Epicenter Archives
15 September 2023
The relationship between the money supply, demand for money, and price levels is a dynamic force within the economic landscape. It’s important to note …
27 July 2023
The economics literature shows that advertising can increase the sale of individual brands but, in mature markets, does not increase aggregate sales of the …
20 July 2023
Competition is a discovery process between rival firms and can only be explained if the information is imperfect. It is the most effective way …
In July 2023 the European Commission starts the process of designating gatekeepers on digital markets. Large digital companies deemed to have a large user …
15 June 2023
This paper exemines the demographic projections for Slovakia up to 2030, focusing on the potential shortages of healthcare professionals. By considering factors such as …
5 June 2023
The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the effect of lockdowns, also referred to as ‘Covid restrictions’, ‘social distancing measures’ …
31 May 2023
Germany has taken the top spot as the freest country in Europe once again, with the least amount of nannying regulations like banning, taxing, …
3 May 2023
Until recently, the telecommunications market was held up as an EU success story, with Europeans emerging as the big winners. European consumers were indeed …
29 March 2029
This paper urges EU decision makers to include transportation and buildings into the already existing Emissions Trading System (ETS). The study found that consolidating …
22 March 2023
This paper urges EU decision makers to avoid entering a tit-for-tat subsidy battle with the Unites States in response to the US Inflation Reduction …
15 March 2023
Work is underway at the European Union to develop a third Tobacco Products Directive. This briefing outlines a number of simple measures that could …
1 February 2023
This paper analyses how excessive taxation and regulations are worsening inflationary pressures in eight European countries. As a result of heavy state intervention, European …
7 December 2022
The briefing reviews the newly passed directive on adequate minimum wages in the EU and investigates its potential negative impacts on traditional collective bargaining …
6 October 2022
As energy prices soar this year, policymakers in the European Union and the United Kingdom have proposed various measures aimed at limiting energy inflation. …
6 July 2022
Granting candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova in June 2022 was an important and worthwhile step taken by the EU. Yet, as currently devised, …
30 June 2022
This paper examines the tax and regulatory policies fuelling inflation across five European countries. The detailed analysis of high price levels in Germany, Italy, …
16 June 2022
The EU and its member states are increasingly adopting a mission-oriented approach to tackling today’s pressing challenges. This line of thinking has been inspired …
15 June 2022
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced the European Union and its member states to substantially revise their energy policy in order to meet short-term …
1 June 2022
The European Commission is asking for feedback on its Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). The call for evidence closes on 17 June 2022 and is …
18 May 2022
It is well known that high production taxes and social contributions in France have been stifling the economy for some time. Prior to the …
4 May 2022
The European Union is debating a directive that would place a minimum effective corporate income tax (CIT) of 15 percent on large-scale company groups. …
23 March 2022
At the end of 2021, the European Commission released a “Proposal for a council directive on ensuring a global minimum level of taxation for …
9 March 2022
The European Parliament, the European Commission, and the European Council continue negotiations on the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a proposed regulation aimed at curtailing …
15 February 2022
The European Commission has proposed a Directive of the European Parliament and Council on improving working conditions on platform work. The proposal lays down …
14 February 2022
From 2023, all EU goods destined for the UK market will need to be certified with a new regulatory customs mark, recognising the regulatory independence of the …
2 February 2022
Preventing gold-plating is once again reinstated by the EU as an important measure to reduce barriers to the single market. Gold-plating is not in …
24 November 2021
Production taxes in France have long been a contentious issue closely linked to employment and wage growth. France currently sets one of the highest …
21 October 2021
The European Union often concludes international trade agreements, which contain shared competences with the Member States (the so-called mixed competences agreements), thus they require …
19 October 2021
