The paper, presented as the “Jean Monnet Lecture†at the European University Institute in Florence on March 20th, 1998, evaluates the current situation and perspective of European industry and finance in the face of world competition. In the context of the European Economic and...

Capital gains are ironically one of the least studied concepts in economics despite their crucial role in national accounting. Although capital gains are technically not involved in the circular flow of production and incomes, they are a vital determinants of consumer credit and personal...

The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 contains regulations on the eligibility of European Union (EU) member countries to join the single currency. 'Sustainability' of a country's public finance position is one of the four criteria for membership of the single currency. One major finding is the extremely...

The labor markets of developing countries are analysed, focusing on the importance of investment and flexibility.

In 1971 many academic economists were predicting that the Bretton Woods system of fixed parities would collapse. Some, most notably Milton Friedman, became excited about the possibility of a floating system because the benefits of international capital mobility can only be achieved through the...

The relationship between central banks and inflation is considered in order to disprove existing studies which state that distortions and inflationary bias occur in the real world. While much attention has been given to the issue in existing studies, no attempt has been made to examine effects...

The transition from a planned to a decentralised market economy amongst the new independent republics of the former Soviet Union has often been accompanied by harsh political competition to obtain the responsibility for implementing the required institutional reforms. A brief overview is...

The economy of Singapore has remained relatively unscathed from the Asian currency crisis of 1997 and 1998 which has severely crippled the markets of Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which has overseen the country's financial development since the 1960s,...

According to the ‘Ricardian’ equivalence hypothesis, consumption is dependent on permanent disposable income and current deficits are equivalent to future tax payments. This hypothesis is tested on 14 European countries in the 1990s. The relationships between private sector savings...

In this Manifesto, we make a set of proposals to fight unemployment in the EU. We believe that the European unemployment problem needs to be attacked on two fronts: through a broad spectrum of supply-side policies and the demand management policy. The expansion of aggregate demand is necessary...