One of the strongest stylized facts of the transition is also one of the most unexpected: after 1989 Central and Eastern European and Former Soviet Union countries diverged massively. Institutions are a main reason. The EU anchor thesis posits that the prospect of membership in the European...

This paper investigates to what extent the tax and transfer systems in Europe protect households at different income levels against losses in current income caused by economic downturns like the present financial crisis. We use a multi country micro simulation model to analyse how shocks on...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the...

This study evaluates potential migration flows to the European Union from its eastern neighbors and Croatia. We perform out-of-sample forecasts using an adaption of the model of Hatton (1995) to time series cross-sectional data about post-enlargement migration flows following the EU's 2004...

Poland is a country being exposed to emigration and immigration flows relatively recently. That, among others, results in not fully developed yet institutional infrastructure for managing especially the immigrants flow. In this paper we structure all existing data and other pieces of information...

This paper combines, explains and summarizes recent findings from the empirical literature focusing on the FDI's effect on firms' performances by collecting all the relevant firm level quantitative studies to run a regression of regressions focused on Enlarged Europe. The results show that there...

The eastern enlargements of the European Union (EU) and the extension of the free movement of workers to the new member states' citizens unleashed significant east-west migration flows in a labor market with more than half a billion people. Although many old member states applied transitional...

The eastern enlargements of the EU in 2004 and 2007 have stimulated the mobility of workers from the new EU8 and EU2 countries. A significant proportion of these migrants stayed abroad only temporarily, and the Great recession may have triggered return intentions. However, a return may be...