Human capital is now widely acknowledged as one of the key determinants of economic growth. Research on how human skills accumulate and evolve through time has grown rapidly in recent years. This paper surveys it with a specific focus on Europe in the period 1830s–1930s. Our contribution is...

Strengthening Europe’s sovereignty has become a much-debated policy goal. This paper adds three arguments to ongoing discussions. First, it is no coincidence that recent years have witnessed increasing debate around how to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty. The Maastricht-EU, Europe’s...

Informal care is a cornerstone of long-term care for older adults but may entail substantial psychological costs for caregivers. Using seven waves (2004-2022) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for 27 countries, we estimate the causal effect of providing regular...

Der wissenschaftliche Beraterkreis der Bundesministerin für Wirtschaft und Energie hat ein Kurzgutachten zu den Auswirkungen der Lage im Nahen Osten vorgelegt. Ausgehend von ersten Analysen zu den kurzfristigen Effekten auf Lieferketten und Energiepreise, bezieht der Beraterkreis dabei auch...

This study examines the influence of social capital, intellectual capital, resource rents, and investment capital on the economic performance of the 18 member states of the European Union from 2005 to 2022. Principal component analysis and factor analysis are employed to construct composite...

This study provides new evidence on how production digitalization investment affects firm financial performance across diverse European regions. A panel of 14,935 firm-year observations from 30 countries (2012-2022), including a focused Baltic subsample, is used alongside a refined digital...

Expected goals (xG) are widely used to evaluate football performance. However, it is unclear whether players who consistently outperform their xG do so because of skill or because of luck. To our knowledge, this paper provides the first meta-analytic estimate of between-player heterogeneity in...

This paper combines international evidence from worker and firm surveys conducted in 2025 and 2026 to document large gaps in AI adoption, both between the US and Europe and across European countries. Cross-country differences in worker demographics and firm composition account for an important...

This report takes stock of gender equality in ECA, with a particular focus on women’s access to economic opportunities and jobs, alongside the urgent challenge of VAWG. It highlights the World Bank Group–supported initiatives across the region, illustrating both the range of solutions being...

Amid widening gaps in innovation and productivity growth, growing geopolitical tensions, and high ambitions for green and digital transitions, industrial policy has re-emerged as a central pillar of European strategy. This paper traces its evolution from post-war sectoral interventions through...

This paper combines international evidence from worker and firm surveys conducted in 2025 and 2026 to document large gaps in AI adoption, both between the US and Europe and across European countries. Cross-country differences in worker demographics and firm composition account for an important...

There are relatively few comparative cross-European studies on segregation, and those that do exist often use a single measure of segregation at a single spatial scale. This paper investigates ethnic segregation in seven European capitals - Amsterdam, Berlin, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris, and...

Large language models (LLMs) can lower the cost of producing complex text, potentially reshaping competition for research and development (R&D) funding to private firms. We provide the first evidence on this issue using data covering the universe of firm applications to a major competitive R&D...

Europe stands at a critical juncture in the evolution of the global space economy. Once a technological leader with deep capabilities across the space value chain, the EU now risks structural marginalisation as the sector shifts from a state-led model ("Old Space"), driven by geopolitical...

This paper investigates the determinants of regional disparities in road traffic accident (RTA) outcomes across European regions. Using panel data and negative binomial models, it examines socioeconomic, institutional, cultural and behavioural drivers on fatalities and injuries. The results...

This report presents the construction and analysis of a Multidimensional Index (MDI) of Well-Being across four European countries ─ Sweden, Germany, Spain, and Poland ─ using EU-SILC cross-sectional survey data spanning 2004-2024. Based on the OECD well-being framework, the analysis covers...

This knowledge note provides a short overview of IWFRM approaches and select examples of different initiatives and approaches. The objective is to provide a succinct summary that can inform initial research and discussions in countries that are looking to reform their system and identify...

Digital skills are becoming increasingly more important in the labor market as demand for them is increasing in all sectors. This paper explores the determinants of digital skill acquisition and estimates the impact of digital skills on wages in developing countries by using the latest round of...

Electric vehicles (EVs) in the EU face growing turbulence as shrinking consumer subsidies coincide with intensified competition from lower-cost Chinese manufacturers. Recent EU measures - higher tariffs on Chinese EVs and a strategy to reinforce the full industrial value chain - aim to safeguard...

Using a panel dataset of 385 European bank-year observations covering the 2012 to 2022 period, this study aimed to investigate the impact of derivatives on bank value and performance. We used bank-level panel data and conducted several multivariate statistical analyses, i.e., ordinary least...

Despite the economic relevance of climate-transition risk, firm-level carbon exposure often fails to appear as a robustly priced factor when ESG measures and sustainability shocks are conflated. This study examines whether carbon exposure is conditionally priced in European equity returns using...

We develop a novel firm-level indicator of Artificial Intelligence adoption in Europe (MAP-AI) by extracting information on AI usage from more than three million firm websites from Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg (2016-2024) using a Large Language Model. The indicator captures realized...

Conventional credit risk models understate tail risk by centering on mean default probabilities and neglecting distributional and sectoral heterogeneity. We propose a Quantile Probability of Default (QPD) framework based on unconditional quantile regressions estimated on flow default rates from...

This whitepaper examines how leading Swiss and European insurers approach sustainability reporting, drawing on a systematic analysis of sustainability reports published by 24 insurers between 2021 and 2024 and structured interviews with 12 industry executives. The study traces the consolidation...

The Pax Americana, which guaranteed the security of Germany and Europe after the Second World War, is coming to an end. Europe can no longer rely on its alliance and partnership with the United States. Even before Donald Trump’s second presidency, Europe was seeking to reduce its dependency on...

This paper aims to study the self-perceived social exclusion of EU citizens during the COVID-19 emergency, taking into account their socio-demographic characteristics and the specific contexts of their countries of residence. To this end, we draw on data from the third round of the electronic...

The evolving geopolitical landscape has placed South Africa at a crossroads, torn between its historical ties to the West and its growing relationships with BRICS+ nations, particularly China and Russia. The country's recent political shift, marked by the African National Congress (ANC) losing...

This paper provides new evidence on how the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) affects productivity and employment in Europe. Using matched EIBIS-ORBIS data on more than 12,000 non-financial firms in the European Union (EU) and United States (US), we instrument the adoption of AI by EU...

Space capabilities are a core element of any modern defence arsenal. In Europe, however, military space capabilities are limited and dependence on the United States remains high. Europe must develop its capabilities in order to reduce dependencies and enhance its capacity to act on its own,...

Conventional wisdom holds that American material superiority leaves Europe with little room for manoeuvre. We dispute this. Raw power is not leverage. Leverage arises from asymmetric dependencies-the capacity to impose costs without incurring proportionate harm. Examining macroeconomic ties,...

In recent decades, European housing systems have faced significant challenges, including rising socioeconomic inequalities, demographic shifts, welfare cuts, the financialization of housing markets, and ongoing affordability crises. The Delivering Safe and Social Housing (DASH) project, carried...

Over the past decades, a growing body of research has examined the structural and behavioral barriers that hinder firms from adopting cost-effective technologies to improve energy efficiency. In this paper, we draw on firm-level data from the EIB Investment Survey combined with energy efficiency...

The Pax Americana, which guaranteed the security of Germany and Europe after the Second World War, is coming to an end. Europe can no longer rely on its alliance and partnership with the United States. Even before Donald Trump's second presidency, Europe was seeking to reduce its dependency on...