The latest International Tax Competitiveness Index, published by the Tax Foundation, illustrates the wide variation in the quality of tax systems across Europe. Many …
14 October 2021
The voting patterns of political parties in the national parliaments of Greece, Italy and Spain, and of their members of the European Parliament, show …
13 October 2021
The proposed EU Digital Services Act (DSA) aims to protect users of digital services, but unfortunately it also creates serious new risks for both …
11 August 2021
The European Commission seeks to strengthen the principle of equal pay for work of equal value between men and women through pay transparency and …
30 July 2021
As the International Tax Competitiveness Index states, the structure of a country’s tax code is an important determinant of its economic performance. A well-structured …
30 June 2021
The European Union has targeted large online platforms as potential threats to competition in the digital world. According to the Commission’s Vice President and …
23 July 2021
The EU Commission proposed the new Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) in December 2020. Collectively, these proposals are an important …
9 June 2021
On 15 December 2020, the EU Commission released a proposal for a Regulation on Contestable and Fair Markets in the Digital Sector – referred …
18 May 2021
Debt mutualisation across EU Member States has recently been brought to the forefront of discussion. Firstly, because of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) balance-sheet operations, …
13 May 2021
The 2021 edition of the Nanny State Index, which has been expanded to 30 countries in Europe, shows that Germany has taken the top spot …
11 May 2021
The taxation of capital—at both the individual and the corporate level – is much debated and affects economic growth by lowering the incentives to …
18 March 2021
Surveys suggest that public understanding of the risks and benefits of e-cigarettes has become divorced from the scientific evidence. A Eurobarometer survey conducted in …
3 March 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted widespread calls for stricter regulation of price gouging across the European Union. Whilst the calls come from a good …
15 February 2021
The Index of Liberalisation unveils which countries rank best in economic liberalisation and provides insight on countries with the infrastructure to rebound quicker following …
4 February 2021
A report published by the European Commission on 3 February 2021 proposes a range of nanny state interventions intended to reduce the consumption of …
2 February 2021
With the Clean Energy for All Europeans package, the European Union has committed to being carbon-neutral by 2050. In order to achieve this goal, …
1 February 2021
Since the 2017 constitutional crisis in Catalonia, the momentum to secede from Spain has grown, but the potential economic impact has not been thoroughly …
27 January 2021
The way obesity is measured throughout the EU and OECD countries is significantly flawed. This paper shows that existing international comparisons measuring obesity are …
16 December 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to serious health and economic emergencies all over the world. Moreover, it has also affected democratic institutions and the …
9 December 2020
Prior to the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak, the Lithuanian economy had been enjoying a rapid growth. Yet, while the number of available …
2 December 2020
This year Credit Day for the European Union falls on the 17th of December. This is the day which, on average, EU member states …
26 November 2020
The access to European Union and the status of EU membership require significant reforms in order for a country to align with the Union’s …
20 November 2020
As a member of various international and European organisations, Poland is bound by the requirement to respect the rule of law so as to …
17 November 2020
The reunification of West Germany and East Germany took place 30 years ago, ending a period of around 45 years during which Germany had …
11 November 2020
With most of the world in a deep economic crisis due to coronavirus and the government reactions to it, knowledge of effective crisis policy …
21 October 2020
In September 2020, the EU’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) published a preliminary opinion (SCHEER 2020) on electronic cigarettes which …
14 October 2020
The International Tax Competitiveness Index (ITCI) seeks to measure the extent to which a country’s tax system adheres to two important aspects of tax …
7 October 2020
The EU Commission launched a public consultation on the adoption of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), i.e. a fee to be levied on …
6 October 2020
The European Commission has published a study on working conditions of platform workers. The report identifies key challenges related to platform work, such as …
21 September 2020
