Labour demand in the EU and returns to scale: A production function approach

Lino Briguglio and Melchior Vella

The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, 2015, vol. 24, issue 8, 1103-1116

Abstract: The paper tests the hypothesis that small member states of the European Union (EU) experience economies of scale constraints. This study adopts a production function approach, utilising data from the 27 differently sized EU member countries. The results confirm the hypothesis and indicate that larger EU member countries incur lower costs per unit of output produced when compared to the smaller ones. This finding has important implications for small EU member states, including that smaller countries have to overcome their economies of scale constraint in order to attain and maintain international competitiveness. This disadvantage is particularly relevant for small states, because these states tend to be highly dependent on international trade, in which case international competitiveness is a major issue.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09638199.2014.1002414 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jitecd:v:24:y:2015:i:8:p:1103-1116

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJTE20

DOI: 10.1080/09638199.2014.1002414

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development is currently edited by Pasquale Sgro, David E.A. Giles and Charles van Marrewijk

More articles in The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().