This paper discusses the goal conflict between social protection and economic growth as well as employment. Taking the German economy as an example for the large continental economies of Old Europe, it analyzes twenty mechanisms that affect the fundamentals of the economy negatively and imply...

In an open economy, a country may borrow in order to accumulate capital. The paper compares the case of foreign borrowing with a scenario in which a country accumulates capital internally by postponing consumption. The impact of borrowing on the time profile of consumption and of debt is...