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The biggest reform step to date in the liberalisation and deepening of the EU internal market for services was taken with the EU Services Directive. Its implementation intended to provide a clear impetus for the removal of existing obstacles to the free movement of services, the freedom of establishment of services providers and for administrative simplification. The project quantifies the Directive's effects on Austrian and EU services trade and welfare but also highlights untapped potentials due to remaining administrative barriers and existing weaknesses in the implementation and enforcement of the Single Market rules. The estimation relies on a structural gravity model estimated on a disaggregated industry level.

Diese Studie liefert ein Update zu den 2017 berechneten Handels- und Wohlfahrtseffekten des Brexit für die österreichische und die britische Wirtschaft ("Estimating the Trade and Welfare Effects of Brexit. A Panel Data Structural Gravity Model"). Die Schätzung erfolgt mit einem strukturellen Gravitationsmodell auf disaggregiertem Branchenniveau. Die Studie vergleicht die ökonomischen Folgen des am 24. Dezember 2020 vereinbarten Freihandelsabkommens zwischen der EU und dem Vereinigten Königreich mit den Handels- und Wohlfahrtseffekten aus einem ungeregelten Ausscheiden des Vereinigten Königreichs. Demnach dämpft das Freihandelsabkommen die negativen bilateralen Handelseffekte, kompensiert sie jedoch nicht vollständig. Das Vereinigte Königreich ist vom Ausscheiden deutlich stärker als Österreich betroffen. Die größten negativen Handelseffekte zeigen sich für den Agrarsektor sowie in der für den bilateralen Handel wichtigen Kfz-Branche.

This paper provides new insight into the firm-level employment impacts of trade cost changes at the industry level in the Austrian services sector. We apply a two-part model of firm survival (exit) and firm growth. Separate regressions for firm entry rates at the industry-region level complete the picture of total trade-induced net job creation. We implement the trade cost measure introduced by Chen and Novy (2011) and base it on own estimates of industry specific substitution elasticities. Falling trade costs in the Austrian services sector over the period 2000 to 2014 resulted in net job creation of about 19,000 jobs accounting for 9.5 percent of overall job flows in the sector. The smallest and least productive firms contract while large and productive firms expand as predicted by theory. Most adjustments occur at the extensive margin due to changes in the probability of firm survival.

This report quantifies the gains from European trade integration, but also highlights potentials for further gains by eliminating remaining shortcomings of the Single Market for goods related to incorrect or incomplete transposition, the application of harmonised rules as well as the functioning of the mutual recognition principle. The study confirms that the Single Market has delivered benefits in terms of increased trade, competition, productivity and ultimately welfare. Accession has been a key driver for trade effects in the period considered (1995-2014). The results further indicate that improvements in transposition and enforcement of Single Market rules could be a driver for trade, productivity and welfare gains in the long run. Apart from pro-competitive effects, these gains would also come about through increased specialisation and greater intra-EU production integration. In this respect the study offers evidence of – so far less obvious – additional benefits stemming from improvements of institutional quality. Improvements in regulatory institutional quality have also been a relevant driver of pro-competitive effects on market structure as well as productivity levels in accession countries. Furthermore, differences in the quality of the Single Market legal framework are found to matter for firms' organisational choices for their intra-EU production operations via (intra-firm) vertical integration and cross-border outsourcing, in the context of incomplete contracts.

This paper proposes a new panel data structural gravity approach for estimating the trade and welfare effects of Brexit. The suggested Constrained Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Estimator exhibits some useful properties for trade policy analysis and allows to obtain estimates and confidence intervals which are consistent with structural trade theory. Assuming different counterfactual post-Brexit scenarios, our main findings suggest that UK's exports of goods to the EU are likely to decline within a range between 7.2 percent and 45.7 percent (EU's exports to UK by 5.9 percent to 38.2 percent) six years after the Brexit has taken place. For the UK, the negative trade effects are only partially offset by an increase in domestic goods trade and trade with third countries, inducing a decline in UK's real income between 1.4 percent and 5.7 percent under the hard Brexit scenario. The estimated welfare effects for the EU are negligible in magnitude and statistically not different from zero.

Using a panel-data set of Austrian service exporting firms this paper examines the determinants of service exports at the firm-destination country level. We implement a random-effects Heckman sample selection firm-level gravity model as well as a fixed effects Poisson model. Expected firm-level service exports are decomposed into the intensive and extensive margins of adjustment as a response to counterfactual changes. We find market demand to be the key determinant. Results also suggest high service export potentials due to regulatory reform in partner countries within the EU. Adjustments at the extensive margin only play a marginal role. Increasing firm size as well as changes in distance related costs are most effective in developing new export relationships in services.

This study analyses the main transmission mechanisms relevant for the absorption and propagation of asymmetries within the EU and EMU, putting a specific focus on Europe's real economy. In particular, the report aims to assess how the economic shock that triggered the financial and economic crisis has been transmitted and at least partially absorbed in the EU's real economy and the EMU member countries, from both a macro- and a microeconomic perspective. From a policy point of view, the results of the current study imply that, on account of the substantial heterogeneity among EU countries found in all parts of the study, "one size fit all" policies are likely to be very ineffective at increasing the resilience of the EU's single market.

Seit 2003 werden die Internationalisierungsvorhaben österreichischer Unternehmen mit dem Förderpaket "go international" unterstützt. Ziele der Evaluierung sind die Bewertung des Förderpaketes auf Maßnahmenebene, ein internationaler Vergleich, die Rolle von "go international" im Leistungsspektrum der österreichischen Internationalisierungsunterstützung sowie die Beurteilung des volkswirtschaftlichen Nutzens des Förderpaketes. Zentrales Element der Studie ist die WIFO-Unternehmensbefragung. Die breitflächigen Leistungen orientieren sich demnach grundsätzlich an den Bedürfnissen der Unternehmen und decken wesentliche Internationalisierungsbarrieren ab. Der Fokus der Aktivitäten entspricht weitgehend den vorgegebenen Zielen. Der volkswirtschaftliche Nutzen ist, wie die Berechnungen zeigen, positiv. In der Gesamtbetrachtung ist "go international" als volkswirtschaftlich sinnvoll zu erachten, eine Weiterführung wird unter Anregung von Verbesserungen empfohlen.

This paper discusses two alternative two-part models for fractional response variables that are defined as ratios of integers. The first two-part model assumes a Binomial distribution and known group size. It nests the one-part fractional response model proposed by Papke and Wooldridge (1996) and thus, allows to apply Wald, LM and/or LR tests in order to discriminate between the two models. The second model extends the first one by allowing for overdispersion. Monte Carlo studies reveal that, for both models, the proposed tests are equipped with sufficient power and are properly sized. Finally, we demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed two-part models for data on the 401(k) pension plan participation rates used in Papke and Wooldridge (1996).