Western Europe has welcomed its new members by shutting the door in the face of the workers coming from the East and making their road to EMU more difficult. Two years down the road of enlargement, some countries are now liberalizing worker flows. Indeed, as shown in this paper, these...

The standard literature lists three ways in which the Western industrialised countries could support the transformation process in Europe's emerging market economies (EMEs): technical assistance, financial aid and trade access (see i.a. World Bank 1991, p. iv) . Important as such support would...

Am 1. Januar 2002 wurde mit der Einführung des Euro-Bargelds der finale Schritt auf dem Weg zur Europäischen Währungsunion vollzogen. Parallel verhandelte die Kommission bereits seit Jahren mit den mittel- und osteuropäischen Transformationsländern über deren künftigen Beitritt zur...

Das Papier diskutiert die Ausgestaltung des EU Finanzsystems aus polit-ökonomischer Perspektive. Die jetzige Form der Umverteilung lässt sich aus ökonomischer Sicht nicht nachvollziehen; vielmehr kann dies als ein System von politischen Seitenzahlungen verstanden werden. Es wird argumentiert,...

The years of transition in Central and Eastern Europe brought with them the unprecedented - in these societies - phenomenon of restructuring with dismissals and growing unemployment. Moreover with the emergence and development of the private sector, new enterprises started to leave former...

This paper uses a data set covering 9 EU15 member states and 7 candidate countries and new member states to compare inter-regional migration patterns in the 1990s. We find that the level of migration is lower in candidate countries and new member states than in EU15 member states. Also in...

This article explores the process of labour market integration in the border region of Saxony, Poland and the Czech Republic. The underlying understanding of integration is combining institutional factors and the behaviour of market players. The sources of this conceptual framework stem from...

The European Social Model (ESM) is increasingly becoming a model of integration policy. The idea is based on a combination of economic efficiency, in the sense of high productivity, competition and economic growth, and a high level of employment on the one hand together with social cohesion on...