The EU's post-Communist countries as well as the EU in general are participating in the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy which aims to create an economy of knowledge. The usage of catching up is extremely important in achieving this strategy's goals. Unfortunately, the EU's post-Communist...

Gravity factors explain a large part of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in transition economies, including in Southeastern Europe—a region not comprehensively covered before in econometric studies—but host country policies also matter. Key are policies that affect unit labor costs,...

With the help of the concept of linkage and leverage, this paper aims at exploring how the relative influence of international actors (namely the European Union (EU) and Russia) can explain the persistence of the authoritarian regime in Belarus. The findings suggest that in the background of the...

When welfare is analysed in Sweden the analysis is usually made at the national level; when the analysis is not done on the national level, the local level is in focus to illuminate differences between municipalities. Studies on poverty are no exception. The regional level contains a lot of...

Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index has been extensively applied in the literature to measure productivity growth decomposition. This study applies a parametric decomposition of a Generalized Malmquist TFP index to measure and compare the levels and trends in agricultural...

Building on the three-sector-hypothesis, the New Theory of Trade, and the New Economic Geography, we investigate the development of economic structures of European countries over the last three decades using employment data. We test for structural convergence which we analyze on the aggregate...

Current report aims to identify major existing gaps in the four socio-economic dimensions (economic, human, environmental, and institutional) and to reveal those gaps which could potentially hinder social and economic integration of neighbor states with the EU. To achieve this, the authors aim...

Current report aims to identify major existing gaps in the five socio-economic dimensions (economic, human, openness, environmental, and institutional) and to reveal those gaps which could potentially hinder social and economic integration of neighbor states with the EU. To achieve this, the...