This paper reviews the economic debate surrounding both the opportunities and the challenges arising from European monetary union. It is organised in two parts. Part I examines the economic environment in EMU, analysing the role of markets and the macro-economic framework. It finds that the...

This paper presents results of an on-going joint European Commission / OECD project, aimed at monitoring the direct influence of tax and benefit instruments on household incomes. Indicators of financial work incentives are needed for identifying any undesired influences of taxes and social...

Forecast errors are large in the recently acceded Member States and the mistakes have a similar order of magnitude in the Commission services' forecasts, Consensus forecasts and projections made by national authorities. The prediction mistakes cannot be attributed to bias or autocorrelation....

European policy makers, notably in the euro area, seem to take for granted that the electorate will punish them for bold reform in product and labour markets. This may explain why progress in the euro area has been comparatively limited. This paper posits and, using a dataset for 21 OECD...

This study traces and analyses the changes in firm and industry structure due to EU market integration and the integration of the EU in the global economy. It focuses on changes in competitiveness based on innovation and technology development.

This paper examines the benefits of co-ordination in EMU in a stylised manner and how these benefits have shaped the co-ordination framework in EMU. It then discusses in detail the co-ordination experience in four areas that are particularly important for the functioning of EMU: (i) fiscal...

The 2003 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy has been assessed as an important reform in the right direction with respect to allocational efficiency and regarding environmental, animal welfare and food safety requirements. From an economic point of view the introduction of decoupled direct...

Using a large international firm-level data set, we estimate separate effects of host and parent country taxation on the location decisions of multinational firms. Both types of taxation are estimated to have a negative impact on the location of new foreign subsidiaries. In fact, the impact of...

While the Maastricht Treaty establishes the entry conditions for Member States to join the single currency, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) aims to make budgetary discipline a permanent feature of EMU. Consequently, the Pact is commonly interpreted as a major building block of EMU's...

This paper discusses the future of the corporate income tax in an integrating world economy. The first part of the paper reviews some important trends in corporate taxation across the OECD area. The second part discusses the role of the corporation tax, laying out guidelines for corporate tax...