European Union economies are pressed by (i) a demographic change that induces population ageing and a decline of the workforce, and (ii) a split labour market that is characterized by high levels of unemployment for low -skilled people and a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers. This lack of...

Economic disparities between the regions of the European Union are of constant concern both for policy and economic research. In this paper we examine whether there are overlapping trends of regional development in the EU: overall convergence on the one hand and persistent or even increasing...

In 2005, the EU introduced an emissions trading system in order to pursue its Kyoto obligations. This instrument gives emitters the flexibility to undertake reduction measures in the most cost-efficient way and mobilizes market forces for the protection of the earth?s climate. In this paper, we...

Inflation differentials in the Euro area are mainly due to a sustained divergence of wage developments across the Euro area, and narrower differences in labour productivity growth (Alvarez et al., 2006). We investigate convergence of inflation using unit labour cost (ULC) growth and applying...

Using unit labor cost (ULC) data from Euro area countries as well as US States and German L¨ander we investigate inflation convergence using different approaches, namely panel unit root tests, cointegration tests and error-correction models. All in all we cannot reject convergence of ULC growth...

Job insecurity causes far reaching negative outcomes. The fear of job loss damages the health of employees and reduces the productivity of firms. Thus, job insecurity should result in increasing social costs. Analyzing representative data from 17 European countries, this paper investigates self...

Prejudices and stereotypical beliefs about the role of women in society often limit their chances of reaching top leadership positions. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the socioeconomic structure and the gender pay gap in managerial positions in Germany building on a review from a...

We consider a model with two firms operating their individual networks. Each firm can choose its price as well as its investment to build up its network. Assuming a skewed distribution of consumers, our model leads to an asymmetric market structure with one firm choosing higher investments....

The aim of this paper is to decompose cross-national differences in self-reported general health into parts explained by differences in "true" health, measured by diagnosed conditions and measurements, and parts explained by cross-cultural differences in response styles. The data used were drawn...

Intensified European integration,enlargement of the EU,and increasing migration activity worldwide have pushed migration and migration policy to the forefront of the European agenda.While many observers hesitate to embrace immigration emanating from outside Europe,sectoral skill shortages and...