Tag: Norway grants
Economic Integration of the Nordic-Baltic Region through Labour, Innovation, Investments and Trade (LIFT) (2021 – 2023)
Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS) is a partner in the Nordic-Baltic integration project LIFT
BICEPS is participating in the Baltic Research Program project “Economic Integration of the Nordic-Baltic Region through Labour, Innovation, Investments and Trade” (LIFT) funded by the European Economic Area (EEA) countries (Iceland and Lichtenstein) and Norway grants for the period 2014–2021.
The aim of the project is to identify in a unified framework how transnational regional integration has contributed to economic development and growth in the Nordic-Baltic Region. What are the associated challenges and lessons to learn for future policy design? The acronym LIFT reflects our main hypotheses: the integration in the Nordic-Baltic Region has lifted the local economies and contributed to a more efficient resource allocation. The LIFT project consists of four closely linked work packages (WP) with the 1st letters of their titles forming the acronym, each of the WP’s focusing on a particular aspect of integration.
- Labour market developments in the context of digitalisation and social change
- Innovation and technology transfers
- Foreign direct investments and capital mobility
- Trade of commodities and services
BICEPS will mainly contribute to work package 1 and 3. Both working packages will require the use of very large administrative datasets combined with advanced quantitative methods. BICEPS researchers will bring their expertise and experience implementing large scale econometrics projects.
WP1 focuses on the recent and rapid labour market developments (including consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic), which create new challenges for employees and employers, generate new forms of labour, changes in working conditions and in the structure of the labour force. This in turn calls for development of legal regulations and human capital, adjustment with cultural challenges as well as enlarge possibilities for the integration of people from different countries and with different ethnicities. This includes studying job flows and worker flows between sectors and between firms and identifying the main characteristics (including personal traits, cognitive and non-cognitive skills) of people switching to the new labor forms, as well as firms experiencing substantial inflows or outflows of workers after the pandemic. In particular, what kind of workers and in which sectors were switching to work from home? Was there a reversal after the pandemic?
WP3 is motivated by how Nordic FDI and public grants in the Baltics contribute to integration of the Nordic-Baltic Region over the last three decades. Norwegian FDI in the Baltics reached 2.5 billion euro in 2016. Nordic FDIs and grants may induce positive impulses and distributional impacts on the Baltic economy, enhancing productivity, labor market performance, social welfare and public service provision. Performance of Nordic-Baltic firms will be benchmarked with that of domestic firms and firms of other international consolidations with investors in countries of similar development. We investigate how Norwegian ownership in Baltic firms affects the performance of Baltic subsidiaries and Nordic mother companies and thereby aggregate income. Further, we will study the impact of FDI on wage gaps and labor composition (occupations and education) and mobility of employees between/within consolidations. The aim is to investigate how human resource policy (e.g. cultural traits of investors) are affected by firm being purchased by a foreign entity.
The project period runs from 2021 until the end of 2023.
The research consortium is led by Vilnius Gedimina’s Technical University of Lithuania. Other research partners are the University of Tartu in Estonia, the University of Latvia, and Institute of Transport Economics in Norway. In addition, the project has five stakeholder partners – Export Credit, the Nordic Council, and the Norwegian Chamber of Commerce in Latvia, the Norwegian-Lithuanian Chamber of Commerce, and the Norwegian-Estonian Chamber of Commerce.
Marija Krumina is BICEPS project manager for the LIFT project. Nicolas Gavoille is BICEPS senior researcher and a contact person for the LIFT project, and Janis Upenieks is a junior researcher associated with the LIFT project.
See for more details about the LIFT project.
#Working together for a green, competitive and inclusive Europe
Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania is S-BMT-21-7 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-070).
Micro-level responses to socio-economic challenges in face of global uncertainties (Global2Micro) (2021 – 2023)
Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS) is a partner in the Nordic-Baltic project Global2Micro on how companies deal with economic uncertainty.
BICEPS is participating in the Baltic Research Program project “Micro-level responses to socio-economic challenges in face of global uncertainties” (Global2Micro) funded by the European Economic Area (EEA) countries (Iceland and Lichtenstein) and Norway grants for the period 2014–2021.
