With the realisation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), there will be no difference in the euro area between national and cross-border retail payments. SEPA is aimed at fostering competition and innovation, and improving conditions for customers. This requires concerted efforts from...

This paper brings to the forefront the assumptions that we make when focusing on a particular type of explanation for bank profitability. We evaluate a broad field of research by introducing a general framework for a profit maximizing bank and demonstrate how different types of models can be...

Coal is at the core of the debate about climate change mitigation policies, yet the international market for it is not well represented in most energy models. This paper presents the COALMOD framework which is a model of the international steam coal market that can be readily used to explore...

This report contains three separate papers, each addressing selected issues concerning natural gas policy and security of gas supply in Europe. The over-arching themes are vulnerability (to supply disruptions, to supplier pricing power) and fragmentation; and measures designed to overcome them,...

Für Österreich als kleine offene Volkswirtschaft ist die internationale Wettbewerbsfähigkeit seiner Un-ternehmen für den wirtschaftlichen Wohlstand entscheidend. Darüber hinaus prägen kleine und mittel-ständische Unternehmen (KMUs) die Struktur der heimischen Wirtschaft. Somit sind sie...

This report analyzes the role of the largest companies in the Finnish economy. According to the results, the ten largest companies in terms of their value added together produce 7,6 % of the Finnish GDP. In addition, these companies generate notable multiplicative effects in the economy....

We characterize increases and decreases in plant-product -level output sales in the Finnish manufacturing sector during years 2006 to 2015. We show that during the recession of 2008 to 2009, the intensity of variation in plant-product -level sales diminished, and it took several years until the...

Between 2002 and 2007, Germany introduced its National Strategy for Sustainable Development and its Integrated Climate Protection Program, which both defined clear energy and climate-related objectives, setting an emissions reduction trajectory of 40% below the 1990 level by 2020. This spurred...

Zwischen 2002 und 2007 verabschiedete die Bundesregierung die Nationale Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie und das Integrierte Energie- und Klimaprogramm. Beide Programme enthalten klare energie- und klimapolitische Zielsetzungen: So sollen die Treibhausgasemissionen bis zum Jahr 2020 um 40% gesenkt...

Im vorliegenden Bericht werden die Ergebnisse des Teilprojektes "Lokale Strategien für die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung" des europäischen Forschungsprojekts TRUSTEE ("Towards RUral Synergies and Trade-offs between Economic development and Ecosystem services') beschrieben. Vor dem Hintergrund...