The presidential elections in Poland in 2020, which were won by the incumbent Andrzej Duda, the candidate of the ruling Law and Justice party, …
10 September 2020
The Economic Freedom of the World Index measures the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries are supportive of economic freedom. The …
4 September 2020
The World Health Organization (WHO) and Public Health England (PHE) have been widely criticised for their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Serious questions have …
3 September 2020
This position paper is a response to the European Commission’s second phase consultation with social partners. The EC’s initiative has a general objective of …
2 September 2020
Socio-economic systems should be understood as ‘complex’ phenomena that cannot effectively be controlled or managed through central planning. In general, markets and other decentralised …
6 August 2020
Covid–19 is provoking a major reorientation of the foreign policy of the US and Europe. At the heart of this is their changing relationship …
13 July 2020
In 2018 the European Commission presented its proposed EU budget as “new,” “modern” and “focused.” However, in terms of its expenditure and revenue the …
6 July 2020
The World Trade Organization has predicted that global trade in goods will drop by between 13 and 32 per cent in 2020 as a …
25 June 2020
The Covid-19 crisis has provided many grim examples of some familiar problems in health economics and cost-benefit analysis, and of the ‘tragic choices’ that …
18 June 2020
The policy reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic will increase budget deficits massively in all the world’s leading countries. The deficits will to a significant …
Thus far, three recovery programs have been proposed in response to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The first recovery program was …
14 May 2020
The seminal work on epidemiological models was carried out in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The models have developed substantially since then, but …
11 May 2020
This paper argues that testing participation – and not testing capacity – is the biggest obstacle to a successful “test and isolate” strategy, as …
29 April 2020
Pandemics are a recurring feature of human history. In the modern world, since the 1770s, we have had a series of pandemics, with a …
17 April 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious challenge for societies around the world. In response to it not only individuals are changing their behaviour, but …
1 April 2020
This analysis is based on five scenarios for the length of the shutdown and an attempt to rate the industry’s production losses. The scenarios …
1 February 2020
A ban on opening a new supermarket is evidence that people want a new supermarket, for if they did not there would be no …
22 January 2020
Rent controls are now being discussed in cities like Berlin, London, and New York. Sweden has had rent controls since 1942. There are at …
29 December 2019
The idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is currently the subject of much interest and discussion in the UK, with support and opposition …
2 January 2020
For the third year in a row, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute and its partner organisations present the Employment Flexibility Index, that ranks a …
11 December 2019
The new European Green Deal plans to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050 while opening up new possibilities for development and employment. The …
20 November 2019
16th December marks Credit Day across Europe. This is the day that, on average, EU Member State governments have exhausted their annual tax income …
14 November 2019
This study calculates how much UK foreign aid was spent (in 2018 prices) on lifestyle interventions targeting smoking, drinking, eating and sedentary behaviour.UK taxpayers …
23 October 2019
This report compares top effective marginal tax rates on labour income in 41 OECD and EU countries. The top effective marginal tax rate is …
11 September 2019
The Epicenter Nanny State Index is a league table of the best and worst places in the European Union to eat, drink, smoke and …
5 September 2019
Across Europe, shadow markets constitute a significant portion of the economy. According to some estimates an average of 16 percent of GDP in EU …
30 August 2019
School of Thought – 101 Great Liberal Thinkers profiles the lives and ideas of some of the leading thinkers on individual liberty – from ancient …
21 August 2019
The new EU-Mercosur Agreement only superficially rejects protectionism. As much as it liberalises trade, it also protects European defensive interests and extends the EU’s …
10 July 2019
Education reforms that allow new educational providers to supply schooling into a state system can improve parental satisfaction and raise learning outcomes through consumer …
04 July 2019
Legal interventions in hiring and firing practices are often referred to as employment protection legislation that include working hours, health and safety requirements. The …
