Chapter 1 provides an overview and assessment of the price competitiveness and export performance of the euro area and the larger euro area countries, as well as an evaluation of how standard equations have been able to explain actual export developments. Chapter 2 carries out a constant market...

This paper examines the role of government wages in ensuring macroeconomic stability and competitiveness in the euro area. Recent empirical evidence suggests that government wage expenditure is subject to a pro-cyclical bias in most euro area countries and at the euro area aggregate level....

After the recent global financial crisis several countries on the eurozone's south-western periphery, in particular Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, have faced severe difficulties involving the risk of sovereign debt defaults and a new banking crisis. Other EU countries, above all France,...