We interpret the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), recently adopted by the EU as a mode of governance in the area of social policy and other fields, as an imitative learning dynamics of the type considered in evolutionary game theory. The best-practise feature and the iterative design of the...

Many people in the European Union fear that Eastern Enlargement leads to major job losses. More recently, these fears about job losses have extended to high skill labor and IT jobs. The paper examines with unique firm level data whether these fears are justified for the two neighboring countries...

Over the last decade, European Union members have experienced a dramatic increase in imports. This increase was accompanied by a strong growth in the number of imported goods and trading partners, indicating positive welfare gains for consumers via an extended set of consumption possibilities,...

The European Council selects the EMU participants by a vote with a qualified majority. These voting requirements influence the benefit-cost-considerations of the EU states and may make it necessary to loosen the convergence criteria and/or to grant side payments, in order to achieve the...

Mein Beitrag zu unserer Ringvorlesung fragt nach dem Einfluß Deutschlands auf die Wirtschaftspolitik der EG. Dieser Einfluß wird innerhalb und außerhalb Deutschlands sehr unterschiedlich gesehen. Ich habe diese unterschiedliche Sicht in zwei Begriffen - zwei Schlagworten - auf den Punkt...

This paper has provided an introduction to a multi-country model applied to the European Union which can be used to tackle fiscal policies questions in a static framework. We provide in addition a code written in GAMS, which accomodates the model specification in a concise and transparent...

In this paper, I will discuss this question with special emphasis on the European experience. The European Union (EU) qualifies for an interesting case study because of two reasons. First, it has been founded more than 40 years ago in 1957. Second, its ongoing process of deep Integration is...