EconPol Forum

This article shows how Facebook interests can be used to construct subnational measures of patience (“the relative valuation of present versus future payoffs”). Differences in patience are closely related to regional student performance in Italy and the United States. The results provide new perspectives on long-standing differences between the countries.

Measures to promote technological sovereignty vary greatly from country to country and range from the promotion of R&D activities to subsidies for the construction of industrial plants. Systematic forecasting of technology trends would enable policy makers to deal with new technologies at an early stage and adapt policies and institutions.

This paper examines the impact of different cultural values, attitudes and similar attributes on some of the key dimensions of economic performance. It shows a weak correlation between the relative endowment of continental countries with some cultural attributes and the relative performance of their economies.

Populism is on the rise. It goes hand in hand with far-left or far-right party slogans and/or strong, personalized political leadership and polarized rhetoric: The presidency of Donald Trump in the US and the campaigns for the Brexit referendum are two prominent examples in recent years. Several EU member states, namely France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Greece, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany, have experienced how quickly populists win voters in national elections. With the presidential election in the US and European elections in 2024, many people fear a further rise in political polarization and populism in the Western world.

Since its inception, European competition law has been a battleground for different interpretations and ideologies. As a result, concepts ranging from market integration and individual freedom to socially optimal market structures have constantly vied for influence alongside efficiency-oriented arguments reminiscent of the Chicago School. This tapestry of ideas underscores the multifaceted nature of competition policy – a policy that is inextricably linked to the specific “DNA” of its legal regime and its hierarchy of policy goals. In order to dissect and understand this DNA for the European case, this article uses natural language processing (NLP), also known as text mining, to examine over 11,000 EU competition law decisions and judgments from 1961 to 2021.