The paper examines the effects of ageing and makes a case for partial pre-funding of pensions. The argument is based on inter-generational fairness in a situation where pension expenditure as compared to wages increases due to low fertility and increasing longevity. We illustrate the approach by...

This paper aims to identify the contribution of the business cycle and structural factors to the development of part-time employment in the EU-15 countries, through the exploitation of both cross-sectional and time series variations over the past two decades. This analysis is used to comment on...

This paper discusses the level and design of support schemes used to promote renewable electricity in Europe. A theoretical model is presented to determine optimal renewable energy policies. Policies that solely aim to address environmental externalities and energy security risks are unlikely to...

Study on the adjustment capacity to shocks of EU candidate and potential candidate countries of the Western Balkans, with a focus on labour markets, and background studies on several countries of the region. The main question addressed in this study is the performance of the labour markets in...

This paper presents an overview of the various methodologies for estimating potential output at the macroeconomic level. Emphasis was laid on the production function approach which is used together with the univariate statistical HP filter method to produce potential output estimates for the US...

The fiscal philosophy of EMU's budgetary rules is to bring deficits close to balance and then let automatic stabilisers play freely. Given the large tax and benefit systems in Europe, relying mainly on automatic stabilisation would allow a relatively high degree of cyclical smoothing while...

The European Monetary Union (EMU) has been the single most important policy-induced innovation in the international financial system since the collapse of the Bretton-Woods system. By eliminating exchange rate risk, EMU has eliminated a key obstacle to financial integration. But while a single...

The Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) conducts a number of surveys within the framework of the Joint Harmonised EU Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys. This programme was launched in 1962 with the industrial survey, and since then there has been a...

Working paper, focusing on the impact of soaring commodity prices, notably for food and energy on the economy and public finances of Mediterranean neighbour countries of the EU. Just before the global crisis soaring commodity prices pushed up inflation significantly, not least in EU neighbour...

We offer a detailed empirical investigation of the European sovereign debt crisis based on the theoretical model by Arghyrou and Tsoukalas (2010). We find evidence of a marked shift in market pricing behaviour from a ‘convergence-trade’ model before August 2007 to one driven by...