This volume was prepared by Sebastian Benz while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes five self-contained chapters. All chapters discuss different...

Die Verbreitung der neuartigen Krankheit COVID-19 stellt alle Volkswirtschaften rund um den Globus vor gesundheitliche und wirtschaftliche Herausforderungen. Von der Pandemie und den Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der Ausbreitung des Coronavirus sind internationale Wirtschaftsbeziehungen besonders...

The paper presents an analysis of real income convergence between the 11 countries of Central Eastern Europe which have joined the European Union (EU11) and 15 countries of Western Europe (EU15) in the period 1993-2015. The evolution of the income gap between the two groups of countries in terms...

Advanced economies have been witnessing a pronounced slowdown of productivity growth since the global financial crisis that is accompanied in recent years by a withdrawal from trade integration processes. We study the determinants of productivity slowdown over the past two decades in four...

A distinction is drawn between two notions of competitiveness. 'Essential' competitiveness focuses on the inherent developmental potential of an economy while 'apparent' competitiveness is largely determined by the exchange rate's influence on the current account. A currency union leverages...

Despite the widespread use of the notion of a country's competitiveness in public policy discussion, there is some reluctance among academic economists in accepting the concept. The competitiveness notion can be made theoretically acceptable by distinguishing its useful integral part, which...