We first estimate country- and sector-specific technology frontiers within the EU, and show that countries that joined the Union in 2004-7 clearly stand below the lower envelope frontier of the older members in their use of skilled and unskilled labor. We interpret this as due to past barriers to technology adoption, barriers that are likely to be removed by the integration process. With the narrowing of the technology gap bound to follow, it is likely that firms and physical capital will be attracted to these economies by improved profitable prospects. Could such a technological upgrading trigger massive enough relocation of firms and outflows of capital to be detrimental to the welfare of workers in older EU member countries? We provide a quantitative exploration of this issue using a calibrated intertemporal multisector general equilibrium model of the EU27. We show that the results depend crucially on the value of the intertemporal substitution elasticity in households’ preferences: a strong enough increase in the EU-aggregate stock of productive physical capital is necessary for the capital outflows not to be achieved at the expense of workers in old-member states. Though maybe not the most likely, the threshold value of this elasticity below which the EU-integration wave could turn into a non-Pareto-improving move is shown to lie within a statistically feasible interval.

我们首先估算了欧盟内特定于国家和部门的技术前沿，并表明在 2004-7 年加入欧盟的国家在使用熟练和非熟练劳动力方面明显低于年长成员的下限。我们将此解释为由于过去采用技术的障碍，这些障碍可能会被集成过程消除。随着技术差距的缩小必然会随之而来，企业和有形资本很可能会因盈利前景的改善而被这些经济体所吸引。这种技术升级是否会引发足够大的公司搬迁和资本外流，从而损害欧盟老成员国工人的福利？我们使用经过校准的 EU27 跨期多部门一般均衡模型对这个问题进行了定量探索。我们表明，结果在很大程度上取决于家庭偏好的跨期替代弹性的价值：欧盟生产性实物资本总存量足够强劲的增长对于不以牺牲工人为代价实现资本外流是必要的。老成员国。虽然可能不是最有可能的，但这种弹性的阈值低于欧盟一体化浪潮可能会变成非帕累托改进的移动，这表明位于统计上可行的区间内。我们表明，结果在很大程度上取决于家庭偏好的跨期替代弹性的价值：欧盟生产性实物资本总存量足够强劲的增长对于不以牺牲工人为代价实现资本外流是必要的。老成员国。虽然可能不是最有可能的，但这种弹性的阈值低于欧盟一体化浪潮可能会变成非帕累托改进的移动，这表明位于统计上可行的区间内。我们表明，结果在很大程度上取决于家庭偏好的跨期替代弹性的价值：欧盟生产性实物资本总存量足够强劲的增长对于不以牺牲工人为代价实现资本外流是必要的。老成员国。虽然可能不是最有可能的，但这种弹性的阈值低于欧盟一体化浪潮可能会变成非帕累托改进的移动，这表明位于统计上可行的区间内。