This paper provides a comprehensive review of the factors that can cause price levels to diverge and which are at the root of different inflation rates in Europe including the EU-27. Among others, we study the structural and cyclical factors influencing market and non-market-based service, house...

Where does the balance of power lie in a policy-making institution with an external agenda setter, legislators, and lobbies? In a multiple round majority rule game with sophisticated actors, we show that the agenda setter obtains its most preferred policy outcome even if all lobbies and...

This paper explores how the Stability and Growth Pact may cope with the future costs of population ageing in the European Union. Clearly, population ageing has forced countries to reform their pension systems, and will continue to do so, both by reducing the generosity of pension arrangements...

This paper deals with the voting rules in the EU Council. Both internal and external impact of the voting rules are evaluated. Internal impact affects the distribution of power among the member states and external impact affects power relations between the main decision-making bodies in the EU....

We assess the sustainability of public finances in the EU15 using stationarity and cointegration analysis. Specifically, we use panel unit root tests of the first and second generation allowing in some cases for structural breaks. We also apply modern panel cointegration techniques developed by...

This paper estimates forward-looking Taylor rules for the euro area. Using the asymmetries in inflation and cyclical output developments across countries, we investigate the adequacy of the single monetary policy for each of the European Monetary Union (EMU) member countries. Notable differences...

The financial integration in Europe concentrates on cross-border mergers rather than cross-border lending and emphasizes the need for harmonizing bank regulation and supervision. We study the impact of cross-border lending in a theoretical model where banks acquire either hard or soft...

This paper develops a NATREX (NATural Real EXchange rate) model for two large economies, the Eurozone and the United States, which are fully specified and allowed to interact. After description of the theoretical framework grounding on dynamic disequilibrium modelling approach in continuous...

This paper proposes a new method of forecasting euro area quarterly real GDP that uses area-wide indicators, which are derived by optimally pooling the information contained in national indicator series. Following the ideas of predictive modeling, we construct the area-wide indicators by...

A national-champions-related industrial policy has become (again) en vogue among European politicians. Against this background, our work orders different types of national champions along the industry lifecycle. Different types of locally bound externalities appear along the lifecycle. In a...