The paper examines the extent to which current account imbalances of euro area countries are related to intra-euro area factors and to external trade shocks. We argue that the traditional explanations for the rising imbalances are correct, but are incomplete. We uncover a large impact of...

From a macroeconomic perspective and using input-output techniques, this paper investigates to what extent, and how, the growing use of intermediates imported from China has contributed to the productivity growth within the manufacturing production processes of 22 high-income countries. Using...

The international economic debate on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has focused mainly on trade induced real income gains while the FDI related and innovation induced benefits have been largely neglected, although the EU and the US are leading FDI host countries and...

Competitiveness of a nation is associated with a set of characteristics that enable structural adjustment to global technological trends, and as a consequence, a rise in the living standard of its citizens. For catching-up economies, GDP convergence towards the most developed economies,...

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...

This paper analyses the effect of international borders and of trade agreements at international borders on subnational (i.e. regional) growth. We construct an extensive panel dataset covering 1,350 regions in 86 countries worldwide between 1950 and 2017. Our results show that international...

The international economic debate on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has focused mainly on trade induced real income gains while the FDI related and innovation induced benefits have been largely neglected, although the EU and the US are leading FDI host countries and...

The development of pre-industrial Europe was driven by the expansion of trade. This paper describes the patterns of trade and shows how they can be understood in terms of differences in trading costs. It discusses how the different levels of trade?from local to transoceanic-contributed, both...

This study examines the relationship between current-account imbalances and economic growth during the 2008-2009 financial and economic crisis for 179 countries (covered by IMF data) and within the EU-27 countries (covered by Eurostat data). The countries are divided into 4 groups by GDP per...

Economic convergence of the new member states (NMS) of the EU towards the old EU countries (EU-15), not only in terms of real income, but also in nominal terms, is of paramount importance for the whole of the EU. We build a dynamic CGE model, starting from the Balassa-Samuelson two-sector...