This paper investigates the differences between directly and indirectly seasonally adjusted aggregates. This difference is derived analytically for linear seasonal adjustment methods. GDP data for five European countries and three classes of seasonal adjustment methods are used to show...

The introduction of a common monetary policy in eleven European countries increased the need for leading indicators for that area. A reliable leading indicator should possess the following properties: (1) The movements in the indicator series should resemble those in the business cycle reference...

Institutional change is guided by rules. In the European Union these rules are given by Art. 250-252 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. These articles define the actors and rules that bring about changes in policies in the European Union. We analyze these articles as games in extensive form and...

This paper analyses the consequences of the planned enlargement on the EU budget for the years 2007 and 2013. It concentrates on the EU's Common Agricultural Policy and Structural Policy and calculates the possible fiscal consequences of enlarging the EU for various policy scenarios. Enlarging...

European Union economies are pressed by (i) a demographic change that induces population ageing and a decline of the workforce, and (ii) a split labour market that is characterized by high levels of unemployment for low -skilled people and a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers. This lack of...

Economic disparities between the regions of the European Union are of constant concern both for policy and economic research. In this paper we examine whether there are overlapping trends of regional development in the EU: overall convergence on the one hand and persistent or even increasing...

In 2005, the EU introduced an emissions trading system in order to pursue its Kyoto obligations. This instrument gives emitters the flexibility to undertake reduction measures in the most cost-efficient way and mobilizes market forces for the protection of the earth?s climate. In this paper, we...

Inflation differentials in the Euro area are mainly due to a sustained divergence of wage developments across the Euro area, and narrower differences in labour productivity growth (Alvarez et al., 2006). We investigate convergence of inflation using unit labour cost (ULC) growth and applying...

Using unit labor cost (ULC) data from Euro area countries as well as US States and German L¨ander we investigate inflation convergence using different approaches, namely panel unit root tests, cointegration tests and error-correction models. All in all we cannot reject convergence of ULC growth...

Job insecurity causes far reaching negative outcomes. The fear of job loss damages the health of employees and reduces the productivity of firms. Thus, job insecurity should result in increasing social costs. Analyzing representative data from 17 European countries, this paper investigates self...