Eastern Journal of European Studies

 Peter Nijkamp,  Ioana-Maria Costea,  Aura-Elena Amironesei

 Richard L. Church

ABSTRACT: Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, has captured the attention of almost everyone in the year of 2023, when several companies introduced software that can be used by the general public and applied to many different areas of interest, including voice, video, text, and large data analysis. For example, it is possible to create a novel using AI large language models or create or ask an AI app to generate a drawing of a given subject. Overall, AI has the potential to disrupt many industries, social media, and even government. This paper presents an introduction to AI with respect to Regional Science. It discusses some of the promises and pitfalls of AI, including its use in education. AI techniques are not new to many in Regional Science as it has already been used in a number of application areas and some of these applications are pointed out in this paper. Thus, it covers the past, present, and future for the field of Regional Science.  

KEYWORDS: artificial intelligence, AI, regional science,

Pages: 14-29  | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0202

 Karima Kourtit,  Peter Nijkamp,  John Osth,  Umut Turk

ABSTRACT: In the age of smart or intelligent cities, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a spectrum of new opportunities and challenges for both the research and policy community. The present study explores the intricate interplay between AI-generated content and actual choice spectra in urban planning. It focuses on the concept of 'city intelligence' and related AI concepts, underscoring the pivotal role of AI in addressing and understanding the quality of life in contemporary urban environments. As AI continues its transformative impact on communication and information systems in the realm of urban planning, this study brings to the forefront key insights into the challenges of validating AI-based information. Given the inherently subjective nature of AI-generated content, and its influential role in shaping user-perceived value, AI will most likely be a game changer catalyzing enhancements in the urban quality of life and inducing favorable urban developments. Additionally, the study also addresses the significance of the so-called 'Garbage-in Garbage-out' (GiGo) principle and 'Bullshit-in Bullshit out' (BiBo) principle in validating AI-generated content, and seeks to enhance our understanding of the spatial information landscape in urban planning by introducing the notion of an urban 'XXQ' performance production function.

KEYWORDS: artificial intelligence, city intelligence, data quality, information systems, subjective content, smart cities, urban XXQ production function,

Pages: 30-47 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0203

 Carmen Tamara Ungureanu,  Alexandra Gheorghiu,  Valerică Greavu-Șerban

ABSTRACT:  Data has become a valuable resource due to the rapid growth of technology. Nevertheless, data has little value when held by its "collectors". The true value of data unfolds through its reuse, necessitating the role of data intermediaries to facilitate this process. From the data intermediation services, as employed in the Data Governance Act (DGA), we are going to discuss the data intermediaries organized in data cooperatives, which ensure the technical, legal, and logistical support for data transactions, according to the European framework. The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of the cooperative as a data-sharing intermediary within the European context. We will adopt a threefold approach, examining the topic from legal, psychological, and technical perspectives to achieve a comprehensive understanding. To accomplish our objectives, we will conduct a thorough literature review. The DGA does not specify whether data cooperatives are cooperative societies, whose primary function is to facilitate the reuse of data, or whether they are a form of cooperation between data subjects and one-person undertakings or SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), on the one hand, and potential data users, on the other. Therefore, we will consider both interpretations and make an effort to clarify the following: What type of organization is the data cooperative? What are the primary goals of the data cooperative as stated by DGA? What are the trigger issues and drawbacks associated with participating in a data cooperative from the legal and psychological perspective of a data subject and from the small entrepreneurs' point of view? Finally, we will briefly go over the technical solutions that will enable the data cooperative to operate as a cooperative society and, more broadly, as a data space across Europe.

