For the 2006 Easter (the date has a clear meaning) the National Geographic published an unknown manuscript, aimed to make the Christianity tremble from its foundations. The event benefited from the usual advertisement agrave; l'ameacute;ricaine, in order to hit to the highest possible degree the...

Industry - and firm-level research into both innovations and productivity has long been limited to manufacturing. With this paper, we aim to contribute to the stream of literature that aims at extending the scope of such investigations to the services industry. To this end we analyze the...

This paper discusses and evaluates the associated cost with the future integration of Romania into EMU, namely the loss of seignorage. The author shows that most of the transitional period the National Bank of Romania has conducted its monetary policy in a hostile economic environment, which did...

The paper attempts to evaluate the degree of restructuring of the Romanian labor market, namely the evolution of the labor efficiency over the transition period. The purpose is to reveal to which extent the transition reforms have brought higher efficiency into the economy, in which way the...

This paper proposes a simple method to assess the sustainability of public finances in Romania, which uses the twin deficits concept. We conclude that the sustainability of the country has been seriously affected by the recent crisis, but to a larger extent by the inappropriate design of...

A carbon intensive energy system in the Czech Republic contributes to one of the highest ratios of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to GDP in the OECD. While EU emission reduction commitments provide the most visible and binding motivation for changing the way in which the country produces and...

Economic growth is below what would be needed to resume rapid convergence to average OECD living standards. On-going efforts to improve the business climate are laudable, but need to be widened and strengthened. Much progress has been achieved in reducing red tape, but it is only recently that...

The crisis revealed the need for a strategic review of the existing social protection system in Estonia. Extreme income fluctuations on one side and low social benefits on the other side exposed fragile groups in the population to a significant poverty risk. The government has recently...

Transport can play an important role in promoting growth, diversification and regional convergence. However, with insufficient investment and incomplete structural reforms, Russia faces very large challenges in modernising its large transport system. Urban transport problems are intensifying,...

This paper quantifies transparency of monetary policy in the three EU New Member States that have adopted direct inflation targeting strategy. Two measures of transparency are applied. The institutional measure reflects the extent to which a central bank discloses information that is related to...