Over the last quarter century, public finances have been under pressure in most OECD countries as deficits and debts rose under the pressure of relatively slow growth and high interest rates. This, in turn, has affected the welfare state, since efforts at containing deficits have often been...

The early literature critical of the European Monetary Union feared the effects of asymmetric shocks on an area with little intercountry labor mobility and no common fiscal policy. Yet, asymmetric behavior, rather than asymmetric shocks, appears to be at the root of present difficulties....

The authors examine how the economic interactions between rapidly emerging China and the rest of the world may evolve over the coming two decades. They discuss China's growth potential, drawing a parallel between China's rise and the historical rise of Britain, Japan and the United States....

Over the last six decades, economic developments in the three countries that were defeated in World War II look strikingly similar. First came rapid reconstruction. Then followed the economic miracles of the Golden Age. The years that went from the first oil shock to the mid-1990s still saw...