Of the new members entering the European Union (EU) in May 2004, several had achieved a decade of impressive export growth, expanding significantly their shares of world markets. The empirical analysis shows that over the period 1994–2004, quality and technology upgrading associated with the...

This paper conducts the first empirical study of the bank balance sheet channel using data on discouraged and informally rejected firms in addition to information on the formal loan granting process. I take advantage of a unique survey data on the credit experience of firms in 8 economies that...

We scrutinize the role of capital flows for competitiveness in seven euro-area countries in the context of real convergence and crisis with a specific focus on Greece. The paper extends the seminal Balassa-Samuelson model to include international capital markets. Capital flows are assumed to be...