The aim of the project is to achieve a deeper understanding of how firms adjust their behaviour in the uncertain and evolving environment caused by events such as an increased concentration on domestic matters and engagement in trade wars by the US, the British decision to leave the European Union and an increase in global political and economic power by China, as well as current pandemic and global lockdowns.
These broad socio-economic challenges will be tackled by analysing in detail, firstly, how firms adjust to trade and labour market shocks in terms of their labour allocations, human capital and technological investments; secondly, concentrating on how the two major adjustments of firms’ production functions – labour and technology – interact in response to increasing global uncertainty, especially in the face of deglobalisation and the fragmentation of global trade links; finally, combining the empirical insights from the first and the second blocks, and building a theoretical framework on the labour market adjustments, paying special attention to the complementarity/substitutability of new types of labour and capital as well as labour and technology (automation). The three blocks will take three different approaches – empirical analysis based on administrative data, empirical analysis based on the new big data methods, theoretical and structural analysis – and dovetail in the plan to understand the firm- and individual-level adjustments.
BICEPS will mainly contribute to the analysis of firms’ reaction to minimum wage shocks. How do firms adapt to such changes in the labour market policy? How does a minimum wage hikes affect employment? A particular characteristic of the labour markets in the region is the prevalence of the so-called “envelope wages”, i.e., unreported cash-in-hand complements to the official wage. In this setup, minimum wage policy can become a fiscal policy tool: a minimum wage hike pushes firms to convert part of the envelope into official wage to comply with the new level, so that they remain under the tax authorities’ radar. Can wage underreporting act as a buffer to absorb minimum wage shocks?
The first study completed by BICEPS researchers under the Global2Micro project is available as SSE Riga/BICEPS Research paper What we pay in the shadow: Labor tax evasion, minimum wage hike and employment.
The expected project consortium results include not less than 12 theoretical and empirical publication in high level academic journals, a number of working papers and policy notes to foster economic policy debate among economic agents and equip the policy makers with relevant economic policy tools, the creation of new databases available to economic researchers in the future, the organization of one large international conference and enhanced research network that would serve as a platform for future collaborations.
The project period runs from January 2021 until the end of 2023.
The research consortium is led by Vilnius University. Other research partners are Tallinn University of Technology, BI Norwegian Business School, University of Tartu and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Marija Krumina is BICEPS project manager for the Global2Micro project. Nicolas Gavoille and Anna Zasova are BICEPS senior researchers associated with the Global2Micro project. Nicolas Gavoille is also a contact person for the project.
Project contract with the Research Council of Lithuania is S-BMT-21-8 (LT08-2-LMT-K-01-073).
Eiropas Ekonomikas zonas (EEZ) valstis (Islande un Lihtenšteina) un Norvēģijas granti 2014.-2021. gadiem
CURRENT PROJECTS
Micro-level responses to socio-economic challenges in face of global uncertainties (Global2Micro)
Duration: The project period runs from 2021 until the end of 2023.
The research consortium is led by Vilnius University. Other research partners are Tallinn University of Technology, BI Norwegian Business School, University of Tartu and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Marija Krumina is BICEPS project manager for the Global2Micro project. Nicolas Gavoille and Anna Zasova are BICEPS senior researchers associated with the Global2Micro project. Nicolas Gavoille is also a contact person for the project.
Project information: read more about the project.
Economic Integration of the Nordic-Baltic Region through Labour, Innovation, Investments and Trade (LIFT)
Duration: The project period runs from 2021 until the end of 2023.
The research consortium is led by Vilnius Gedimina’s Technical University of Lithuania. Other research partners are the University of Tartu in Estonia, the University of Latvia, and Institute of Transport Economics in Norway. In addition, the project has five stakeholder partners – Export Credit, the Nordic Council, and the Norwegian Chamber of Commerce in Latvia, the Norwegian-Lithuanian Chamber of Commerce, and the Norwegian-Estonian Chamber of Commerce.
Marija Krumina is BICEPS project manager for the LIFT project. Nicolas Gavoille is BICEPS senior researcher and a contact person for the LIFT project, and Janis Upenieks is a junior researcher associated with the LIFT project.
Project information: read more about the project.