This Forum aims to systematically describe and analyse the evolution of national financial systems within the EU over the past three decades. It analyses the processes of financialisation that have dominated this period as well as the causes and consequences of the financial crisis from the...

The isolation of national telecommunications markets in the past has meant that pronounced differences remain among the R&D systems operating in the countries of the European Community. The intended opening up of public procurement markets by the end of 1992 could therefore lead to substantial...

The collapse of socialism and opening up of markets in the East has led to a significant structural change in direct investment behaviour on a worldwide scale. The trend is particularly evident in Germany's direct investment patterns over the past two years. While newly industrializing countries...

During the 1980s foreign direct investment (FDI) expanded remarkably. Simultaneously, the regional structure of foreign direct investment changed. This relationship is discernible among industrial countries, as well as between industrial and developing countries. Of particular importance is the...

For a number of European countries the presence of a more or less large number of foreign workers and their families is a fact to which they will have to adjust. As a rule, the longer the length of their stay, the less probable it becomes that these workers will return to their country of...

Many commentaries on the present economic situation contend that Germany is increasingly "exporting jobs" rather than producing competitive goods and services. Can Germany continue to compete effectively with other business locations in the battle for mobile investment capital?

The tremendous importance of small and medium-sized enterprises within the German economy is repeatedly stressed in policy discussions. That makes the disproportionately low level of involvement by SMEs in the Asian growth region stand out all the more prominently. What are the factors...