This paper compares the technological and economic developments related to information and communication technologies in the 90s both in the US and Europe. In the first part, comparable information on the impact of ICT production and investment in both economies over the 90s is presented. The...

This study examines the financial structures and the performances of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as opposed to large enterprises (LEs) on the basis of the BACH database, which is the most advanced publicly available database for comparisons in this field. It covers the period...

In a little over one year, Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) will enter its third and final phase. As the date of 1st January 1999 approaches, the debate over European monetary unification is accelerating. The time has come, therefore, to shift our attention from the legal and technical issues...

Several studies have documented the weak response of regional wages differentials and labour mobility following region-specific ("idiosyncratic") shocks in the average of the EU countries. This has been often taken as evidence of the rigidity of labour markets in European countries, as opposed...

The recent growth of regional integration agreements (customs unions and free-trade areas) has been accompanied by a mounting concern for the health of the multilateral trading system. Much of this concern stems from the generally accepted view that the current WTO rules do not provide an...

The importance of wages to the short and long-run economic performace of countries needs little emphasis in the context of the present analysis. The main purpose of the analysis is therefore to assess whether the Community's labour markets have been performing well, in an international...

This paper argues that the Commission forecasts dispose of a resaonable track record. Most of the traditional test for examining the quality of predictions are passed in a satisfactory way. The comparisons with forecasts made by the IMF, OECD and national forecast institutes are not unfavourable...