Overall, the ECB managed monetary policy quite satisfactory in the first phase of EMU. Nevertheless, this paper asks whether monetary policy could not have been improved. In the last three years, Euroland was confronted with the first external shock. Oil prices increased considerably, leading to...

Das Freihandelsabkommen zwischen der EU und Südkorea (EU-Südkorea FHA) ist das erste einer neuen Generation von FHA, die 2007 gestartet wurden und Teil der Initiative "Globales Europa" sind. Solche Abkommen, die auf fundierten wirtschaftlichen Kriterien basieren, bilden einen wichtigen Schritt...

Ten years ago, the global financial crisis started to unwind in the USA and triggered the greatest recession since World War II. Although the crisis of 2007-08 was caused in the USA, their economy was not hit so hard in the Great Recession of 2009 as in Europe, and in particular in the Euro...

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada is the most ambitious (new generation) free trade agreement the EU has ever negotiated. It is a "mixed" agreement with EU and member countries competences. Most elements of the agreement for which the EU...

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical research on the efficient assignment of policy tasks to different levels of government and applies the results on the delimitation of competences within the European Union. The main results are: (i) A precise derivation of an optimal degree of...