Nach dem sogenannten PISA-Schock wird insbesondere in Deutschland intensiv diskutiert, wie die Qualität der schulische Ausbildung verbessert werden kann. Dabei herrscht die Überzeugung vor, dass die Qualität der schulischen Ausbildung eine wichtige Determinante des langfristigen...

This staff report for the Republic of Poland’s 2013 Article IV Consultation highlights economic development and policies. The current account in 2012 was primarily financed by EU transfers and foreign direct investment (FDI), notwithstanding a reduction in net FDI inflows. Moderate...

In Irish manufacturing, the foreign sector accounts for about one half of employment and some 60 per cent of gross output. The Irish experience therefore provides us with a textbook case study of the effects on an EU host economy of export-oriented FDI. We explore in this paper the structural...

There are a number of factors that are generally agreed to have a role to play in the story of Ireland's recent success. These include the long-term consequences of the fiscal stabilisation of the late 1980s, the European Structural Funds, the increased educational attainment of the workforce,...

The topic of fiscal federalism from the standpoint of the tax revenue and the expenditure distribution is extremely significant for the regional growth, both quantitatively (income and employment) and quantitatively (types of public disbursement and growth impact). In the present paper we will...

The dominant view in the recent literature on regional convergence seems to be that the evolution of regional incomes in the industrial countries is characterized by very slow but absolute beta convergence. In this paper we challenge this view on the basis of an analysis of the Spanish...