We empirically assess the impact of competitiveness measured by unit labor costs for current account balances in the Euro area. For this purpose, we estimate a panel with annual observations from 2000 to 2013. Our findings confirm the importance of competitiveness: Higher unit labor costs growth...

Competitiveness adjustment in struggling southern euro-area members requires persistently lower inflation than in major trading partners, but low inflation worsens public debt sustainability. When average euro-area inflation undershoots the two percent target, the conflict between intra-euro...

This paper analyses the impact of changes in environmental regulations on productivity growth at country- and firm-level. We exploit several data sources and the environmental policy stringency index, to evaluate the Porter hypothesis, according to which firms' productivity can benefit from more...