretical part, a standard political economic model of budgetary policy (Hettich-Winer) is adapted. It turns out that borrowing costs, measured as the interest-growth-differential, and the level of public debt should be important determinants for public deficits. The econometric part tests these predictions for a panel of OECD countries. The results indicate that there is indeed a significant impact of borrowing costs on the primary surplus. This impact is characterised by a robust asymmetry: Reactions in times of increasing borrowing costs are more pronounced than in times of relaxing conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-89
Author(s):  
Patrycja Wieczorek ◽  
◽  
Eliza Frejtag-Mika ◽  

The main issue of multivariate comparative analysis is the normalization of variables. The literature offers various procedures for data normalization, and therefore the researcher has to choose between them. The article presents and discusses the most commonly used normalizing formulas. The article assesses the impact of data normalization procedures on the results of the linear ordering of European Union countries in terms of the level of ICT usage in enterprises. A hypothesis was formulated that the method of data normalization influenced the position of the objects in the ranking. The study is based on statistical data from Eurostat for the year 2018. Based on the selected diagnostic variables, values for a synthetic measure have been determined for individual countries. The synthetic measure was calculated according to the model-less method of linear ordering using four types of normalization. The method used in the research allowed the creation of rankings for the countries. The compliance of the orders thus obtained was compared using the Spearman’s coefficient of range correlation and the measure of similarity of rankings. As the study shows, the choice of normalization formula influences the result of linear ordering, which is not due to any change in the data structure. It was proven that the quotient transformation with the normalization base equal to the maximum value allowed the most similar ranking to be obtained of the examined objects in relation to the Rother rankings. The results of the study show that Denmark, Sweden and Finland had the highest positions in each ranking while Bulgaria, Romania and Latvia had the lowest positions.


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