Ten of the post-communist countries managed to integrate into EU. Which are the subjective outcomes of socio-economic transformations in these countries? Did they manage to increase their citizens’ happiness in this process? To give an answer to these questions I used data from Candidate...

Rising energy prices for fossil fuels, the unreliable supply of energy imports during the last winters and - concerning the 12 new members states (NMS) - the demand by the European Union (EU) for developing National Renewable Energy Action Plans have stimulated the national discussion and...

This study analyses the impact of economic catching-up on annual inflation rates in the European Union with a special focus on the new member countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Using an array of estimation methods, we show that the Balassa-Samuelson effect is not an important driver of...

This paper focuses on knowledge-based entrepreneurship, or new firm creation in industries which are considered to be science-based or to use research and development intensively, in the East Central European (ECE) context. On the basis of case studies of thirteen knowledge-based firms in six...

This paper deals with the question of what impact membership of the European Monetary Union (EMU) has had on small European states. We will also analyze whether or to what extent a large number of small member states affect the EMU itself when they vastly outnumber the large countries. We...

This paper investigates whether joint economic and political integration leads to larger economic benefits than just economic integration. The identification strategy rests on the fact that Norway, at the time of the 1995 Enlargement of the European Union (EU), had successfully completed...

We analyze four interrelated aspects of economic convergence and their linkages over the period 1999-2013, drawing on the experiences of 26 member states of the European Union, with special focus on the ten Central and East-European new members (the EU10). These aspects are (1) real economic,...

Am 1.5.2004 sind zehn neue Mitgliedstaaten, vor allem Transformationsländer, in die EU aufgenommen worden. Drei Jahre später, am 1.1.2007, kamen Bulgarien und Rumänien hinzu. Während deutsche Unternehmer zunächst die zusätzliche Konkurrenz fürchteten, bewerten sie die Auswirkungen der...

This paper combines, explains and summarizes recent findings from the empirical literature focusing on the FDI's effect on firms' performances by collecting all the relevant firm level quantitative studies to run a regression of regressions focused on Enlarged Europe. The results show that there...