KEYWORDS: data, data cooperative, data intermediation service, DGA, data spaces,

Pages: 48-68 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0204

 Peter Nijkamp,  Karima Kourtit

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a controlled AI-experiment investigating text interpretation in the context of the regional development literature. With the rapid advancement of digital technology applications, text interpretation and generation have become increasingly prevalent, offering profound implications for scientific research in the social sciences, including regional science. Our study seeks to explore commonalities and disparities in textual summaries of previously published material in the domain of the regional development literature, employing a trial study approach on a given recent publication on regional competitiveness so as to compare human-made and machine-made (chatbot) summary texts. We adopt two distinct guiding principles for narrative textual interpretation: a methodological perspective and a normative framing of content. This leads to different types of summaries. Next, through subsequent digital text analysis methods, viz human-based interpretative analysis, content cloud analysis and frequency analysis, we analyze and compare the outcomes of this experiment. The results of our text analysis were finally also assessed by a small expert panel. Our findings reveal notable differences between human-made and machine-made summaries, showcasing variations in writing style, substantive content, perceived meanings, and reader interpretations. These discrepancies are also influenced by the above-mentioned methodological perspective and normative framing that are applied to the scientific publication concerned. In general, our comparison highlights that while human-made texts tend to be more content-rich, machine-made texts exhibit greater richness in form and coverage. Our results suggest that such contrasting differences offer a mutually complementary value in text interpretation. This study contributes to the understanding of text interpretation processes and sheds also light on the evolving dynamics between human and machine-generated interpretations in the academic discourse on regional development.

KEYWORDS: regional development, digital twin, man-machine interaction, text analysis, content cloud, methodological perspective, normative framing,

Pages: 69-103 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0205

 Nicolae Toderaș

ABSTRACT: The current study aims to analyze the use of AI tools in managing European funds related to the EU Cohesion Policy in Romania, as part of the policy making process that seeks to reduce regional disparities. Grounded in qualitative research and drawing on the new historical institutionalism approach, the paper presents and examines the perceptions of representatives from organizations responsible for the programming, monitoring, and evaluation of programs funded through European funds. These entities include relevant Managing Authorities from the Ministry of European Investments and Projects and Regional Development Agencies. The research addressed the following variables: openness towards AI, the extent of utilization, perceived benefits, apprehensions, and challenges related to the employment of AI tools, the boundaries of their use, the availability of resources, the regulatory context, the nature of decision-making involved, and potential new spheres of application.

KEYWORDS: regional development in Romania; artificial intelligence; AI tools adoption; digital transformation; EU funds; EU Cohesion Policy,

Pages: 104-126 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0206

 Juan Jose Rastrollo Suarez,  Agustin E. Ferraro

ABSTRACT: The exponential growth in the uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) shows dramatic and long-lasting consequences on social reality in our days. Governments see themselves confronted with the need to supervise and regulate the difficult transition toward a "fourth industrial revolution", as some experts already describe such a development. Public regulation is expected to address diverse areas. In the first place, the  legal and ethical dilemmas around the functioning and programming of AI must be determined and resolved -as far as possible. Secondly, the uses of AI as a tool for public decision-making have to be explored and operationalized. Finally, citizens' rights must be guaranteed against new and unexpected threats that result from these new technologies. In the present article, we propose to analyse and discuss the development and reception of AI by Latin American governments, considering in particular the recently adopted Ibero American Charter on Artificial Intelligence in Civil Service.

KEYWORDS: artificial intelligence, Latin America, public administration, Ibero American charter, public employment, 

Pages: 127-146 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0207

 Luca Zamparini

ABSTRACT: The paper considers the role that the development of digital markets has played on the economic value of privacy in the last decades. It first discusses the possible definitions of privacy by highlighting the high degree of heterogeneity. It then assesses the economic value of privacy and how it has been influenced by digital technologies, in terms of costs, benefits and externalities. The paper also examines the digital paradox, i.e. the dichotomy between privacy attitudes and privacy behavior. It then proposes a series of empirical findings on the value of digital privacy, by underscoring the high degree of contextuality of this measure. Lastly, the paper discusses the relevance of regulations, especially the General Data Protection Regulation by the EU and the California Privacy Rights Act, to meet the requirements of fair information practices and their economic effects.

Keywords: data, digital markets, economic value of privacy, theoretical and empirical findings, public regulations

Pages: 147-164 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0208

 Alexandra Horobeț,  Cristiana-Ioana Coman,  Lucian Belascu,  Ioannis Kostakis,  Eugenia Busmachiu

ABSTRACT: This research explores the effectiveness of the European Union's (EU) competition policies and regulatory framework in the era of swift technology development, focusing on the nexus between digitalization, competition, and competitiveness. A novel content analysis was completed using QDA Miner for 30 official EU legislative documents issued between 1985 and 2024. The text was coded based on 10 major and 25 secondary themes. Key findings demonstrate that the most frequently used terms refer to market structure, business practices, and innovation, while the most frequent codes belong to the regulatory framework, competition policy, enforcement, and industrial strategy categories. The co-occurrence, link and proximity analyses show that digital transformation became one of the main concerns of EU in terms of regulations after 2010 and, after the pandemic, it was accompanied by a sustained interest towards sustainable development after the pandemic, which align well with the twin transition - digital and environmental - in the EU.

