This volume was prepared by Benedikt Heid while he was working at the ifo Institute and the University of Bayreuth. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. It includes six self-contained...

The aim of this study is to analyse the state of the competitiveness of seven Western Balkan economies and to suggest policy recommendations in order to increase their capacity to compete. Most countries from the Western Balkans have a persistent current account deficit of about 10% of GDP which...

Die meisten Westbalkanländer haben ein hohes und in der Regel persistentes Leistungsbilanzdefizit von annähernd 10% des BIP. Reduktionen des Leistungsbilanzdefizits der letzten Jahre sind vor allem auf krisenhafte Importzurückhaltung zurückzuführen. Das durchschnittliche Westbalkanland (im...

This article aims to investigate the patterns of flows in data around the world. It does so by starting from the proposition that data are used as inputs into the production of services and goods in the economy. Using new BEA input output tables in which data usage has a specific mention, this...

The patterns of Central and East European countries' (CEECs) development in the course of transition and following EU accession have been determined by these countries' generally uncritical adoption of policies consistent first with the commandments of the Washington Consensus and then with the...

The European Commission has set a target date of 2025 for Western Balkan EU accession, while also outlining a broader new strategy which includes Brussels taking a more active role in solving political disputes in the region, and upgrading infrastructure as part of the Berlin Process. We welcome...

This research report investigates the relationship between the growing integration into global and regional value chains (VCs) and structural change in the South and South East Asian (SEA) region. The analysis includes a sample of 60 developed and developing countries covered in the OECD's...

This report investigates the impact of trade structure and trade specialization on long-run development patterns in a heterogeneous set of countries, including most OECD countries, developing and rapidly industrializing Asian and Latin American countries as well as ten Central and Eastern...

In Finland, universities have the explicit mandate to support the transformation of high-quality knowledge into profitable business, as well as to promote the creation of new businesses and workplaces within the boundaries of their so-called third mission. This report looks at how Finnish...