The economic and financial crisis of 2007-2009 had a serious impact on the larger European region. For western Europe this was the deepest economic downturn since the Second World War. Given the well-developed safety nets for this region the immediate impact on health is likely to be minor....

This essay discusses the challenges in financing economic development in the eastern European and CIS economies. The advantages and pitfalls of extensively relying external capital are explored.

Despite recent progress in developing a political consensus that policy changes are needed at both the domestic and international level to address climate change, the required political and public will is still insufficient to overcome a number of political barriers limiting progress.This essay...

This essay explains the importance of the forests as a factor in addressing the challenges in mitigating climate change. The potential of using the forest sector more fully to capture and store carbon has been limited by the failure of current protocols and other climate change mechanisms to...

A key component of climate change mitigation efforts will be the need to develop new technological solutions and to diffuse current state-of-the-art technologies to developing countries. However, due to a number of market failures, the required research and technological transfers are currently...

This essay addresses two major challenges confronting the road tranportation sector: reducing emissions and improving road safety. After energy production, the transportation sector is the second largest source of carbon emissions, accounting for about one quarter of all fossil fuel emissions....

The EU transfers provided to the New Member States and candidate countries are generally viewed as having been efficiently used in promoting development in these economies. This paper examines the conditionality and institutional arrangements used to manage these transfers, and asks if there are...

This study provides a broad overview of the private housing market in central and eastern Europe and some of the CIS – its history, current conditions and implications for the overall economy. It highlights regional differences, describes the different policy choices that have been made, and...

This paper provides the text of the Gunnar Myrdal Lecture presented at the U.N. Palais des Nations in 2003. The lecture suggests that the gaps in income per capita between richer and poorer countries largely reflect the quality of their institutions. Institutions, by reducing uncertainty, are...

This paper provides the text of the Gunnar Myrdal Lecture presented at the U.N. Palais des Nations in 2004. The lecture addresses the present economic and political conditions in an integrated Europe and the challenges ahead, particularly how the expansion of the European Union will require...