The objective of the paper is to review and analyze the health of population and health care expenditure and to examine the trends of convergence of health care expenditure in EU countries. One of the most often used indicators characterizing a populations health is life expectancy at birth. Comparative analyses show that the life expectancy at birth in EU-12 countries is much lower than in EU-15 countries. Although in 1992-2004 the life expectancy increased both in EU-15 countries and in EU-12 countries, the differences in the life expectancy have still remained more or less the same. Besides the low life expectancy in EU-12 countries, also the resources used in health care are below the EU-15 average level. In our paper we test the ?-, ?- and ?-convergence of the health care expenditure. For testing ?-, ?- and ?-convergence the authors have used cross-sectional data over the period 1992-2004 for health care expenditure as share of GDP and per capita health care expenditure. Data of the World Health Organization (WHO) were used for the research. The study demonstrates that although usually the increase of economic integration facilitates economic growth, the mere fact of the European Union enlargement does not bring along an automatic homogenization of health care expenditure and health policy in the EU-12 countries.
Expenditure on social protection in the European Union (EU) member states has been increasing rapidly over the last decade. To cover the increasing expenses, the countries need to find ways to increase revenues. Social protection financing systems and structure of financing vary across countries, but all of them use mainly two sources for financing: general government contributions and social tax revenue. The aim of this paper is to study the development of the structure of social protection financing at the main contributor level over the last decade, defining the trends that characterize the changes. We concentrate on convergence analysis of the structure of social protection financing, which is an important but, so far, insufficiently studied issue. Copyright International Atlantic Economic Society 2005H55, H53, O52,
The European social model is a vision of society that combines sustainable economic development with ever-improving living and working conditions. The issue whether or not it is possible to use one so-called European social model in the European Union countries, including in new member states and what it should be like, has been a topic of debates for a long time already. In reality, there are several different social models used in Europe, which interpret the concepts of efficiency and equality differently. The theoretical part of this paper will discuss the European social model and its typology based on research by various authors. We shall compare the social outputs of countries grouped into different model types on the basis of different socio-economic indicators. In the empirical part, we carry out a cluster analysis for positioning new European Union (EU-12) countries into mix of European social models. We concentrate on two of the most important aspects of social systems - monetary poverty/inequality and public policy - and try to classify European Union countries according to their social policy. In the analysis, we also evaluate whether the distribution of EU-15 countries, on the basis of Esping-Andersen’s typology, is the same today after a major enlargement of the European Union. We use different clustering methods such as hierarchical and k-means clustering. The analysis is based on EUROSTAT data; clusters are formed on the basis of 2008 socio-economic indicators for EU-27 countries.
This issue of the Baltic Journal of Economics consists of papers that were presented during a series of workshops in the Baltic States. In all, three workshops, collectively entitled, Labour Markets, Work and Welfare During the Transition and Integration Processes, were held. The first occurred in Vilnius in April 2000, the second in Riga in March 2001, and the final in Tartu in May 2002. The workshops were made possible through generous financial support from the European Union and the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI) at the University of Bonn. 1 ZEI, EuroFaculty, BICEPS, and the respective resident universities (Vilnius University, the University of Latvia, and Tartu University) hosted the events. CEPR provided support as well.Over the course of the three workshops, presentations were made by six senior lecturers ranking among the top researchers in Europe in the fields of transition and labor economics. 2 Each workshop also featured policy-oriented presentations regarding issues of transition and European integration from individuals locally engaged in these processes either in government or in academia. Additionally over 50 research presentations in all were made by junior researchers mostly working on aspects of labour markets in transition economies. The presentations covered features of economic transition and integration for most of the accession countries as well as papers that discussed labour issues in some of the former central Asian republics of the Soviet Union, Turkey, and India.Six presented papers are included in this issue. Three individual papers presented by junior researchers deal specifically with the Baltic States. Additionally three shorter papers are included that discuss economic, political, and legal ramifications of EU accession for the Baltic States.The first paper by Eamets, Varblane, and Sostra examines the effects of the Russian financial crisis on Estonian unemployment. The authors find evidence of a significant impact though one that had an asymmetric effect based on occupation. The evidence indicates the negative effects of the crisis fell mostly upon lowerskilled blue-collar workers.Wilder and Viies examine the Estonian income distribution in the second paper. Using data from 1995 and 1999, the authors look at how progression in the External Macroeconomic Shocks and the Estonian economy Baltic Journal of Economics Spring/Summer 2003 4 transition process affects overall income inequality as measured by the Gini Coefficient. Consistent with theory and findings from other studies, Wilder and Viies find demographic factors have played a major role in the changing distribution of income.The third paper is a contribution from three undergraduate students at the University of Latvia, Jelena Popova, Olga Rastrigina, and Ija Trapeznikova. Students, including many undergraduate students, played a fundamental role in the workshop series both as organizers and presenters. The paper by Popova, Rastrigina, and Trapeznikova is just one example of exceptional work by undergraduate...
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