Baltic Development Forum Summit 2010
Alf Vanags and Morten Hansen participated in this year’s Baltic Development Forum Summit held in Vilnius on June 1-2. They are contributors to the 2010 State of the Region Report entitled Top of Europe Recovering: Regional Lessons from a Global Crisis. A special focus of this year's report, the seventh in the series of annual evaluations of competitiveness and cooperation across the region, is the longer-term economic trends in the Baltic Countries and Poland.
The report can be downloaded here
Social costs of drug abuse in Latvia
Over the period November 2009 – March 2010, Alf Vanags and Anna Zasova carried out a research project for the Latvian Centre of Health Economics and prepared an analytical report “Budget and Non-budget Social Costs of Drug Abuse in Latvia in 2008”. The report evaluates budget direct and indirect expenditures related to drug abuse, as well as provides an assessment of drug-related non-budget costs, such as foregone output resulting from e.g. lower employment and lower labour productivity.
The report can be downloaded here
Latvian translation of the report is available from the Centre of Health Economics website
4th Europe-Ukraine Forum
Alf Vanags participated in the 4th Europe-Ukraine Forum held in Kiev 26th -28th April. For the programme of the Forum see here
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Latvia Report 2008
In December 2009 the fourth GEM Latvia report was published. The report provides the latest trends in entrepreneurial dynamics in Latvia and other GEM countries, as well as covers special topics, such as Entrepreneurial Education, Intrapreneurship and Social Networks.
To download the report in English or Latvian please click here
Too few locally produced goods on the shelves of Latvian shops: Reality or myth?
On 17.06.2009 Alf Vanags and Morten Hansen presented the report BICEPS/SSE Riga ‘Too few locally produced goods on the shelves of Latvian shops: Reality or myth?’. The report concludes, among other things, that Latvian goods are not underrepresented in Latvian shops but that productivity and exports are problems to be addressed. For a full version of the report and the presentation please click here
BICEPS/SSE Riga Seminar Series
We welcome theoretical or empirical papers on all subjects, but especially on the Baltic States. If you are interested, please e-mail your proposal to Vyacheslav Dombrovsky at slava@biceps.org
Baltic Journal of Economics
The issue No 1, Vol 10 contains a policy paper on “Where is demography leading Latvian higher education?” by Zane Cunska and articles by Sirje Pädam, Üllas Ehrlich and Koidu Tenno on “The impact of EU Cohesion policy on environmental sector sustainability in the Baltic states”, by Kaire Põder on “Credible commitment and cartel: the case of the Hansa merchant in the guild of late madieval Tallinn” and by Ole Christiansen, Dirk H. Ehnts and Hans-Michael Trautwein on “Industry relocation, linkages and spillovers across the Baltic Sea: extending the footloose capital model”. The next issue of BJE will appear in the autumn of 2010. The aim of BJE is to support local researchers and researchers working on topics of relevance to the Baltic States by offering a publication medium for good quality refereed articles. If you wish to submit an article see www.biceps.org/en/bje