Projections show sharp increases in public spending on long-term care (LTC) services across Europe. However, a purely cost-based focus on LTC services is economically misleading. Private and public expenditure on LTC services directly and indirectly generates income in the form of salaries, taxes, and social security contributions. The aim of this paper is to quantify the economic impact and multipliers of LTC services for Austria. Based on an econometric regional Input-Output model for Austria, we estimate the direct, indirect, and induced effects of public and private expenditures on value added, employment, taxes, and social security contributions. According to our results, each euro spent on LTC services is associated with domestic value added of 1.70 €; 70 cents per euro spent flows into public budgets in the form of taxes and social security contributions. The economic multipliers of the LTC services are comparatively high due to the high share of wages and salaries in direct expenditure and the associated high direct value added. Public expenditure on professional care services should therefore not be regarded merely as a cost factor in the public budget. Rather, this rapidly growing economic sector is also an increasingly important economic factor in a time of ageing societies. While the model does not provide information on the causal economic effect of the LTC sector, the findings are still highly important for planners of LTC reforms, as they provide information on the total value added associated with LTC expenditures and on the total number of jobs that these expenditures sustain.

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) aims to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion in Europe by correcting imbalances between its regions. Both the governance of the ERDF as well as its widespread territorial coverage require a significant effort in gathering complete statistical information from many different national sources on its beneficiaries. In order to support analytical and impact assessment activities, the research collaboration between JRC and WIFO led to the construction of a unique dataset with around 600,000 ERDF projects in the EU 27 plus UK during the programming period 2014-2020. The dataset includes financial information standardised and comparable across member states based on existing taxonomies. Data include a brief description of the projects, their location at regional level, and name of beneficiaries, among other relevant information. Projects are classified by Key Enabling Technologies, Societal Grand Challenges, energy areas and by objectives of the EU Mission Ocean. Data on funded projects are particularly relevant for policy evaluation and monitoring since they allow complementing macro-statistical information and provide additional insights into regional specialisation and funding patterns/impacts.

Numerous negative external effects are associated with the transport of goods. Due to the lack of internalising them in transport prices, too many goods are transported over too long distances. Several approaches are taken to reduce external costs, such as bans, regulations, taxes, levies and tradable permits. In some areas, however, such interventions are impractical to implement or do not exist at all. At the EU level external costs associated with the transport of goods are only partially reflected in transport prices. Applying a quantitative model, the analysis investigates a scenario of a coordinated EU approach to internalise external transport costs of extra-EU trade activities. The results reveal a positive effect on real GDP and employment in the EU, provided that the revenues from these trade surcharges are recycled back into the economy. Policy options to achieve that transport prices reflect social costs are identified in the analysis.

Major events have increasingly become the subject of tourism destination promotion and have grown in importance in driving tourism demand in recent years. However, the staging of major tourist events has not only led to increased CO₂ emissions in Austria, the events themselves have also been affected by climate change. The paper at hand is based on a data collection and review process which covered the relevant peer reviewed and grey literature. This comprehensive process was based on, and was open to, contributions by the full scientific community of relevant Austrian researchers and experts. The compilation process of the report followed quality standards such as the involvement of international partners as review editors within the review process. In addition, the literature was surveyed to integrate the international state of the art. The paper discusses the relationship between events and climate change by looking at mitigation measures on the one hand as well as adaptive strategies taken by event organizers on the other. However, a significant lack of objective information and data as well as appropriate scientific studies also became obvious in this process. Against this background main tasks and challenges for further research are identified and discussed. The paper closes with managerial implications for the organization of major events.

Unsere Studie entwickelt einen neuen Ansatz, um die lokalen Wachstumseffekte der EU-Regionalpolitik seit 2007 zu untersuchen. Für eine ausgewählte Pilotregion im Grenzgebiet zwischen Deutschland, Polen und Tschechien kombinieren wir erstmals einen Mikrodatensatz zum Erhalt von EU-Förderung auf Projektebene mit Fernerkundungsdaten verschiedener Satelliten. Dabei wird das Wachstum der regionalen Wirtschaft über Änderungen in der Intensität der jährlichen Nachtlichtemissionen erfasst. Auf Gemeindeebene lässt sich zeigen, dass der Erhalt höherer Förderbeträge mit höherem Wachstum einhergeht. Die Ergebnisse dieses Projekts verdeutlichen, wie Fernerkundungsdaten effektiv genutzt werden können, um die kleinräumigen Auswirkungen regionaler Wirtschaftsförderung auch im gesamteuropäischen Kontext zu quantifizieren.

This paper is the first to study the effects of hosting Olympic Games on regional economic output beyond population dynamics. For identification, runners-up in the Olympic bidding process are used to construct the counterfactual for Olympic host regions. In the short run, hosting Summer Olympics boosts regional GDP per capita by about 3 to 4 percentage points relative to the national level in the year of the event and the year before. There is also evidence for positive long-run effects, but results on the latter are not statistically robust. In contrast, Winter Olympics do not have a positive impact on host regions. If anything, they lead to a temporal decline in regional GDP per capita in the years around the event.

Over the course of the 2014-2020 period, the European Union has invested more than 125 billion € into support to research and innovation through two main channels: the excellence-based Horizon 2020 programme and its cohesion policy implemented through the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and in particular the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). While projects funded by ESIF are selected in the context of place-based operational programmes and smart specialisation strategies (S3), Horizon 2020 grants are assigned based on the quality of the project proposals and consortia without any geographical criteria. A concentration of R&I funding from both funding schemes in the same technological or policy area could point to the creation of a synergy between EU funding as suggested by the concept of smart specialisation and encouraged by the European Commission. This report uses project data to analyse the regional distribution of Horizon 2020 and ESIF funding among key enabling technologies and societal grand challenges and to map potential synergies between different EU funding policies.

Das Jahrbuch der Europäischen Integration des Instituts für Europäische Politik (Berlin) dokumentiert und bilanziert seit 1980 zeitnah und detailliert den europäischen Integrationsprozess. Entstanden ist in 41 Jahren eine einzigartige Dokumentation der europäischen Zeitgeschichte. Das "Jahrbuch der Europäischen Integration 2021" führt diese Tradition fort. In mehr als 100 Beiträgen zeichnen die Autoren und Autorinnen in ihren jeweiligen Forschungsschwerpunkten die europapolitischen Ereignisse des Berichtszeitraums 2020/21 nach und informieren über die Arbeit der europäischen Institutionen, die Entwicklung der einzelnen Politikbereiche der EU, Europas Rolle in der Welt und die Europapolitik in den Mitgliedstaaten und Kandidatenländern.