26 June 2019
This paper explains why additional taxes on the turnover of companies with a large digital presence would be disproportionate, discriminatory and damage the European …
20 June 2019
Timbro’s methodological distinction in the Authoritarian Populism Index between extreme and authoritarian populist parties is highly relevant in the Greek political environment, as shown …
28 May 2019
MiFID II, together with MiFIR (Regulation (EU) No 600/2014), was intended to create a more transparent, competitive and integrated financial market in the EU …
30 April 2019
Germany has overtaken the Czech Republic to become the EU’s most liberal country, according to the 2019 edition of the Nanny State Index. Finland …
8 March 2019
The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (the “Directive”) is back. The issues with the Directive were described in our September 2018 briefing …
28 February 2019
Following on from research published by the IEA between 2012 and 2014, this discussion paper revisits the issue of state-funded activism in the UK …
26 February 2019
A popular explanation for economic scandals, crises and suboptimal market outcomes is the lack of government regulation. This interpretation is intensively promoted by the …
20 February 2019
Do European companies pay their fair share of tax? Many companies headquartered in France, Germany, Italy and Spain show very low effective corporate tax …
7 February 2019
Mass protests of the “yellow vests” have been taking place in France since 17 November 2018. The catalyst of the demonstration was a fuel …
30 January 2019
The Employment Flexibility Index of LFMI quantifies a great divergence in employment regulations between EU countries. Of the 41 countries included in the index …
The Employment Flexibility Index 2019 of the member states of the European Union (EU) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provides …
17 January 2019
On 20th December, the European Commission launched a (relatively brief) consultation on moving from unanimity to qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council on …
9 January 2019
The White House’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) has published a report: “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism”. It is an interesting report with many …
13 December 2018
The Commission’s decision to fine Google for unfair practice was based on a misunderstanding of the Android ecosystem and a mistaken definition of the …
5 December 2018
13 December marks Credit Day across the European Union. This is the day when, on average, European countries’ central governments exhaust their annual tax …
19 November 2018
The aim of this publication is to present and analyse the results of representative population surveys into public perceptions of the shadow economy and …
10 November 2018
The most obvious benefit of economic freedom is that, as a system, it is the most conducive to widespread prosperity, that is, to high …
24 October 2018
The European Union’s approach to competition law and enforcement demonstrates an attitude in the high-tech and media sector, that – due to its anti-competitive …
17 October 2018
The new media economy operates differently from other industries when it comes to regulation. The marginal costs of technological giants mean that their interactions …
28 September
Free trade improves the well-being of all parties to it. The most significant way that trade achieves this outcome is by enabling and incentivising …
26 September 2018
The Commission put forward a legislative proposal in September 2016 for a new directive on copyright in the digital single market. The aim is …
10 September 2018
Labour market flexibility may be characterized by the market participants’ abilities to deviate from standard labour regulations and typical forms of employment. Such possibilities …
6 September 2018
The social and fiscal contribution from large companies in France and worldwide remains largely unrecognised. Traditional accounting and financial presentations do not provide for …
Raising mandatory minimum wage might seem to be a simple policy that serves to increase wages for low-income earners. Politicians use this policy with …
5 September 2018
The European Commission has proposed a tax on revenues raised from certain digital activities. However, this is essentially a political gesture with only weak …
25 July 2018
There should be no debate about whether taxes on food, alcohol, tobacco and soft drinks (‘sin taxes’) are regressive. It can be easily demonstrated …
4 July 2018
Instead of comprehensive re-examination of the Energy Taxation Directive, the European Commission is examining whether ETD should continue the exemptions and lower tariffs for …
22 June 2018
Economic migrants rarely displace local labour force. Immigrants are more likely to complement existing labour force creating opportunities for growth and bringing needed skills. …
