According to Research Associate Thomas I. Palley, global outsourcing represents a new economic challenge that calls for a new set of institutions. In this brief, he expands upon the problems of offshore outsourcing as outlined in Public Policy Brief no. 86 and focuses on the microeconomic...

This brief provides a detailed description of the Stability and Growth Pact, an agreement entered into by the member states of the European Union that has far-reaching implications for the long-run value of the euro, and therefore, on the real economy in terms of output growth and employment....

This brief assesses the experiences of Europe's policy regime in the two years since the introduction of the euro in 1999, particularly the performance of the European Central Bank (ECB), the institution in charge of conducting monetary policy for the euro area. Conventional accounts of European...

I summarize the main results and policy insights from the 2011 EIB Conference on Productivity and Long-Term Growth Potential in Europe. Europe's need for productivity growth has become more pressing against the backdrop of huge government debt and a beginning slowdown in labour supply. The...

Is international production sharing associated with stronger competitiveness? We address this question from the complementary viewpoints of firms and industries. We show that international production sharing is indeed associated with stronger competitiveness not only at the firm level but also...

In this paper, we propose a framework to evaluate the information content of subjective expert density forecasts using micro data from the ECB's Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). A key aspect of our analysis is the use of scoring functions which evaluate the entire predictive densities,...

Greece has reached a point where, under any plausible macroeconomic scenario, public debt will continue growing faster than GDP. Fiscal consolidation alone cannot close the solvency gap. A substantial reduction in the stock of debt is needed. Even post-debt restructuring, there is no guarantee...

With ageing populations and a stronger reliance on individual financial decision-making concerning asset portfolios, retirement schemes, pensions and insurances, it becomes increasingly important to understand the determinants of cognitive ability among the elderly. Macro-economic recession and...

The paper analyzes the effects of individual and household characteristics on current poverty status, while controlling for initial conditions, past poverty status and unobserved heterogeneity in 14 European Countries for the period 1994-2000, using the European Community Household Panel. The...