Variations between the diverse pension systems in the member states of the European Union hamper labour market mobility, across country borders but also within the countries of the European Union. From a macroeconomic perspective, and in the light of demographic pressure, this paper argues that...

Soaring food and energy prices sparked the revolts in Northern African countries at the end of 2010. Despite government subsidies, consumer price inflation rose, which reduced consumers’ purchasing power. This article empirically investigates the impact of world food prices on inflation and...

The volatility of exchange rates leads to a reduction of international trade volumes, especially in emerging economies including the South Mediterranean countries. This study discusses the impact of exchange rates on bilateral South- North trade flows, which comes timely after the increased...

In light of the unprecedented developments in the financial sectors of developed economies in the years 2008-2009 and in view of the current political Arab upheaval, this paper reviews the pros and cons of financial integration of the South-Mediterranean region. Our analyses includes Morocco,...

Soaring food and energy prices sparked the revolts in Northern African countries at the end of 2010. Despite government subsidies, consumer price inflation rose, which reduced consumers’ purchasing power. This article empirically investigates the impact of world food prices on inflation and...

According to the life-cycle theory, countries with high and rising youth ratios or high and rising old-age ratios tend to have low savings relative to investment, which depresses their capital outflows. This paper puts life-cycle theory to the test and studies the impact of demographic change on...

This report describes the macro-econometric model for the Republic of Macedonia MAKMODEL. It documents the main features of this model that was built by research teams of the Macedonian and Dutch central bank during July 1999 - June 2001 as one module of a large scale PHARE-project, funded by...

This paper investigates the fiscal pressure from demographic change in relation to the labour marketspace for fifty countries that cover 75% of the world population. The pressure-to-space indicator ranks Poland, Turkey and Greece high. Apart from Turkey and India, developing countries rank low...

On top of the sovereign debt crisis in the European Union, demographic change is exerting enormous pressure on public finances. We analyse four policy options: lowering pension benefits, increasing labour market participation of the native population, immigration and participation of older...

Recientemente varios estudios han demostrado que la incertidumbre afecta a las decisiones de inversion. En concreto, para Estados Unidos se observa que la incertidumbre acerca de la demanda y/o acerca de los precios reduce la inversion empresarial. En este trabajo se investiga si esto es tambien...