7 June 2018
The UK might appear to have the most to lose from Brexit if City firms find it harder to sell financial services into the …
6 June 2018
The popular account of offshore financial centres as hotbeds of tax evasion is an outdated caricature that bears little resemblance to how OFCs operate. …
16 May 2018
On average, the economic costs of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) now far exceed those of tariffs, which have generally been falling as new free trade …
14 May 2018
It is claimed that robots, algorithms and artificial intelligence are going to destroy jobs on an unprecedented scale. These developments, unlike past bouts of technical …
7 May 2018
Our new league table of nanny state regulation shows that punitive taxation and excessive regulation of safer nicotine alternatives has increased across the EU. …
2 May 2018
The weak global GDP growth since the financial crisis in 2007-2009 has coincided with unusually weak growth in global trade. The average global tariff …
6 April 2018
Several local authorities in Britain have introduced ‘zoning laws’ to restrict fast food outlets within a certain distance of schools. Public Health England, the …
28 February 2018
Financial firms serve many useful functions which individuals and households could scarcely undertake on their own. These functions include maturity transformation, matching lenders and …
16 February 2018
A ‘free’ banking system without a central bank provides incentives for banks to act with restraint. Their lending policies are, in effect, tied to …
5 February 2018
As the world’s leading international financial centre, London faces fascinating opportunities as well as some significant challenges in coming years. This is as a …
29 January 2018
The reselling of tickets for events has a long history, dating back at least to Roman times. Such secondary markets in tickets are no different …
25 January 2018
The rise of the ‘tech giants’ is, of course, a significant commercial threat to more traditional media, but it also raises some potentially important …
24 January 2018
The ECB seeks to increase trading in non-performing loans by reducing the pricing gap between prospective investors and banks. For this to happen, there …
17 January 2018
Populism is on the rise, especially in Europe. Determining the causes is of crucial political importance. Some claim that “neoliberal” policies such as deregulation …
10 January 2018
As a general rule, local governments are exempt from VAT in the EU. Thus, VAT is not payable on the tax-financed consumption of municipalities …
13 December 2017
According the latest IBL Super Index, Italy is the sick man of Europe. Despite relatively rosy macroeconomic projections for the whole EU, the gap …
12 December 2017
The recent Employment Flexibility Index uses data provided by the World Bank’s Doing Business Labour Market Regulation Questionnaire to compare labour market regulations. The …
Denmark, the UK, and Ireland are the leading countries in the 2018 edition of LFMI’s Employment Flexibility Index. Portugal, Luxembourg, and France are the …
4 December 2017
The 2017 IBL Index of Liberalisations aims to shed light on the degree of openness of the 28 Member States by examining ten different …
6 December marks Credit Day across the European Union. This is the day when, on average, European countries’ central administrations will exhaust their annual …
30 November 2017
In the wake of the Ecofin meeting that took place in Tallinn on September 15-16, the European Commission published a communication on “A Fair …
29 November 2017
In the last 25 years, the Polish economy has grown faster than the economies of Western Europe and the US, which enabled a significant …
22 November 2017
The picture that emerges from the EC surveys of consumers and business regarding platforms is not of a market in which users are routinely …
21 November 2017
Food and soft drinks manufacturers are continually reformulating their products and bringing new products to market in response to consumer demand. In recent years, …
The ECJ ruled that Italy had been wrong to ban the cultivation of an EU-approved genetically modified maize. This was a big victory for …
Recent years have seen a reduced supply of capital to domestic businesses by banks due to increased capital requirements and compliance costs. Market finance …
Widespread automation is often named as the greatest long-term threat to human employment. But Europe’s immediate job market problems are of a different sort: …
7 November 2017
EU central governments use up their resources December 6 on average, 25 days before the end of the year. This is almost seven days …
18 October 2017
This Position Paper is a response to the Reflection Paper on the Future of EU Finances by the European Commission. The goal of this …
The author wishes to thank Oskar Henkow, Rebecca Millar, Anna Sandberg Nilsson and Anders Ydstedt for valuable comments. Summary
