Apart from its widely accepted direct advantages, the introduction of the euro has been accompanied by a surge of inflation in most of the EU member states. At the same time, wages--in part, wages of the unskilled--are relatively losing ground, while the purchasing power of the average European...

Introduction Research and technological poles have been also set up in Greek regions but only in the late '80s, introducing local economy into the modern international competitive environment. These infant cores of innovation have already inspired both academics and entrepreneurs to construct...

The hesitation of many conventional-wisdom economists to rely more aggressively on fiscal policy measures in order to keep their public finances more or less balanced may have contributed to the persisting current slowdown. We discuss the potential of active fiscal policies in stimulating growth...

Deficits are necessary for growth, argues this economist. He offers some proposals as to how the EU can get around restrictions on government spending.

In this paper, we deal with some pieces of evidence that are necessary to explain the paradox of rapid GDP growth despite the dismal competitiveness of the Greek economy during 1995-2008. It is shown how the structural weaknesses of the Greek economy have hit the domestic economy investigating...

In this paper, we deal with some pieces of evidence that are necessary to explain the paradox of rapid GDP growth despite the dismal competitiveness of the Greek economy during 1995-2008. It is shown how the structural weaknesses of the Greek economy have hit the domestic economy investigating...

When things are good nobody asks why. When things are too good to be true, only a few realise that it is true. When things finally turn bad everybody finds out that the emperor has no clothes on. Then, promising politicians take over the crisis to save the world. Is this process just human...

This paper examines the evidence about the extent of globalisation by focusing on some aspects of international trade flows. A reinterpretation of the existing evidence based on the analysis of tables and a range of indicators is provided in the first part of the paper. The focus is on whether...

We consider whether openness is related to the aggregate technical efficiency in the OECD countries. We obtain efficiency measures using Data Envelopment Analysis and we find that our measure of openness is positively related to the technical efficiency scores.