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...

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...

Insufficient access to capital for high-tech growth companies is one of the key weaknesses of Germany's innovation system. This weakness is becoming a serious competitive disadvantage, especially in the context of the radical technological innovation, new business models and rapid growth...

This paper investigates whether the COVID-19 crisis has affected the way we think about (political) institutions, as well as our broader (policy) attitudes and values. We fielded large online survey experiments in Italy, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, well into the first wave of the...

The main aim of this article is to analyze the effects of industrial and trade policy of the European Union on economic development, with particular reference to the negative effects of excessive trade deficits and industrial decline in some EU countries in the period 2000-2010. We compare 5...

Does the FIFA World Cup boost the economy? Can a host country capitalise on a ‘high life’? The following paper develops, besides a valid econometric analysis, the factor ϕ for World Cup-specific effects on GDP per capita growth.This econometric approach uses multiple regression models....

Recent studies focused on testing the Easterlin hypothesis (happiness and national income correlate in the cross-section but not over time) on a global level. We make a case for testing the Easterlin hypothesis at the country level where individual panel data allow exploiting important...

This paper attempts to analyze the growth effects of social security expenditures in Germany from a time series perspective. Therefore, a regression model based on standard determinants of growth is specified and estimated as a vector error correction model. Results show that there is a...

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...

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...