As a general rule, …
11 October 2017
Posted workers are temporarily sent from one member state to another, usually for projects of short duration. There were 1.1. million posted workers in …
13 September 2017
The ongoing Basel IV discussions seek to impose additional capital requirement on banks, a move that would disproportionately affect those in Europe. Whilst the …
8 September 2017
On 15 June 2017, the Directorate General for Internal Policies published a report which maps the recent history of privatisation and examines the risk …
4 September 2017
The Swedish labor market makes use of twelve different forms of employment subsidies involving three percent of the entire active work force. In this …
23 August 2017
On 28 September 2017, the European Parliament Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL) will vote on an initiative by Spanish MEP Javi Lopez (S&D) …
2 August 2017
According to the Commission, the new CCCTB initiative is the most ambitious corporate tax reform ever proposed in the EU. However, despite the most …
27 July 2017
First published in 2010, the 2017 Tax Burden study by the Institut économique Molinari measures the tax and social security burdens on individual employees …
The purpose of this study is to compare the tax and social security burdens of individual employees earning typical salaries in each of the …
11 July 2017
The 2017 TIMBRO Authoritarian Populism Index is the only Europe-wide comprehensive study that aims to shed light on whether populism poses a long-term threat …
Auktoritär populism har övertagit liberalismens plats som den tredje ideologiska kraften i europeisk politik. Väljarstödet för populistiska partier ligger kvar på rekordhöga nivåer men …
5 July 2017
The European Parliament Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs are currently promoting a new legislative proposal …
30 June 2017
The situation on the Spanish labour market is being debated by specialists and policy makers with respect to two central questions: on the one …
7 June 2017
Platform businesses bring together distinct but interdependent sets of users in such a way as to improve the welfare of each side of the …
26 May 2017
According to the latest IBL Super Index, the degree of internal divergence within Eurozone countries keeps increasing. This means that the gap between Eurozone …
17 May 2017
As of 2017, the EU has 44 trade agreements in place with more than 60 countries across the globe. In addition, five accords have …
10 May 2017
The EPICENTER Nanny State Index is the only comprehensive league table of lifestyle regulations. The latest data suggest that the EU is becoming a …
2 May 2017
The EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has undergone several waves of reforms over the last few decades. Yet, many market- and trade-distorting practices still …
21 April 2017
The EEA Agreement was signed in 1992, and entered into force in 1994. Until now, EEA EFTA countries have been able to enjoy the …
12 April 2017
Current schooling systems are badly equipped to deal with rapid technological innovation and changing work patterns such as the sharing economy and the rise …
5 April 2017
Following the latest European Commission proposal on wholesale roaming surcharges across the EEA, on 5 and 6 April, MEPs will debate on and vote …
29 March 2017
Recent EC proposals fail to explain how alternative energy technologies such as fracking, a deeper energy trade relationship with Europe’s biggest trading partner – …
22 March 2017
Even though the free movement of capital has been a legislative reality in the European Union since the Treaty of Rome, the markets for …
16 March 2017
The composition of civil society at the EU level is largely dictated by which groups the European Commission chooses to fund. Furthermore, citizens have …
15 March 2017
Labour market mobility in the European Union is increasing, but it remains too low to provide sufficient internal socio-economic adjustments. This situation reflects non-policy …
22 February 2017
Viewed over the sweep of history, concerns about technological unemployment have always proved overblown. Over the last two-hundred years, technology has created more jobs …
10 February 2017
The effective marginal tax rate is the total tax on the last euro earned, taking into account income tax as well as social contributions …
1 February 2017
The achievement of efficient and secure energy supply and a clean environment do not have to be conflicting objectives. However, meeting both goals will …
11 January 2017
The year 2017 will mark the sixty-year anniversary of the Treaties of Rome. On this occasion, the European project will receive a thorough check-up, …
9 January 2017
It is increasingly evident that public pensions are going to be hard to sustain in the future: the ratio of workers to pensioners is …
5 January 2017
People greatly overestimate the immigrant share of the population and many wrongly believe that openness to migration harms Britons’ job prospects, burdens public finances …
