The expansion of information & communication technology (ICT) is continuing in OECD countries and the world economy – partly due to the ongoing fall of relative ICT prices. The continuing absolute fall of ICT prices and ICT capital prices, respectively, is not adequately considered in the...

From a microeconomic perspective competition between firms has been duely discussed. Extending microeconomic concepts to a macroeconomic level and considering competition between countries becomes more complex. The complexity issues is tackled in this study by extending a methodology developed...

Due to its transition process in the decades 1990 - 2010 Russia has experienced a change in its regional structure. Its design is characterized by a core-periphery structure, where one can see that Russia has more than one economic core. The insight gained from this study is that convergence...

For many decades culture has been considered to have a significant impact on the productivity of people. This study observes for the Russian Federation, on the basis of the ARENA study by Sreda, the impact of the share of the most prominent religious groups on economic output as well as on...

The analysis considers the impact of FDI inflows and FDI outflows and shows that the presence of (cumulated) FDI requires higher import elasticities in absolute terms than stated in the standard Marshall Lerner condition. One may derive a range for the elasticity of the ratio of exports to...

The long term dynamics of growth and structural change in open economies are discussed where integration aspects are included. Taking a closer look at basic economic dynamics, namely developments in terms of sustainable growth and international interdependencies, the theoretical section...

The US banking crisis and the transatlantic banking crisis, respectively, have caused a global recession and thus raised the debt-GDP ratio in many OECD countries and worldwide. In the analysis presented at first some critical points about financial market innovations and inconsistencies in the...

Taking a closer look at the EU’s approach to enhanced surveillance, one finds that the approach of coordinated surveillance of autonomous fiscal policies of Euro member states is unlikely to deliver meaningful results. The widespread public perception that there is a general debt crisis in the...

The Transatlantic Banking Crisis has strongly raised debt-GDP ratios in many OECD countries and this is undermining the economic recovery. As regards the euro zone there are special problems which are partly related to lack of fiscal discipline in Greece and to the Irish economic crisis which...

This analysis takes a closer look at the costs and risks of nuclear energy – including the considerable shadow subsidies allocated to nuclear power – a crucial issue after the Fukushima accident. The liability insurance in Germany covers only ¼ of the damages covered in the US, but in both...