Croatia’s EU membership and the dilemma of state aid (by Roman Stöllinger; pp. 1-7) Keywords: state aid, industrial policy, shipyards Countries covered: Croatia Topics: Macroeconomic Analysis and Policy Panel data analysis of the CEECs: tracing growth determinants over time (by Doris Hanzl-Weiss; pp. 8-14) Keywords: panel regressions, growth determinatns Countries covered: CEECs Topics: Macroeconomic Analysis and Policy Japan, the United States and the euro area (by Mario Holzner; pp. 15-18) Keywords: growth, demography Countries covered: Japan, United States, euro ar...more

(Report based on Background Study for European Competitiveness Report 2012, see http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/industrial-competitiveness/competitiveness-analysis/european-competitiveness-report/index_en.htm) Summary The ongoing internationalization of production has altered the economic landscape. Many products used to be produced locally using inputs drawn largely from the domestic economy, which implied that most of the value chains or production processes used to be located in the country where a firm had its headquarters. Technological development has facilitated the geogra...more

A major international transmission channel of productivity increases is trade in intermediate products and services. This paper analyses international rent spillovers at the industry level and for the first time investigates effects from the service sector in this international framework. The World Input-Output Database (WIOD) allows us to improve over the traditional approach of using trade in intermediates in the estimation of international spillovers by making use of input-output linkages between industries in different countries. Our results using this novel approach confirm the productivi...more

Import intensities of production in the New EU Member States in 1995 and 2006 (by Leon Podkaminer; pp. 1-5) Keywords: import intensity, trade, input-output Countries covered: New EU Member States, China, Turkey, Japan, Russia, USA Topics: International Trade, Competitiveness and FDI A note on social indicators for MENA and transition countries (by Mario Holzner; pp. 6 7) Keywords: unemployment, inequality, migration Countries covered: Middle East and North Africa Topics: Labour, Migration and Income Distribution Three crises (by Vladimir Gligorov; pp. 8-10) Keywords: debt crisis...more

This policy note argues that the current global economic crisis enforces an adjustment process in the countries of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CEE and SEE) in the form of real exchange rate depreciation. Because of the weakness of financial institutions and built-up foreign currency debt such a process has inherent dangers to lead to overshooting and a possible capital flight out of these economies. In such circumstances the economies are severely constrained in putting the types of policies in place which are currently pursued in most of Western Europe, the USA and Japan, that i...more