The purpose of this paper is to examine the economic aspects of EU policy towards its Eastern neighbors in the former Soviet Union. For a long period of time, this region was considered as less important for the EU, as compared to Central and Eastern Europe, which was the subject of a...

The paper discusses the role of regional public goods vs. global goods in influencing postcommunist transition in Central and Eastern Europe and former USSR with special attention given to three particular factors: (i) external anchoring of national reform process; (ii) international trade...

The collapse of communism faced Poland and other former Soviet bloc countries with the need for a massive “institutional refit”, as regards both economic and political institutions. This paper describes where some of the key new institutions were derived from (either in the form of...

The spectacular, sustained economic growth experienced in several East Asian countries leads to the question what Europe can learn from the East Asian economic model. Three advantages of the East Asian model stand out: small social transfers, low taxation and free labor markets. The superiority...

When the EU began to plan enlargement, it was important to define and establish a new relationship with the successor states to the Soviet Union. This paper traces the evolution of the EU's policy towards those successor states from 1991 until the present. In the 1990s the EU tended to treat the...

As the process of population ageing in Europe carries on and the retirement age increases, the relationship between age and productivity becomes more and more important. One can be afraid that as the average age of the working individual goes up, the average level of productivity growth will go...

The paper briefly discussed the main parts of the Polish tax system underlining its important bad points and problems. After almost 15 years after introduction of main taxes, PIT, CIT, VAT and Excise, there is a need for some kind summary in these fields. The huge scope of subject allows only...

This paper uses NIESR’s global econometric model, NiGEM, to analyse possible adjustment paths for the US current account, if its current level of 6 per cent of GDP proves unsustainable. Nominal exchange rate shifts have only a transitory impact on current account balances, so any long-term...

The dispersion in current account balances among countries in the euro area has widened markedly over the past decade-and-a-half, and especially since 1999. We decompose current account positions for euro area countries into intra-euro-area balances and extra-euroarea balances and examine the...

Institutional variables are the most important factor explaining real convergence. But what are institutions? This paper examines the relationship between institutions and policies, institutions and organisations, and formal and informal institutions. The concept of propelling and stabilizing...