After the climate conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, it is likely that the EU remains more ambitious regarding greenhouse gas reduction targets than other countries. The possible problem of carbon leakage and instruments to tackle it therefore remains an important issue in the European...

The European Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is a key instrument in European climate policy and covers emitters from the energy and manufacturing sector. The ETS pilot phase (2005-2007) was characterised by an oversupply of emission allowances mainly due to the "generous" allocation of...

The global financial and economic crisis in 2008-09 followed by a "Euro crisis" - not a crisis of the Euro but a sovereign debt (and/or banking) crisis in some Euro countries - forced to reforms of the asymmetric policy design of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Starting with ad-hoc rescue...

Soon after the establishment of the Eurozone it became obvious that the structural differences between member countries would not abate, as expected, but rather gradually widen. Although part of the problem can be attributed to the enlargement process, it also relates to asymmetric effects of...

Right from the start of the European currency union, trade imbalances could be observed in the current accounts and trade balances of the euro countries. The business cycle upswing reaching into 2008 and the strong inflow of cheap money led to a strong economic expansion especially in the...

The aim of this paper is the econometric analysis of embodied and induced technological change that reduces energy input and CO2 emissions in production. For this purpose, a model of unit costs and factor demand for 35 industries in 23 EU countries has been set up, based on the World...

Europe (and in particular the European Union) is a regional economic area and thus an embedded feature of globalisation. Since the Lisbon Treaty entered into effect on 1 December 2009, the EU has grown from a "political midget" to a notable political "global player". Although Europe has...

The ongoing Euro crisis and the worse economic development in Europe than in the USA are grounded, not the least in the delayed implementation of reforms of the banking sector. Whereas the leaks in economic governance of EMU have been fixed the banking sector is still not stabilised, even five...

This paper studies differences in the perception of innovation barriers between innovative and non-innovative firms for 18 EU countries. The countries are grouped by their distance to the technological frontier using Community Innovation Surveys for the years 2002-2004 and 2004-2006. The results...

Europe is in the throes of budgetary consolidation, tightening its fiscal rules. It could not prevent the recession of 2012 and the inexorable growth of debt, especially in Southern Europe, while unemployment spreads and the social gap widens. Social policy is mostly a national matter, but is...