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Short-time work (STW) is a widely used policy instrument that assists firms intimes of crisis. It has been used in many OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperationand Development) countries in the 2007–2009 Great Recession and recentlyas a response to the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It allowsemployees to reduce their working hours with a slight salary reduction. This makesit possible for firms not to lay off workers during economic downshifts. However,there are few evaluation studies of the effectiveness of STW to meet the economicshock due to COVID-19. The present study contributes to filling this research gapby presenting the estimated effects of STW on several important outcome variables.Swedish firm-level data are used to evaluate the impact of the subsidy using differentmatching methods. The results suggest that firms that received STW supporthad fewer employees than those that did not receive STW support. This reductionin working hours was, on average, the equivalent of 0.6 full-time employees comparedto firms that did not receive STW. Nevertheless, the results imply that thecompanies that received STW are more productive, as measured by turnover peremployee, than those that did not. The main policy recommendations are that publicfunds should be spent carefully and that support initiatives such as STW must beevaluated.Short-time work (STW) is a widely used policy instrument that assists firms intimes of crisis. It has been used in many OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperationand Development) countries in the 2007–2009 Great Recession and recentlyas a response to the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It allowsemployees to reduce their working hours with a slight salary reduction. This makesit possible for firms not to lay off workers during economic downshifts. However,there are few evaluation studies of the effectiveness of STW to meet the economicshock due to COVID-19. The present study contributes to filling this research gapby presenting the estimated effects of STW on several important outcome variables.Swedish firm-level data are used to evaluate the impact of the subsidy using differentmatching methods. The results suggest that firms that received STW supporthad fewer employees than those that did not receive STW support. This reductionin working hours was, on average, the equivalent of 0.6 full-time employees comparedto firms that did not receive STW. Nevertheless, the results imply that thecompanies that received STW are more productive, as measured by turnover peremployee, than those that did not. The main policy recommendations are that publicfunds should be spent carefully and that support initiatives such as STW must beevaluated.

The Covid-19 pandemic caused pressure on micro-, small and medium-sized firms. As a result, many OECD countries used Short-Time Work (STW) support programs to help firms survive the pandemic. This study investigates the effect of STW on firm survival in Sweden. The data consists of two sets: accounting data on Swedish limited liability companies and data on their applications for STW support. In a discrete survival analysis, the firms that received STW support were compared to other firms, which either did not apply or did apply but did not receive STW support. The findings suggest that for micro- and small-sized firms, the STW support did not improve the likelihood of firm survival. On the other hand, medium-sized firms had a higher likelihood of survival when they received STW support. Therefore, this research adds empirical support to the effectiveness of STW policies for medium-sized firms. The study serves as a basis for policymakers and business leaders to refine strategies to promote economic stability and safeguard enterprises’ survival.

The aim of this study is to explore the factors that influence the material footprint (MF), which represents the total amount of raw materials used in the production of goods and services. MF provides a more comprehensive measure of resource use across supply chains, capturing aspects of environmental degradation not addressed by conventional indicators. MF serves as a measure of material consumption across global supply-chain networks that connect production and consumption. Moreover, reducing the MF can promote efficient resource use and encourage sustainable production and consumption patterns. In this study, we explore what socioeconomic determinants affect MF in the European Union. We have utilized a dataset comprising observations from unbalanced panel data of 27 European countries spanning the period from 2000 to 2021. The main findings suggest that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita, the industry share, fertility rate, and taxes contribute to an increase in MF, while the degree of urbanization, research and development (R&D), and resource productivity rate reduce MF. Our findings have policy relevance within the EU’s sustainability goals, providing insights into the factors that can drive resource efficiency as outlined in the Circular Economy (CE) Action Plan.

