A Descriptive Analysis of Member States' Microeconomic Reforms Based on the MICREF Database and 2004-2006 Data
The aim of this report is to investigate two main aspects of EU Member States’ (MS) microeconomic reforms: the policy priorities and the characteristics of the reforms. The analysis is based on the recently published database on microeconomic reforms MICREF.
The data for the years 2004-2006 has been approved by MS and is publicly available since end July 2008 on the web pages of the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN). The Joint Research Center (JRC) has been involved in the process of setting up and populating this database since April 2007.
The report highlights that the quality of the analysis of the reform processes based on the MICREF database depends on the comparability and completeness of the dataset. Regarding the reform activity, while we find that Member States set different priorities within the icroeconomic area, most of them carried out reforms primarily in the policy field “R&D and innovation”. A second observation is that the reform profiles are evolving over time: the share of reforms concentrated on “sector-specific regulation” declined, whereas the relevance of reforms addressing “improvement of the business environment” and “education” increased over the period 2004-2006. The low data density along the features describing the qualitative characteristics of reforms does not allow drawing definite conclusions. However, based on the data available there is evidence for differences in some reform characteristics at the level of policy fields. In particular, the
analysis of stakeholder's involvement shows that sectoral federations are the stakeholders most actively involved in the reform process. Moreover, we find that reform measures seek to affect the economy through different microeconomic channels. Furthermore, most
reform measures are not stand-alone initiatives but form part of reform packages.
ZEITZ Dirk;
ARJONA PEREZ Elena;
2008-11-21
OPOCE
JRC48298
1018-5593,
EUR 23575 EN,
OP LB-NA-23575-EN-C,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC48298,
10.2788/28987,
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