There is evidence that a budget consolidation strategy can work with only a small and shortlived negative impact on growth. However, many countries are currently trying to consolidate at the same time as firms and consumers are deleveraging. We develop ten guidelines for consolidation during...

The financial crisis has affected the real economy in stages yet nevertheless at an unexpected rate and with all regions being affected simultaneously. It advanced almost independently of the regions' exposure to the actual initial causes, among them the subprime crisis, innovative financial...

Not least due to the change in overall economic conditions, the employment of foreign workers in Western Europe has in recent years become increasingly controversial. The following two articles deal with different aspects of labour migration. Heinz Werner presents a survey of policies towards...

Until the start of the seventies the situation on the labour markets of the European industrial states was considered with relative optimism. The high growth rates which most of the countries had achieved seemed to be sufficient to absorb the increases in the available labour force. The author...