EU impact assessments evaluate legislative files one at a time and at Union level. Member States, however, absorb these files jointly and through their own economic structures. This paper asks how large the combined exposure becomes for Greece when realized and forthcoming files are assessed together. An ex-post difference-in-differences analysis of the extension of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to maritime transport and of FuelEU Maritime, with Türkiye as the comparison country, shows that the gap between Greek and Turkish port throughput widened by 12.4 log points (about 11.7 percent). Mapped through an input-output model, this corresponds to an estimated annual loss of €1.53 billion in gross value added and about 53,000 jobs. Ex-ante scenarios for the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the REACH restriction on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) imply annual GDP exposure in 2030 of €1.04 billion, €3.6 billion and €1.54 billion, respectively, under restrictive designs. Summing the estimated maritime loss and these scenario-based exposures gives about €7.7 billion a year, roughly 3.5 percent of GDP, and around 150,000 jobs. This additive figure is an approximate exposure measure, and sensitivity analyses show how it varies with calibration choices. It also depends heavily on instrument design. Under risk-calibrated, differentiated or coordinated alternatives already present in policy debates, pipeline exposure falls from €6.1 billion to about €0.3 billion, with about 78,000 fewer jobs and €1.0 billion less investment at risk. For TPD, illustrative trajectories also point to lower smoking prevalence under a risk-proportionate design. The results support systematic, portfolio-level monitoring of regulatory exposure in Member States with limited adjustment capacity.
This study aims to identify a new driver of the shadow economy in the modern economy by analyzing whether automation in production is associated with this sector. Empirically, we estimate the relationship between automation in robotic operations and the shadow economy in a panel sample of 54 countries from 2002 to 2018 for three different measures of the shadow economy. We find a negative association of automation with the size of the shadow economy as a percentage of GDP. Notably, this relationship is relatively consistent after controlling for country heterogeneity, economic structure, institutional quality, and when using alternative measures of robot intensity. Overall, the findings suggest that automation might have unexpected benefits for the economy, given its negative association with the size of the shadow economy.
Spain's productivity shortfall relative to peers is translating into a competitiveness challenge. The regulatory burden is increasingly identified as a key factor behind this erosion. This paper quantifies how EU regulatory design compounds this deficit by raising fixed compliance costs and weakening scale incentives in trade-exposed sectors. The four files examined are the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the Euro 7 type-approval rules for vehicles, and the upcoming revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). All four are scheduled to enter into force or tighten over 2025–2030 and hit Spain’s main trade-exposed sectors.Using difference-in-differences estimates and a calibration elasticity, the paper links the packaging regime to persistent export-share losses and translates these into macroeconomic magnitudes. Packaging regulation is associated with cumulative GDP losses of about €14.5 billion over 2010-2023 (0.86% of 2025 GDP), including about €1.9 billion in 2023 in packaging-intensive industries. Under a scenario in which regulatory-regime intensity converges to full stringency by 2030, projected cumulative GDP losses reach about €157 billion over 2024-2050. Extending the PPWR transition by 10-20 years reduces this cumulative loss by 26-46% while reaching the same environmental targets.Three additional files add to the cost pressure at the 2030 horizon. The CBAM implies an annual GDP loss of about €4.8 billion by 2030 and about 3,128 jobs at risk, with around 22% avoidable under a less restrictive carbon-price calibration. Euro 7 implies an annual GDP loss of about €4.56 billion by 2030 and about 31,400 jobs at risk. For the TPD review, a restrictive trajectory implies an annual GDP loss of about €5.15 billion by 2030, while a risk-proportionate framework implies a GDP gain of about €2.78 billion in 2030 and about 17,917 additional jobs.The combined burden is about €20.3 billion in 2030 (1.2% of 2025 GDP across files without adjusting for overlap), with over 155,000 jobs at risk. This implies that current EU regulatory design will materially weigh on Spain’s competitiveness and growth.
EU regulation is increasingly expected to deliver climate and public-health objectives while preserving competitiveness, investment, and efficient adjustment. This paper examines whether the uniform application of harmonised EU rules delivers efficient outcomes under conditions of structural heterogeneity. It compares two EU frameworks, the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), using Poland as a high-exposure stress-test case. The analysis combines ex-post evidence on ETS exposure, forward-looking scenario modelling, and comparative assessment of alternative tobacco-regulation pathways. Under the stated scenario assumptions, the arithmetic sum of the ETS baseline and TPD3 Restrictive estimates yields a model-implied 2030 reduction of €14.8 billion in Polish GDP, 209,943 jobs, and €2.63 billion in investment. For the ETS alone, a uniform carbon-price pathway is associated with a €4.79 billion GDP loss, 70,059 fewer jobs, and a €0.85 billion investment loss, while the PPP-scaled differentiated-incidence counterfactual yields a smaller model-implied effect. For tobacco regulation, a TPD3 Restrictive / Equalisation scenario implies a €10.0 billion GDP loss, 139,884 fewer jobs, and a €1.78 billion investment loss. In the comparator-based prevalence exercise, the Restrictive / Equalisation trajectory reaches 25.0% in 2030, compared with 19.0% under the product-differentiated trajectory. The scenario comparisons motivate examining whether common EU objectives can be paired with implementation discretion where national, sectoral, or product conditions shape adjustment costs and behavioural responses. In this paper, differentiated implementation is evaluated as a possible, subsidiarity-consistent approach to pursuing common objectives under heterogeneous conditions.
This paper examines the interaction between corporate social responsibility (CSR), network externalities, and vertical organization in a bilateral monopoly. We develop a fulfilled-expectations model in which an upstream manufacturer and a downstream retailer endogenously choose their CSR levels and the timing of their commitments. Positive network externalities induce CSR engagement and, in most organizational configurations, directly determine equilibrium CSR levels. CSR mitigates double marginalization and generates Pareto improvements relative to the no-CSR benchmark by lowering prices and increasing output, firms’ profits, consumer surplus, and social welfare. Among decentralized structures, manufacturer leadership yields the highest CSR engagement and welfare gains and emerges endogenously when the manufacturer unilaterally sets the wholesale price. A vertically integrated benchmark confirms that network effects remain the primary driver of CSR incentives. Finally, allowing bilateral Nash bargaining shows that upstream bargaining power determines CSR adoption, its allocation within the vertical chain, and the endogenous timing of CSR commitments.
