http://hdl.handle.net/10468/775 Tue, 21 May 2013 15:46:40 GMT 2013-05-21T15:46:40Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/774 Decomposing European NUTS2 regional inequality from 1980 to 2009: national and European policy implications Doran, Justin; Jordan, Declan Purpose - This paper analyses income inequality for a sample of fourteen European countries and their composite regions using data from the Cambridge Econometrics regional dataset from 1980 to 2009. The purpose of the paper is to provide insight into the dynamics of regional and national cohesion among the EU-14 countries studied. Design/methodology/approach - Initially, inequality is decomposed using the Theil coefficient into between and within country inequality to assess the extent to which convergence has occurred. To investigate the underlying causes of the changes in inequality, the Theil coefficient is further decomposed to assess the contribution of productivity and employment-population ratio differentials to inequality. Findings - The results indicate that while between-country inequality has declined, within-country inequality has increased by approximately 50 percent. Subsequent decomposition indicates that while productivity levels among regions have converged, the employment-population ratios have diverged substantially driving increasing levels of inequality. This suggests that while EU cohesion policies have reduced productivity inequalities they have had little effect in stimulating convergence of employment-population ratios across regions.Research limitations/implications - The paper argues that national priorities, particularly in the context of the current European economic crisis, are likely to hinder European Union level policies to reduce income inequality at a regional level. This may result in further increases in regional inequality among European regions. Originality/value - This paper's main contribution is to highlight how national convergence can lead to regional divergence being overlooked. The value of the paper is that it provides policy insights, based on empirical evidence, for European cohesion policy. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10468/774 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/784 Participation, expenditure and regressivity in the Irish lottery: evidence from Irish household budget survey 2004-05 Crowley, Frank; Eakins, John; Jordan, Declan This paper estimates, using the most recent Irish Household Budget Survey of 2004/2005, a double hurdle model to determine the socio-economic and socio-demographic factors affecting participation and expenditure of Irish households on the national lottery. Of particular interest is the effect of income on the decisions of how much participants spend on the lottery. The paper also determines the extent to which the tax inherent in lottery purchases is regressive in its incidence on purchasers. It is found that gender, social class, marital status, the presence of children in the home and household size significantly effects lottery participation.  Lottery expenditures are affected by income, location of the household, gender, age, education, social class and whether the household has positive betting expenditures. Furthermore, there is evidence that the implicit lottery tax is regressive and that the allocation of lottery proceeds does not compensate for this regressivity. Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10468/784 2012-08-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/780 The effects of the frequency of spatially proximate and distant interaction on innovation by Irish SMEs Doran, Justin; Jordan, Declan; O'Leary, Eoin This paper tests whether more frequent interaction at different spatial levels has a positive effect on the innovation performance of SMEs in the South-West and South-East of Ireland.  Based on an original survey, it finds that more frequent interaction generally increases innovation likelihood, but at a diminishing rate, thus suggesting a trade-off between resources dedicated to transforming knowledge into new products and processes.  Spatially distant interaction is found to be at least as valuable as proximate interaction, which questions the received wisdom that the best sources of knowledge are regional.  Given the value of distant interaction, the results indicate that regional lock-in may be an obstacle to superior innovation performance of SMEs. Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10468/780 2012-08-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/855 The effects of national and international interaction on innovation: evidence from the Irish CIS: 2004-6 Doran, Justin; Jordan, Declan; Eoin, O'Leary This paper analyses the importance of decisions to interact nationally and internationally on the likelihood of process and product innovation for a sample of Irish firms. The key contribution is to provide an empirical test of the relative importance of geographically proximate versus distant interaction, using a two-step procedure to remove potential endogeneity in interaction decisions. In doing so it finds that only national and only international interaction have the expected positive effects on the probability of innovation, while engaging in both national and international interaction has no effect. The findings support hypotheses on the importance of both geographically proximate and distant interaction for innovation, though the lack of significance for both national and international interaction means there is no evidence to support the proposition that these forms of interaction are complementary. Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10468/855 2012-07-01T00:00:00Z