KEYWORDS: digitalization, technology, innovation, EU, content analysis, legislation,

Pages: 165-193 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0209

 Anna Drywa

ABSTRACT: It has become difficult to deal with the increasingly complex and, in fact, disturbing tax reality. That is because solutions, often based on gathering and processing tax information, are being sought to remedy identified difficulties (e.g. combating tax evasion and tax avoidance), while failing to see that fixing one tax problem makes way for another. The taxpayer has the right to privacy, guaranteed at different levels of regulation. However, privacy is subject to limitations, and lawmakers are introducing a variety of regulations that have a detrimental impact on the scope of the taxpayer's inviolable sphere of privacy. It is the aim of this paper to present the issue of the invasion of the taxpayer's privacy that is currently occurring, identify its source and, against this background, make some observations regarding the need to increase the protection of the taxpayer's privacy. Based on a solid legal, as well as judicature analysis and a literature review that provides good theoretical insights to define and understand one of the challenges of upcoming tax reality, a mixed-method, related to the functional approach, has been utilized for this paper.

KEYWORDS: taxpayer; taxpayers' rights; privacy, tax,

Pages: 194-210 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0210

 Bogdan-Constantin Ibanescu,  Ioana-Maria Ursache,  Ioana Bejenaru,  Zvonimir Kulis

ABSTRACT: The collaborative economy, characterised by peer-to-peer exchanges facilitated by digital platforms, has rapidly emerged as a significant force in various sectors, and especially in tourism. This paper follows a twofold objective: firstly, it investigates the resilience of the collaborative economy platforms during the last shock, and secondly, it scrutinizes whether they serve as an engine for tourism resilience within the European Union. Through a comprehensive analysis of data provided by Eurostat, the study examines the extent to which these platforms contribute to the adaptability of the tourism sector in the face of economic and social challenges. Findings suggest that collaborative economy platforms enhance tourism resilience, however, the mechanisms of this resilience enhancement are still unknown, as the relation between the resilience of collaborative economy platforms and tourism sector is neither evenly distributed among the European regions, nor  directly connected to various sector dependent variables. The paper concludes by discussing policy implications and recommending strategies for leveraging collaborative economy platforms to bolster tourism resilience across the EU.

KEYWORDS: collaborative economy platform, tourism resilience, regional resilience, digital economy

Pages: 211-230 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0211

 Seda DOGAN

ABSTRACT: The aim of this study is to examine the impact of digital transformation on the financial performance of banks in Turkey. An exploratory design of the mixed research method was applied in the study. A digital transformation (DT) ratio was developed from banks through content analysis of the qualitative analysis methods. This ratio was then added as variables to causality test. The study's analysis covers the period from 2005 to 2023. The research include ROA, ROE, capital adequacy ratio (CAR), and the DT ratios developed for research is used as the variables. A negative correlation was found between DT and ROA, ROE, and CAR in public and development banks, whereas a positive correlation was observed between DT and ROA, ROE, and CAR in private banks. The relationship between DT and ROA, ROE, and CAR in public banks, and the relationship between DT and CAR in private banks, were found to be significant. The hypothesis that there is a causality from DT to CAR in public banks was rejected, while other hypotheses were accepted.

KEYWORDS: banking sector, digital transformation, financial performance, Dumitrescu Hurlin panel causality test

Pages: 231-256 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0212

 Alexandre Zollinger

ABSTRACT: The development of generative artificial intelligence models is at the heart of two important debates in terms of copyright: firstly, does the use of previous works as training data constitute an infringement of copyright? The issue is utterly sensitive as creators fear a negative effect of these tools on their future careers. Secondly, what regime is applicable to "outputs", more precisely to textual, visual, musical or audiovisual contents generated by artificial intelligence? Are these works without an author? Are they protected by an intellectual property right, and if so, under what conditions and for whose benefit? These highly topical questions find a particular echo in the writings of the French semiologist and philosopher Roland Barthes (1915-1980), notably in his famous article entitled "The Death of the Author". The objectives of this study are, firstly, to present the questions raised by generative artificial intelligence in copyright law (mainly under the prism of French law, but also with regard to Romanian law, European law and court decisions taken on the subject in different countries), and, secondly, to determine to what extent the arguments developed by Roland Barthes, leading to relativising the role of the author, could contribute to current debates on this adaptation of copyright to generative artificial intelligence.

