The assessment of 10 years of EMU is ambivalent. On the one hand, the introduction of the common currency has contributed towards price stability and the euro has acquired a global status next to the dollar. Monetary Union has also stimulated cross-border trade within the euro area. On the other...

Ten years after the start of EMU, the global financial market crisis is putting its viability to a test. In the absence of other mechanisms to smooth such a shock, a higher degree of economic policy co-ordination and closer co-operation between the euro area member countries and the ECB is...

After the establishment of the Internal Market ten years ago, the EU has implemented the Economic and Monetary Union as the highest stage of economic integration. An analysis, based upon an integration model, of the impact of accession to the EU for Austria, Finland and Sweden suggests that the...

The tax reform 2004-05 includes tax cuts within income taxation (€ –2.2 billion) and corporate taxation (€ –1.1 billion) as well as increases of several excise taxes (€ +232 million). The changes in the income tax rate scale taking effect in 2005 will increase tax progression and...

The year-2000 tax reform – together with the "family package" – will reduce the tax burden on private households and enterprises by ATS 32.5 billion on a medium-term basis. ATS 17 billion result from the loss of wage and income tax revenues due to the reform of the income tax-rate table, ATS...

Through simulations using the WIFO macro model it is possible to estimate the effect of changes in trade policy – i.e., of East European opening up and of EU eastward enlargement – on the Austrian economy: although competitive pressure has considerably increased in some economic sectors...

EU membership implied for Austria in the first place considerable adjustments in the area of economic policy and also of the private sector. In many policy areas the government had to cede competence to the Community. Austria as the fourth-richest EU member state, is a net payer to the EU...

Austria and Switzerland have pursued different strategies towards European integration: Austria, having acceded to the EU in 1995, became a member also of Economic and Monetary Union in 1999. Switzerland, on the other hand, after the rejection of the EEA Agreement in a referendum in 1992, opted...

The Agenda 2000 of the European Commission and the state of play in negotiations imply that the current candidate countries are going to join the Union in two consecutive groups. This is why simulations for the 2002 to 2010 period, using WIFO's macroeconometric model, assume that the first group...

An overly expansionary monetary policy stance (particularly in the USA) fuelled speculation on stock markets; when the bubble burst, economies fell into recession. These mechanisms are explained in a theoretical model with three inter-acting markets for money, equities and goods.