A Creeping Transformation?


Book Description

How can we approach the Commission's role as co-manager of policy implementation? Why should we expect the Commission to be pulled into domestic policy execution and to accumulate something like an implementation management capacity? How should we conceptualise the Commission's linkage with post-decision management issues? Finally, how does the Commission's involvement in the application of EU policies, if any, significantly change everything? Such questions are answered in this study, which is concerned with what may be called the implementation management capacity of the European Commission. Simply put, this is the role the Commission plays in the implementation of large-scale European spending programmes. While it is true that the Commission's predominant prerogatives are to draft legislation and facilitate bargaining, it also has a role in post-decision policy management. This role is of increasing importance for the emerging governance of the European Union. Readership: social scientists, journalists and all those interested in the role of the European Commission in shaping EU policies.




Technical Change and Economic Growth


Book Description

Technological change is not only a determinant of growth but is also a pivotal factor in international competition and the modernization of an economy. In one of the most in-depth and detailed studies of its kind, George Korres analyzes the macroeconomic and the microeconomic factors influencing the economics of innovation and the economic relations between technology, innovation, knowledge and productivity. In particular, this book examines both the theoretical framework and the applications for empirical results. This second edition contributes updated figures and estimations for technical change from EU member states and features new subjects, including growth models, productivity models, production function models and non-parametric models. In one of the most in-depth and detailed studies of its kind, this book captures all the existing contemporary techniques in the theoretical fields as well as the empirical applications of the models.




Europeanizing Greece


Book Description

While Greece's debt crisis continues to dominate international headlines, the country has received remarkably little scholarly attention – especially in comparison to other European Union members. Europeanizing Greece explores the developments that resulted from Greece's European integration between 1989 and 1999, which played a crucial role in shaping the country's current conditions. Focusing on changes made to the Greek administrative and political system based on EU structural policy, Nancy Vamvakas contends that EU involvement was not the only reason why these modifications were implemented. Vamvakas points out serious flaws in the Greek system and demonstrates how Greece's approach to reform has been inextricably linked to the perceived level of crises. Europeanizing Greece serves as a perceptive case study of the EU's continual enlargement and resulting regional challenges.




Technical Change and Economic Growth


Book Description

Technological change is not only a determinant of growth but is also a pivotal factor in international competition and the modernization of an economy. In one of the most in-depth and detailed studies of its kind, George Korres analyzes the macroeconomic and the microeconomic factors influencing the economics of innovation and the economic relations between technology, innovation, knowledge and productivity. In particular, this book examines both the theoretical framework and the applications for empirical results. This second edition contributes updated figures and estimations for technical change from EU member states and features new subjects, including growth models, productivity models, production function models and non-parametric models. In one of the most in-depth and detailed studies of its kind, this book captures all the existing contemporary techniques in the theoretical fields as well as the empirical applications of the models.




The Structural Funds in ...


Book Description







Cities as Engines of Sustainable Competitiveness


Book Description

Reflecting on two decades of ’competitiveness-oriented’ urban policies in Europe, this book investigates the current challenges cities face to sustain their economic position and how this can be balanced with social progress and environmental improvements. Complementing previous surveys on local and urban development and competitiveness-based strategies, this volume provides longer term views on the evolution of such policies at the city level, from the personal perspective of city officials in eight European cities. More concretely, it looks at how the urban dimension in EU policies have evolved over time, the kinds of urban policy supported by the EU over the last two decades and how cities have been involved with this process. The book investigates the portfolios of competitiveness-oriented policies which have been developed by European cities and how they see the link between urban/spatial development policies and sustainable competitiveness. Finally the book fleshes out a number of challenges and initiatives taken by the eight European cities and their governments in the face of current challenges in order to pave the way towards more competitive and sustainable urban economies.




Economic Growth and Cohesion Policy Implementation in Italy and Spain


Book Description

This book concerns EU Cohesion Policy and the economic convergence of underdeveloped regions in Italy and Spain from the first programming period to the present: it investigates the political and institutional factors that determine the success or failure of implementing EU Cohesion Policy at national and sub-national level, as well as their impact on economic growth. On the wave of the American tradition of development studies, this book suggests that public policy analysis can be fruitful for understanding economic growth and cohesion, if it were to reconstruct domestic public interventions for development and the institutional characteristics of the subjects responsible for pursuing development goals. To do so, this book derives its theoretical foundations from the traditional debate on the role of state actors in promoting economic development and on the institutional characteristics that the public authorities involved in the process of economic development should display. More precisely, by adopting an Hirschmanian approach to development, it elaborates an original framework to compare different Cohesion Policy implementations and to understand its economic results in different countries, using Italy and Spain as pilot studies.




The Regions and the New Europe


Book Description

The contributors argue that some regions, such as Emilia-Romagna, Baden-Wurttemberg, and Rhone-Alpes, have been highly successful in launching regional development strategies. Others, such as the English and certain southern European regions lack the economic resources and institutional structures to follow these examples. The book analyses the reasons for success and failure, and considers the strategic development options open to the less developed European regions.