The paper discusses possible directions and magnitudes of the relationship between the social security driven tax wedge, employment and shadow employment in Russia and Ukraine. The first section presents a summary of the economic and institutional background for development of the current size...

Kosovo growth dynamics are encouraging but the level of economic activity is very low. Mass unemployment hints at macro-imbalances. Net transfers from migrants are pivotal for covering the huge trade balance deficit, as manufacturing exports are almost non-existent. Wages are low but increasing...

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...

Since the outbreak of the financial crisis Croatia has faced negative growth rates and Foreign Direct Investment has not recovered since. This has resulted in a steadily growing brain drain of highly qualified labor. The economy’s international competitiveness has been decreasing for quite...

Am 15. Oktober 2023 wird in Polen eine neue Regierung gewählt. Das Ergebnis dieser Wahl und die weitere wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des Landes sind auch für Europa und besonders die unmittelbaren Nachbarländer wie Deutschland relevant. Denn Polen ist mittlerweile überregional eng...

This paper provides a critical analysis of the possible methods, data sources and the existing results of the field of 'the economic costs of mass violent conflict' by identifying strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature. The report evaluates content, methods, and data sources of the...

Über Schwarzarbeit und Schattenwirtschaft wird vor allem in Zeiten von wirtschaftlichen Krisen gesprochen. Sie dienen dann als eine Art Puffer und gleichen die Härten einer Rezession gerade für Personen mit geringeren oder mittleren Einkommen aus. Gerade in Südeuropa ist Schattenwirtschaft...

This paper addresses the issue of the gender pay gap in the formal and informal labour markets in Poland. The authors verify the hypothesis of the existence of a gender pay gap in informal work and compare this gap with the one observed in the formal (registered) labour market. Various analyses...

After a long period in which state-led development was the dominant economic paradigm, since the 1980s private sector development has been the focus for economic policy makers. It is probably no coincidence that economic growth, stagnant for a few decades in much of the developing world, took...

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...