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De Economist (2009) 157:265266
DOI 10.1007/s10645-009-9115-8
DE ECONOMIST 157, NO. 2, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
George Gelauff, Isabel Grilo, Arjan Lejour (eds), Subsidiarity and Economic Reform in Europe, Springer Verlag, 2008
This book is a very important contribution to the literature on subsidiarity in the European Union. While most of the existing literature focuses on the legal or political dimensions of subsidiarity, this brings in an economic perspective. Moreover, it puts esh on the bones of the key concepts of subsidiarityincreasing returns, cross-border externalities and heterogeneous preferences. In addition to these key concepts, it pays attention to political decision making in order to better understand the tradeoff between centralization and decentralization.
The introductory chapters review the main motives for centralisation and decentralisation (Ederveen, Gelauff and Pelkmans); examine whether or not the preferences of EU citizens are consistent with the implications of economic theory (Ahrens, Meurers and Renner); and, discuss how the EU should cope in economic policy making with increased heterogeneity due to enlargement (Oosterwijk).
It subsequently reviews and empirically tests subsidiarity in a wide range of areas: higher education and innovation (ve chapters with contributions of respectively: Van der Ploeg and Veugelers; Grard,...