GÜREL GÜNAL, Gülçin Ege Üniversitesi - İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi - İktisat Bölümü, Turkey , GÜNAL, Altuğ Ege Üniversitesi - İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi - Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Turkey

THE IMPACT OF EU’S FIFTH ENLARGEMENT ON LABOR MARKET SPATIAL ECONMETRICS ANALYSIS

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This study aims to analyse the effect of EU’s fifth enlargement process on EU labour market. Economic data shows that the fifth enlargement process has provided a dynamism for EU economy. However, fifth enlargement process has also brought out an increase in the EU’s total population. Naturally, EU member states were afraid if this increase in the population would lead to unemployment. By specifically analyzing the labor market, this study aims to reveal out whether this apprehension is reasonable. Since the spatial interaction is high among the EU members, spatial econometric method, which is able to consider this interaction, has been preferred. In this context, spatial panel data analysis is applied using the dataset for the 22 of 27 EU countries between the years 2002-2009. Consequently, results show that spatial relations in the EU is effective and EU’s fifth enlargement process hadn’t have negative effects on EU labour market.

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Labor Market , Spatial Econometrics , European Union , Enlargement

Ege Strategic Research Journal

252