«Pour lutter contre le chômage à Bruxelles, aidons les PME !»

Ce sont les moyennes, petites et très petites entreprises qui engagent le plus de main-d’œuvre locale à Bruxelles, si l’on en croit une étude de l’Unizo. Conclusion de l’UCM flamande : il faut accompagner ces PME et TPE si l'on veut lutter efficacement contre le chômage dans la région-capitale.

Lisez l'article dans Trends tendances ici.

Le taux de chômage accroît la criminalité

Le taux de chômage, mais pas le nombre d’étrangers, détermine la criminalité d’une commune, selon une étude de criminologues des universités de Gand et de Louvain.

Lisez l'article dans Le Soir ici.

In Spain, Gypsies Find Easier Path to Integration

Read the complete article in The New York Times here.

Courard: "On m’a mis des bâtons dans les roues"

Des demandeurs d’asile pourront intégrer les casernes d’ici quinze jours. Philippe Courard dit ne pas toujours avoir eu le soutien du gouvernement.

Lisez l'article dans LLB ici.

200 years of income growth and health around the world

Spreading the Word: Geography, Policy and University Knowledge Diffusion

Using new data on citations to university patents and scientific publications, and measures ofdistance based on Google maps, we study how geography affects university knowledgediffusion. We show that knowledge flows from patents are localized in two respects: theydecline sharply with distance up to about 100 miles, and they are strongly constrained bystate borders, controlling for distance. While distance also constrains knowledge spilloversfrom publications, the state border does not. We investigate how the strength of the stateborder effect varies with university and state characteristics. It is larger for patents frompublic, as compared to private, universities and this is partly explained by the localdevelopment policies of universities. The border effect is larger in states with stronger noncompetelaws that affect intra-state labor mobility, and those with greater reliance on in-stateeducated scientists and engineers. We confirm the impact of non-compete statutes bystudying a policy reform in Michigan that introduced such restrictions. Read the complete study for the Centre for Economic Performance here.

The Lessons of Europe’s Carbon Trade

The EU has demonstrated that a multinational cap-and-trade scheme can reduce carbon-dioxide emissions at least cost, and that the economic side-effects are not serious. Whatever the system's flaws, these lessons are the important ones to keep in mind. Read the complete article on Project Syndicate here.