Frankreich steht vor wichtigen Herausforderungen in der Arbeitsmarkt-, Finanz- und Wirtschaftspolitik. Die Arbeitslosigkeit ist seit vielen Jahren persistent hoch und liegt bei etwa 10 Prozent; die Jugendarbeitslosigkeit sogar bei etwa 25 Prozent. Bei den öffentlichen Finanzen ist dem Land eine...

Infrastruktur ist eine zentrale Vorleistung, die in jede wirtschaftliche Aktivität eingeht. Für eine entwickelte Volkswirtschaft ist eine funktionierende Infrastruktur daher unverzichtbar. In Deutschland galt die Infrastruktur über Jahrzehnte hinweg als wichtiger Standortfaktor. Doch nach der...

Fiscal rules are instrumental for restraining deficit and spending biases in euro area Member States that could threaten the smooth functioning of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Ideally, fiscal rules should combine characteristics such as sufficient flexibility to allow for appropriate...

As the current financial crisis has shown, macroeconomic imbalances such as persistent current account and trade deficits, can seriously undermine a country’s resilience to economic shocks. Maintaining and enhancing external competitiveness has thus become of increasing concern, particularly...

In the light of the lessons learned from the euro area sovereign debt crisis, the EU fiscal and macroeconomic governance framework was overhauled in 2011. Against this background, this paper analyses whether the broadened surveillance of fiscal and macroeconomic indicators under the strengthened...

This paper seeks to link the debate surrounding short-term fiscal multipliers with the medium and longer-term impact of fiscal consolidation on public debt sustainability. A literature review and empirical findings for state-dependent multipliers confirm that there is considerable uncertainty...

The southern European periphery suffered a severe setback in its catching-up process versus Western Europe after the financial crisis with GDP dropping by 10% between 2008 and 2012 and unemployment increasing to 20% for Greece, Portugal and Spain. We analyze first the reason for this setback,...

On May 1, 2004, ten countries in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe will become full members of the EU. The parliaments and monetary authorities of the ten accession countries have already to a large extent adapted their legal and institutional structures to the new Europe-wide environment....

This paper examines the fiscal challenges that the new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (NEW-8) are facing that arise from both EU membership and from developments that are essentially independent of EU membership. While the direct fiscal strains caused by EU membership may appear...

Können die Staatsschulden Italiens, Spaniens und von Portugal auch dann noch als tragfähig erachtet werden, wenn das Zinsniveau wieder steigt und eine gemäßigte Rezession zu verkraften ist? Dieser Report kommt zu einem differenzierten Ergebnis für den Betrachtungszeitraum bis 2022, das von...