When assessing the benefits Member States (MS) receive from the European Union (EU) budget, they primarily focus on their individual net positions, i.e. the net balance between their national contributions and the transfers received from the EU budget. This "just retour" thinking is associated with several limitations and problems and completely neglects the benefits accruing to MS beyond the pure financial streams related to the EU budget. MS may enjoy the indirect benefits that are related to the various interventions and policies financed from the EU budget. Benefits may be also created for the EU as a whole in the case of policies coordinated and financed by the EU, replacing or complementing individual un-coordinated action at MS level and thus creating additional added value through making use of synergies. MS also benefit from intra-EU direct investments, intra-EU trade and the EU’s network effects. Therefore, the net position view could be complemented by additional indicators providing a more comprehensive picture of the overall benefits resulting for MS from the EU membership and budget and several reform options within the EU budget could help to overcome the net position view.

Understanding the relationship between different modes of home care for the elderly and the determinants of mode choice is fundamental for an efficient care policy in ageing societies. However, empirical research on this issue has revealed that policy conclusions will depend on both national and methodological factors. Using data for Austria from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, the purpose of the present paper is twofold: First, at least to our knowledge, it is the first comprehensive assessment of this kind for Austria. Second, it adds to the literature explicitly focusing on the combined use of informal and formal care in addition to the exclusive use of these services based on an econometric framework accounting for the simultaneity and interdependence between these modes. Our results provide strong evidence for a task-specific and complementary relation of formal and informal home care in Austria, with the health status and functional limitations as the main determinants of home care choice.