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An Institutional Analysis of the Europe 2020 Strategy

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Abstract

The inherent complexity of the Europe 2020 Strategy, focused on areas where the European Commission has not full jurisdictional competence, increases the relevance of a timely and precise monitoring system and of effective and efficient institutional settings. This paper performs a quantitative evaluation of countries’ performances, using the Europe 2020 Index (Pasimeni in Soc Indic Res 110(2): 613–635, 2011. doi:10.1007/s11205-011-9948-9). We observe differences among countries and across time, and investigate their determinants by means of a model including potential explanatory variables, such as level of wealth, growth, sustainability of public finances and institutions. We refer to institutions in the sense of North (J Econ Perspect 5(1):97–112, 1991), and apply the distinction between formal and informal ones. The analysis confirms the importance of formal and informal institutions, both in absolute and in relative terms, compared with the other factors considered. Institutional variables, such as good governance and social capital, are the most significant ones and have the strongest estimated effects on countries’ performances.

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Notes

  1. The EU had 27 Member States until 1 July 2013, when Croatia joined, becoming the 28th.

  2. The Lisbon Strategy actually had some indicators, and initially foresaw a performance ranking of member states, however this approach was not fully implemented.

  3. The European Semester is the first phase of the EU's annual cycle of economic policy guidance and surveillance. Each European Semester, the European Commission analyses the fiscal and structural reform policies of every Member State, provides recommendations, and monitors their implementation. In the second phase of the annual cycle, known as the National Semester, Member States implement the policies they have agreed.

  4. The country specific recommendations are based on an assessment of every Member State's plans for sound public finances (Stability or Convergence Programmes) and policy measures to boost growth and jobs (National Reform Programmes).

  5. Available at: (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/europe_2020_indicators/headline_indicators).

  6. \(X_{ic}=\frac{{{\text{x}}_{\text{ic}}-{\hbox{min}}_{\text{k}}{\text{\{x}}_{\text{ik}}{\text{\}}}}}{{{\hbox{max}}_{\text{k}}{\text{\{x}}_{\text{ik}}{\text{\}}}-{\hbox{min}}_{\text{k}}{\text{\{x}}_{\text{ik}}{\text{\}}}}}\) and \(X_{ic}=\frac{{{\hbox{max}}_{\text{k}}{\text{\{x}}_{\text{ik}}{\text{\}}}-{\text{x}}_{\text{ic}}}}{{{ \hbox{max}}_{\text{k}}{\text{\{x}}_{\text{ik}}{\text{\}}}-{\hbox{min}}_{\text{k}}{\text{\{x}}_{\text{ik}}{\text{\}}}}},\) for “positive” and “negative” indicators.

  7. The geometric mean: \(I_{g} = \left( {\prod\limits_{i = 1}^{n} {Xi} } \right)^{\frac{1}{n}}\) is preferred to the arithmetic one, because it accounts for the deviation from the average and satisfies the property of interval-scale unit comparability. In other words, for our purposes of cross-country comparison, it means rewarding those countries presenting more equilibrated values of the three main components of the Index, i.e. a more balanced profile.

  8. Last extraction: 10 July 2014.

  9. The Worldwide Governance Indicators report aggregate and individual governance indicators for 215 economies over the period 1996–2012, for six dimensions of governance: (1) Voice and accountability; (2) Political stability and absence of violence; (3) Government effectiveness; (4) Regulatory quality; (5) Rule of law; (6) Control of corruption.

  10. Interestingly, the study by Alfonso, Gomes and Rother has been performed before the start of the financial crisis and of the consequent sovereign debt problems in the Eurozone.

  11. The WVS measures generalised trust through the question developed by Rosenberg (1956): “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can be too careful in dealing with people?”.

  12. Available at: www.info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi.

  13. Available at: www.worldvaluessurvey.org.

  14. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/ameco/zipped_en.htm.

  15. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/ameco/zipped_en.htm.

  16. AMECO is the annual macro-economic database of the European Commission's Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/ameco/index_en.htm.

  17. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tec00115.

  18. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-datasets/-/TEC00114.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Commission, Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs, Brussels, Belgium

    Paolo Pasimeni

  2. SPRU, Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, East Sussex, UK

    Francesco Pasimeni

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  1. Francesco Pasimeni
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Pasimeni, F., Pasimeni, P. An Institutional Analysis of the Europe 2020 Strategy. Soc Indic Res 127, 1021–1038 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1013-7

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