The paper is a contribution to the special issue “150 years Journal of Economics and Statistics”. The starting point is a series of articles on the nature and the history of the German Zollverein by Gustav Fischer in the early volumes of the Journal. Both the perception of the Zollverein and...

The purpose of this study is to measure changes in efficiency and productivity over time in the German insurance industry. These are important impacts of the liberalization and opening of the German insurance market. With the aid of the Data Envelopment Analysis an efficiency frontier has been...

The health care systems of the EU-member states are based on the social principle but to a different extent, and there are also differences in funding the health care expenditures. Some systems are financed by taxes, others by insurance premiums. Actually to become a member of a specific EU...

Europe has changed, the world has changed. The 21st century brings new challenges and new opportunities. The interaction of economies and peoples worldwide – whether by communication, trade, migration, shared security, concerns or cultural exchange – is in constant evolution. In such a...

The path from command to market economics in Romania has been marked by two decisive conceptual clarifications at international scale, from the 1989 Washington Consensus to the 2000 Lisbon Agenda. In both cases, it was about a "how-to" policy list supposedly conducive to better economic...

In this paper I try to refute the thesis that European integration – the way the European states embarked upon with the creation of The European Coal and Steel Community – was indispensable for the preservation of peace among the continent’s nations. The main line of argument is that,...