KEYWORDS: artificial intelligence, copyright, datasets, creation process, Roland Barthes, 

Pages: 257-273  | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0213

 Mihaela Tofan

ABSTRACT: The paper addresses the legal challenges generated by the new configuration of the digital economy, in general, and in the European Union, in particular. In the context of the unprecedented development of technology-enabled activities and digitization in recent years, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Regulation promotes a set of rules to ensure that the technology is trustworthy. New legal concepts emerge to insure safe use of IT tools and protection of subjects of law in the digital economy. The legal framework analysis is both needed and controversial, determining in-depth research and intense debate for the global effect of new law, which spans over multidimensional sectors, reaching the area of digital service tax. The latest is a topic more open to individual initiative than to multilateral agreements for different states. The research outlines the result of the analysis of the content of this new and original regulation, to validate the hypothesis that the EU law generates considerable advantages for citizens and the entities that use it, equally. Opinions contrary to this hypothesis are also analyzed, presenting possible disadvantages of AI laws to the social environment. The research show that EU regulation on AI will, in the long term, affect the global law and markets.

KEYWORDS: artificial intelligence, regulation, risks, digital economy, digital service tax,

Pages: 274-289  | Full text (PDF) 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0214

 Ioana Maria Costea,  Bogdan Trofin,  Irina Galan

ABSTRACT: Our study focuses on the jurisprudential accents regarding formal requisites of the right to deduct in the European framework. All consequences, in both economic and legal dimension regarding VAT, are embedded in the threads that form it: VAT is an indirect, general, consumption tax, of European origin, with fragmented payment and neutral effect on the economic agent. For this tool to trawl throughout the European economy, the tension from different national regulations is dispersed through considerable harmonisation both normative and jurisprudential. We propose an empirical analysis of the right to deduct in the contemporary context; we start from the current ECJ case-law regarding the existence and content of traditional, paper invoice and we generate an inventory of conditionalities. This systematised spectrum of requisites will be further used to read the normative content regarding VAT in the digital age and draw a prognostication for future case-law. Our working hypothesis is that formal conditionality regarding invoice will plummet into oblivion; the e-invoice will tackle old habits. 

KEYWORDS: right to deduct, paper invoice, e-invoice, formal requisites,

Pages: 290-318 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0215

 Codrin Codrea

ABSTRACT: The judicial syllogism represents one of the most significant and widely accepted applications of logic in the field of law. Alongside the legislative syllogism, it is a part of the broader conceptual framework commonly referred to as the legal syllogism. This logical structure is classified as a type of mediate deductive inference, which proceeds from general to particular statements - a reasoning process traditionally associated with the dictum de omni principle. Although intuitive and traditionally accepted for offering the proper structure for the application of law, the judicial syllogism is inherently static due to its foundation in classical mediate deductive reasoning. It does not accommodate the dynamic nature of judicial processes, where addressing quaestio juris and quaestio facti may modify the premises, thereby altering the conclusions. Therefore, this article intends to analyse the classical types of mediate deductive inferences, the static nature of the judicial syllogism and the shortcomings of this monotonic type of logic where the conclusion does not change once it is derived. After analysing the points in the construction of the judicial syllogism, the article also proposes a way of integrating non-monotonic logic in the elaboration of the judicial syllogism in order to capture the actual dynamic of judiciary processes of applying law to particular cases, without altering the overall structure of the judicial syllogism. The operationalization of this theoretical framework could be of practical relevance in developing computational tools, especially in AI applications.

KEYWORDS: legal syllogism, judicial syllogism, mediate deductive inferences, monotonic logic, non-monotonic logic

Pages: 319-336 | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0216

  Francesca Torrieri  

Pages: 337-338  | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0217

  Daniela-Andreia Damian 

Pages: 339-341  | Full text (PDF)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/ejes-2024-0218