The European Union has reached a critical juncture in dealing with the fallout from the 2008 financial meltdown that started in the USA and spread to engulf banks and the financial markets of Europe. The ensuing recession or stagnation in many member countries was compounded by austerity...

Well-functioning economic structures are key for resilient and prospering euro area economies. The global financial and sovereign debt crises exposed the limited resilience of the euro area's economic structures. Economic growth was masking underlying weaknesses in several euro area countries....

We discuss past performance and future challenges for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We highlight the successful convergence process of those countries, not least thanks to their integration into European and global value chains. As the external environment changes, so...

The EU candidate and potential candidate countries have made considerable progress in economic transition and integration into the world economy within less than two decades. Nevertheless, gaps in terms of income per capita relative to the euro area remain large. This suggests that the...

Against the background of increasing competition and other significant structural changes implied by globalisation, maintaining and enhancing competitiveness has evolved into one of the prime concerns in most countries. Following up on previous work (see in particular ECB Occasional Papers No....

Despite significant economic reforms in many Southern Mediterranean EU neighbour countries, their growth performance has on average been subdued. This study analyses the differences in growth performance and macroeconomic stability across Mediterranean countries, to draw lessons for the future....

Auslöser meiner Überlegungen ist die akute Flüchtlingskrise. Es spricht manches dafür, dass sich diese Krise nicht einfach mit einigen administrativen Maßnahmen der Zuwanderungsbeschränkung in kurzer Frist in Luft auflösen wird. Vermutlich ist sie Symptom für eine neue Welle der...

Die Studie betrachtet die Wirtschaft der Staaten in Subsahara-Afrika, auf die nur 2 % des weltweiten Bruttoinlandsprodukts entfallen. Unter Nutzung statistischer Daten wird untersucht, ob deutsche Unternehmen Wirtschaftspartner in der Region fanden. Zwar haben mehrere Tausend KMU dahin...

This paper provides an overview of longer-term structural developments in the new EU Member States from Central and Eastern Europe (NMS). It analyses structural changes in the NMS' economies and patterns of productivity catching-up both at macro level and within the individual industries. With...

Conventional econometric analysis using VEC suggests that there is a long-term relationship between nominal world GDP and nominal world exports. The analysis cannot say anything about the causal relationships between the levels of GDP and exports. But it says a lot about the rules governing the...