This paper presents new evidence on the social returns to education within a macroeconomic growth regression framework. I use improved schooling data and a macro version of the Mincer relationship between education and wages for individual workers. The results suggest that an increase by one...

Does schooling generate social returns in excess of the private returns captured by the individual who makes the human capital investment? As a strategy to detect human capital externalities I use Dutch survey data to estimate the impact of the average human capital stock in a region on...

This note presents employment policies aimed at containing the impact of the crisis on labour markets and assesses the effectiveness of these measures against a set of policy "do's and don'ts" and addresses the question whether further action is warranted.The global downturn is now strongly...

This note provides a brief overview of the work carried out under the auspices of DG ECFIN's fellowship initiative. While the economic policy agenda in Europe is currently dominated by lagging activity reflecting public and private balance-sheet problems and still impaired transmission of...

This brief discusses trends , drivers and policies related to European competitiveness in a global perspective. Over the past two decades, European industry was holding its own against both the old world competition from the US and Japan and newer rivals from China or India. But already before...

This article addresses the relationship between the real economy and the financial sector, asking the question: to what extent does the crisis in the financial sector cast a shadow on economic activity? Various potential linkages are investigated, for example the impact of credit restrictions on...

This Economic Brief recapitulates some main insights on the role of structural reform for adjustment and growth in the EU. Its aim is threefold. First, the Brief discusses recent reform efforts in EU countries. Second, it discusses possible effects from reforms in labour and product markets by...