An Englishman once watched his first American football game. He looked intently as the team gathered into a huddle after each play. His American host asked him what he thought of the proceedings. "Not a bad sport", remarked the visitor, "but they do seem to engage in an excessive number of...

The economy in the euro area has turned around. While GDP stagnated during the second half of 2001, there are more and more signs that output will increase considerably in the first half of this year. All in all, the slowdown has not been very pronounced. One indication for this is that in 2001,...

For the meeting of the Association d'Instituts Européens de Conjoncture Economique (AIECE) in May, Klaus-Jürgen Gern, Christophe Kamps, and Joachim Scheide prepared the General Report. It is now published as Kiel Discussion Paper 376/377 and supplemented by the country notes of other AIECE...