In the discourse of development economics, it is argued that the quality of governance can play a central role for the economic growth. Literature in this area is extensive and many scholars have deeply investigated the importance of governance to explain why most of the developing countries have a weak economic performance. The present work investigates the impact of governance quality on per capita GDP (gross domestic product) growth for 45 African countries using World Bank data. Governance is expressed by six different proxy indicators called World Governance Indicators (WGI). In addition to Governance Indicators, other variables such as measures of primary school enrolment, degree of openness to trade, capital, foreign direct investment (FDI), and government expenditure as the control variables are used for a relatively long period of time, 2002 to 2021. We apply Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) as econometric method to estimate our model. The findings suggest that government effectiveness, rule of law, and regulatory quality and corruption are governance measures that influence economic growth. 

Waste management policies aim to divert waste from lower positions on the waste hierarchy such as landfill and incineration to higher positions in the hierarchy such as energy recovery and recycling. However, empirical evaluations of such policies are scarce. This study highlighted the effect of waste management policies on the amount of waste treated with landfill, incineration, energy recovery and recycling by analysing a panel dataset consisting of 14 European countries and the period 1996 to 2018. Findings from a seemingly unrelated regression model suggest that the landfill ban is associated with a decrease in landfill waste, but an increase in incineration, energy recovery and recycling waste. The landfill tax is also correlated with an increase in energy recovery waste but, in contrast, it is associated with a reduction in incineration and recycling waste. Meanwhile, the deposit refund scheme is associated with a decrease in the amount of landfill waste. Concerning the effects on total waste generated, regression results from a fixed effects model indicate that the landfill tax and the deposit refund scheme are both correlated with a reduction in the amount of waste generated. These findings contribute to the scarce academic literature evaluating waste management policies and may better inform policy makers on their longer-term implications.

Sweden has since the end of the 1990s, when the environmental objective system was adopted, had the ambitionof being an environmental frontrunner. In line with this, in 2009 the Parliament adopted the goal of achieving afossil free vehicle fleet in 2030. Replacing private car use with public transport is expected to contribute to thisgoal. In 2008, a co-operation between actors in the public transport sector was launched with support from theGovernment with the aim to double its use. Sweden however is a country with important geographical differ-ences. Much of the country is sparsely populated, especially in the north. From previous research it is well knownthat usage of public transport is dependent on population density and accessibility to employment and schools.Understanding how spatial differences influence the cost of public transport provision is therefore crucial whendiscussing if public transport is a cost-efficient way to achieve national goals for the transport sector. In thispaper, Swedish county level panel data, including variables that provide information on geographical differencesbetween the counties, have been used to estimate average marginal costs of boardings. Results show that theseare much lower in the three counties with the largest urbanized areas. In the other counties there is a variationwhich illustrates that there are a number of factors that influence the average marginal costs. In relation to policy, we find that the doubling ambition established in 2008 has not been achieved.

Greenhouse gas emissions, produced by various sectors, including transportation, are significantly impairing the environment and drive climate change. Battery electric vehicles are increasingly seen as a way to alleviate these problems, but they must be charged with electricity produced through environmentally friendly methods. This paper investigates a possible relationship between battery electric vehicles and solar photovoltaic panels using ENABLE.EU household survey data from ten European countries in autumn 2017–spring 2018. Based on the estimates from a recursive bivariate probit model, it is found that the probability that a household owns a battery electric vehicle increases significantly if said household owns solar photovoltaic panels. This suggests that a policy encouraging the home charging of battery electric vehicles using solar photovoltaic panels that includes an energy storage facility could speed up the transition to the use of these vehicles.

This paper examines convergence clubs for per capita CO2 emissions among 28 European countries intwo main activity sectors (Industry and Manufacturing) between 1970 and 2018, with a focus on theenergy sector. The method used is the Phillips-Sul log t-test using two ordering criteria to run the algorithmfor the panel countries. The first one is using the last observation and the second one uses thesample average. The results of analyses of data strongly support the existence of convergence clubs,indicating that five groups of European countries are converging to distinct steady states for theaggregate CO2 emissions. We also find evidence of convergence clubs for industry sectors whilemanufacturing sector shows clubs convergence only when we use the first criterion while in the secondcase, we find only a single steady state.