Luisa Dörr prepared this study while she was working at the ifo Center for Public Finance and Political Economy. The study was completed in February 2022 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It consists of three distinct empirical essays...

The EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (EU-CEE) were experiencing rising labour shortages prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing demographic decline means that the issue is likely to resurface once the pandemic is over. As a result, the bargaining power of labour has increased,...

The EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (EU-CEE) have been experiencing increasing labour shortages, which only briefly subsided in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ongoing demographic decline suggests that labour shortages will only get stronger over time. As a result, the...

How to break the populist wave? With the elections to the European Parliament ahead, and the Presidential Elections in the US looming, this question bothers policymakers in many Western democracies. Our study shows that regional policies effectively decrease populist support. Specifically, EU...

Wie kann der Aufstieg des Populismus gestoppt werden? Angesichts der bevorstehenden Wahlen zum Europäischen Parlament und der Präsidentschaftswahlen in den USA beschäftigt diese Frage politische Entscheidungsträger in vielen westlichen Demokratien. Unsere Studie zeigt, dass...

The EU’s framework programmes for research and innovation have devoted significant investments towards the study of democracy. This review presents findings from framework programme projects and in general takes stock of European research on the subject matter. It provides a mapping of...

The current fiscal imbalances and fragilities in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMC) are the result of decades of instability, but have become more visible since 2008, when a combination of adverse economic and political shocks (the global and European financial crises, Arab...

This study provides a systematic assessment of the costs of the ongoing armed conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine. By combining the pre-war geographical distribution of fixed capital with data on battle intensity, survey evidence on household damage in the conflict-affected areas and novel...

The COVID-19 crisis has caused public debt to increase dramatically, which is why the German and European fiscal rules are currently suspended. In addition to the new assessment of the fiscal costs at low interest rates (r g), the discussion on the reintroduction of fiscal rules in Germany and...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused human suffering, the destruction of infrastructure and environmental damage on a huge scale. The Ukrainian government has already started to prepare for reconstruction, and presented its National Recovery Plan in July 2022. The plan has many strengths,...