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Occasional Papers

  • YEAR 2010 / 9 No. 8: Tax Reform in Latvia: Could it be fair? How progressive is Latvia's tax system? What has been the effect of recent changes? What are the alternatives? Alf Vanags (BICEPS) 0.3 MB pdf Document
  • YEAR 2009 / 7 No. 7: Too few locally produced goods on the shelves of Latvian shops: Reality or myth? The report concludes, among other things, that Latvian goods are not underrepresented in Latvian shops but that productivity and exports are problems to be addressed. Alf Vanags (BICEPS) and Morten Hansen (SSE Riga and BICEPS) 0.11 MB pdf Document
  • YEAR 2009 / 6 No. 6: The Case for a Latvian Version of the Obama Broadband Package The paper investigates whether the evidence suggests that a broadband package on the lines of the Obama package in the US or the Digital Britain initiative in the UK could be an appropriate instrument in recession-hit Latvia. Alf Vanags (BICEPS) 0.27 MB pdf Document
  • YEAR 2009 / 1 No. 5: Renewable Energy: Is there a Latvian Master Plan?

    Taking into account the potential of wind energy and Latvias vulnerable position in terms of energy security and energy independence, this report analyzes the legal, economic and political aspects of further development of the wind power sector in Latvia. The findings of the show that, from a legal perspective, Latvia has properly implemented the EU law governing wind-energy production into Latvian legislation and that the current legislation contains more or less all the formal pre-requisites to encourage investments into the wind-generated energy industry. There are, however, still some question marks when it comes to the administrative practices.

     Ieva Indriksone (RGSL), Esmeralda Balode-Buraka (RGSL), Martins Kallis (BICEPS), Alf Vanags (BICEPS and SSE Riga), Anders Paalzow (SSE Riga and BICEPS) 0.72 MB pdf Document
  • YEAR 2008 / 9 No. 4: Stagflation in Latvia: How Long, How Far, How Deep? This report addresses a number of macro economic issues related to the recent Latvian economic development characterized by two consecutive quarters of seasonally adjusted GDP decline accompanied by high inflation. Morten Hansen (SSE Riga and BICEPS) and Alf Vanags (BICEPS and SSE Riga) 0.32 MB pdf Document
  • YEAR 2007 / 9 No. 3: Competition in the Latvian and Baltic Grocery Retail Markets This report analyzes concentration in the grocery retail market in the three Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The markets (including some comparator Eastern and Western European markets) are analyzed using two standard measures: the Herfindahl Hirschman Index and the four firm concentration ratio. Anders Paalzow (BICEPS and SSE Riga) and Alf Vanags (BICEPS and SSE Riga) 0.16 MB pdf Document
  • YEAR 2007 / 6 No. 2: Inflation in Latvia: Causes, Prospects and Consequences This report is the second in an annual series produced by BICEPS and SSE Riga on macro policy issues. The 2007 report is again on inflation but this time focusing only on Latvia. The inflation problem in Latvia has not gone away and if anything has intensified since early 2006 to the extent that the Latvian government was forced into action to set up a working group on inflation which eventually published an anti- inflation plan early March 2007. Morten Hansen (BICEPS and SSE Riga) and Alf Vanags (BICEPS and SSE Riga) 0.14 MB pdf Document
  • YEAR 2006 / 6 No. 1: Inflation in the Baltic States and Other EU New Member States: Similarities, Differences and Adoption of the Euro This paper examines the inflation experience of the EU new member states (NMS) since 2000, with particular focus on the three Baltic countries, and asks why inflation in particular in Estonia and in Latvia has been so different from other NMS. A second part of the paper argues that the Maastricht inflation criterion increasingly unlikely to be met and that euro adoption may have to be postponed for quite a long time in the Baltic states. Morten Hansen (BICEPS and SSE Riga) and Alf Vanags (BICEPS and SSE Riga), 0.21 MB pdf Document