4 January 2017
The past record of industrial policy in the UK is a catalogue of waste and ineffectiveness. By the end of the 1970s it was …
14 December 2016
The development of personal pensions at the national and cross-border levels is hindered by high compulsory payments to public pension funds, restrictions on the …
Google Android is usually described as a mobile operating system – the software that links mobile hardware with applications and thus enables users to …
04 November 2016
In recent years, smartphone-enabled applications such as Uber have gone a long way to resolve the market imperfections which gave rise to taxi regulation …
30 November 2016
November 30 marks Credit Day across the European Union. Credit Day is the day when member states’ central administrations exhaust their annual tax revenues …
28 November 2016
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is currently in a negotiatory limbo. Even though the European Commission has estimated such an agreement would …
23 October 2016
The European Commission (EC) has renewed its proposals on the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) initiative. The initiative refers to two proposals by …
9 November 2016
The arguments on which the various competition cases against Google are being fought involve core features of economic interaction in multi-sided digital markets. As …
18 October, 2016
The Common Agricultural Policy Population growth, natural resource scarcity and climate change will challenge agriculture to deliver food security in the coming decades. Innovative …
18 October, 2016 Permissionless Innovation Scientific research has made important breakthroughs in harm reduction in recent years. In the field of alcohol consumption, …
18 October, 2016 Geographical Indications According the European Commission, a Geographical Indication (GI) is “a distinctive sign used to identify a product …
18 October, 2016 The sharing economy and digital platforms An important part of the digital platform revolution is the sharing economy, which …
Sean Rickard // 24.10.2016
The precautionary principle provides non-farming interest groups with a pseudo-official means of influencing policy. The result is a drift towards overregulation and regulatory failures …
7 September 2016 The European Commission has ordered Ireland to recover €13bn worth of allegedly unpaid taxes from Apple. Reception of the decision has …
3 August 2016 The European Union is all things to all people. To proponents on the right, it is a force for international cooperation, …
3 August 2016 By performing an econometric analysis on the Fraser Institute’s “Economic Freedom of the World: Annual Report 2015,” it is found that …
27 July 2016 A tax on turnover would tax profitable and loss-making firms equally, potentially posing an insurmountable hurdle to struggling firms, and eliminating …
13 July 2016 The conventional account of the Eurozone crisis is one of reckless bankers lending to households and governments far beyond their ability …
06 July 2016 There are efforts at national, EU and international levels to put forward significant reforms to the corporate tax system. The 20th century …
29 June 2016 Can a country do better after leaving the EU? Indeed, we can perform an even more granular analysis and seek to …
16.06.2016 The Authoritarian Populist Index (TAP) includes both right- and left-wing populist parties and covers all national elections in 33 European countries, from 1980 …
15 June 2016 The emergence of the sharing economy is rapidly changing the way in which goods and services are provided across the EU. …
08 June 2016 France badly needs economic reform. But we shouldn’t let negative news headlines blind us to the fact that the French economy …
01 June 2016 While entrepreneurship and innovation are flourishing across much of the EU’s private sector, public policy has lagged behind most recent technological …
25 May 2016 The new Tobacco Products Directive (TPD2) dramatically tightens regulation of cigarettes, rolling tobacco and e-cigarettes. Yet, it is unclear that it …
18 May 2016 As growth rates in the Eurozone gather steam, policymakers’ concerns are increasingly shifting to low inflation. According to Eurostat, consumer prices …
11 May 2016 To say that negotiations for an EU-U.S. trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), have lost momentum since they …
4 May 2016 A law banning short-term apartment rentals just came into force in Berlin. The measure, which was passed in 2014 but only …
21 April 2016 In sum, the Commission’s Statement of Objections concerning Android is not justified in light of the existing arrangements between Google and …
6 April 2016 The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is today the EU’s most expensive policy, taking up almost half of the annual budget. It …
