This paper analyses why many citizens believe that the current social and economic system is far from optimal, but do not vote for a change in the desired direction in election processes. There is an increasing erosion of central political parties, and new populist parties are appearing at both...

We live in a world of black and white, with referenda in the yes/no style, politics in 100-second video clips and headline chasing. All of this leads to over-simplification and, in the end, to a seeming reduction of options. We see this all too well in the case of the European Union: one is...

Wirtschaftspolitische Begriffe, die unter nationalen Aspekten definiert wurden, müssen heute an die neuen Anforderungen von Technologieentwicklung und Globalisierung angepasst werden. So hat sich der Begriff der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit von einer vorwiegend kostenseitigen Betrachtung zu einem...

Austria is a country with a historically strong intervention of government. Specifically a large part of the manufacturing sector and electricity had been nationalized after world war II, combined with public ownership in telecommunication, transport and banking this created one of the largest...

Insufficiently flexible labour markets combined with high welfare costs are often thought to be the main cause of unsatisfactory growth in Europe. This paper uses the OECD data on regulation of the product and labour market to confirm the difference in the extent of regulation between US and...

The economic performance of European countries was in general disappointing in the nineties. However, country difference increased, as it was that in some European countries economic growth and productivity accelerated or could match US rates. This paper uses a broad set of performance...

Economic performance in developed economies diverged in the nineties, with some countries enjoying high growth in output and accelerating growth in productivity. Ireland excelled in many respects and some Nordic European countries recovered from a serious crisis and successfully regained strong...