The notion of flexicurity was introduced in the late 1990s. It promotes the idea of compensation of deregulation of labour markets (= flexibilization) by advantages in employment and social security, in particularly for flexibly employed (other than permanent full-time, called also atypically...

The composite indicator "Quality of work" for comparing European countries is constructed from data of the Third European Survey on Working Conditions. The main findings are as follows: (a) European countries differ with respect to working conditions statistically more significantly than with...

We investigate the role rates of return and rates of asset price decline play in explaining sources of productivity growth in the context of a growth accounting approach. Our analysis is based on data from the EU KLEMS database for seven countries in the period of 1990 - 2007. We introduce a...

This paper analyses the degree of price rigidity and of inflation persistence across different product categories with particular focus on regulated prices and services for the individual EU15 countries, as well as for the EU15 and the euro area aggregates. We show that services and HICP...

In this paper we compare alternative approaches for the construction of time series of macroeconomic variables for Unified Germany prior to 1991, and then use them for the construction of corresponding time series for the euro area. The resulting series for Germany and the euro area are compared...

This paper uses index number theory to disentangle changes in aggregate retail interest rates due to changes in individual component rates (“interest rate effect”) from those caused by changes in the weights of each component (“weight effect”), on the basis of the “difference” index...

This paper reviews the governance framework of the Lisbon Strategy and discusses the specific option of increasing the role of benchmarking as a means of improving the implementation record of structural reforms in the European Union. Against this background, the paper puts forward a possible...

The present paper explores issues surrounding multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) in payment card markets from various angles. The Eurosystem’s public stance on interchange fees is neutral. However, the Eurosystem takes a keen interest in facilitating a constructive dialogue among the...

This paper analyses the transmission of financial shocks to the macroeconomy. The role of macro-financial linkages is investigated from an empirical perspective for the euro area as a whole, for individual euro area member countries and for other EU and OECD countries. The following key economic...

Starting from Professor Kornai's assertion about the necessity to focus on the long-term perspectives of the transformation process, we analyze in this paper the Lisbon performance of the countries of the European Union from such a long-term, structural perspective. We present in a simple form...