18 February 2016 The sharing economy is based on reductions in transaction costs which enable exchanges that were previously not possible. Sharing economy firms …
Istituto Bruno Leoni, 20 January 2016 The extent of market power enjoyed by Google is a debatable question. The antitrust literature emphasises the importance …
21 December 2015 While platforms can operate online and offline, the internet has created new opportunities to lower transaction costs by linking users. Recently, …
1 December 2015 Existing evidence from large refugee migrations and the recent influx of Syrian migrants into Middle Eastern countries shows no adverse effects …
Istituto Bruno Leoni, November 2015 The Istituto Bruno Leoni’s Index of Liberalizations aims at identifying both the barriers to competition and the best practices …
Lithuanian Free Market Institute, November 2015 A new report by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute looks at perceptions and prevalence of the shadow economy …
Gabriel A. Giménez Roche, November 2015 In its latest study, the Institut économique Molinari shows that corporate taxation continues to slow down economic recovery …
Lithuanian Free Market Institute, November 2015 The European Commission has re-launched the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) initiative. CCCTB refers to a proposal …
Cécile Philippe and Nicolas Marques, November 2015 According to Eurostat data, the French government will have used up all of its resources by November …
Philip Booth, November 2015 The UK’s current devolution settlement leads to unrepresentative government and has an inbuilt bias towards “big government”. This situation is …
Nicolò Zanon, November 2015 In this IBL Occasional Paper, the author – a Justice of Italy’s Constitutional Court – discusses the legal and economic …
Christopher Snowdon, October 2015 In October 2015, David Cameron said: “Britain has the lowest social mobility in the developed world.” No such …
Frédéric Sautet, September 2015 Following a series of volume decreases in sales of traditional cigarettes in France, sales appear to be stabilizing …
15 September 2015 From 2016, e-cigarettes will face additional regulation under Article 20 of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). Given that non-smokers …
15 June 2015 The digital revolution is increasingly making barriers to access, trade and innovation obsolete. Remaining obstacles to more efficient exchange of …
Cécile Philippe, June 2015 The Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy for Europe includes several initiatives to be delivered by the end of …
30 April 2015 The benchmark for assessing the legitimacy of any tax measure is the overall tax regime of the country in …
Tom Packer and Matthew Sinclair, March 2015 The UK is highly centralised and devolution combined with fiscal decentralisation could bring significant economic …
26 March 2015 A review of the allegations commonly made against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the prospective EU-US free-trade deal.
Frédéric Sautet, March 2015 Long denigrated and accused of every imaginable evil, the tobacco market is undergoing a renaissance with innovations that …
Ralph Buckle, Tim Hewish, John C. Hulsman, Iain Mansfield, Robert Oulds, February 2015 It is quite possible that there will be a referendum on …
Simona Benedettini and Carlo Stagnaro, 16 January 2015 The liberalisation and integration of European energy retail markets is still far from complete. Retail …
Ryan Bourne, December 2014 The UK tax system is incoherent. Even ignoring benefits styled as tax credits and the withdrawal of child benefit, taxpayers …
Frédéric Sautet, Institut Economique Molinari, October 2014 It is vital to understand that the impact of nutrition taxes on the consumption of …
Frédéric Sautet, September 2014 Excess weight and obesity have been on the rise for more than 40 years in many countries around the world. …
Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon, September 2014 In practice it is impossible to distinguish between advertising that is intended to be persuasive …
John C. Duffy and Christopher Snowdon, June 2014 Alcohol policy in Britain and many other countries aims to reduce per capita alcohol …
Istituto Bruno Leoni, March 2014 Current obligations by the EU to decrease GHG emissions by 20% by 2020 are the most ambitious …
Jagadeesh Gokhale, March 2014 Western governments have developed unfunded social insurance programmes where retiree benefits are paid for from the taxes of …
Valentin Petkantchin, March 2014 So‐called “sin” taxes are very much in fashion in France and elsewhere. With the aim of reducing “sinful” …
Christopher Snowdon, March 2013 With public confidence in the European project waning, the idea of initiating a ‘civil dialogue’ with the public emerged in …
Luciano Lavecchia and Carlo Stagnaro, May 2010 The European Union has committed itself to increase the share of renewable energy up to …
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