In a constantly changing economic environment, a country's ability to undertake institutional reforms is crucial to maintain economic growth and to promote the welfare of its citizens. A wide range of determinants for institutional reforms have been identified. However, the impact of trust on...

The incomplete European market for financial services, the obstacles to its integration and the potential benefits from more integration are subject of this book which is largely focussing on retail markets. The analysis can be regarded as a modernised follow-up to the financial market part of...

This study develops a reform proposal for the future revenue system of the EU budget. The findings strongly reject the idea that a reform based on an EU tax-based own resource would remedy current problems. Against the background of the status quo analysis the authors present a reform model...

In spite of the widespread use of the concept of potential output in economic theory and empirical applications as well as in economic policy debates, the historical background and the assumptions inherent to this concept are rarely made transparent, let alone critically questioned. Against this...

This paper analyses the impact of the monetary regime change from the Bundesbank to the ECB on inflation expectations. In the theoretical part, the Barro-Gordon model is used to derive the potential effect of a new central bank on inflation and inflation expectations. The econometric...

In Germany, medium-term financial planning (Mifrifi) was introduced at the end of the sixties. This study scrutinizes the German federal government's experience of more than thirty years of financial planning. The paper begins by exploring the potential normative and political-economic driving...