The present study was conducted from May to October 2013, commissioned by the European Economic and Social Committee (“EESC”) and carried out by the European Centre for Liberal Professions, University of Cologne (“ECLP”).

This study was carried out by the European Centre for Liberal Professions following a call for tenders launched by the European Economic and Social Committee.

The mandate for this study was to undertake an evaluation of EU external action as managed by three DGs: DG RELEX, DG DEV and DG AIDCO. The Terms of Reference identified two main objectives (ToR, Feb 2010, Section 1 – reproduced in Annex 1): · To provide an overall independent assessment of...

Health policy has traditionally been an area governed principally by the law of individual member states. There is a general consensus among the member states and also the European Union (EU) institutions that this should not fundamentally change in the future. Despite a general acceptance of...

Inflation expectations constitute a subject of particular contemporary interest to central banks, especially those pursuing a monetary policy based on a strategy of direct inflation targeting. Macroeconomic theory indicates that the transmission of monetary policy impulses and their impact on...

Based on the householdsu0092 utility maximisation, a closed form approximation of the consumption function is derived and the deep parameters of the consumption function are estimated using aggregate euro area data. The novel element in our approach is the parameterisation of the information...

Does the general public know what central banks do? Is this kind of knowledge relevant? Using a survey of Dutch households, we investigate these questions for the case of the European Central Bank (ECB). Our findings suggest that knowledge on the ECB’s objectives is far from perfect. Both a...

Using comparable survey data from twelve European countries from 1994 to 2001 we investigate households’ attitudes towards mortgage indebtedness. We find that a given debt burden creates much higher distress in countries with fewer mortgage holders relative to countries where a significant...