Why did the socialist system that dominated Eastern European countries for much of the 20th century collapse around 1990? Drawing on the newly released wiiw COMECON Dataset and reports that the wiiw was publishing at that time, we explore whether the collapse was due to unfixable systemic flaws...

This study assesses the economic and social impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI) in 17 economies in Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE). More precisely, we investigate how different FDI inflows have affected various economic and social indicators, such as GDP growth, labour market...

In this study we argue for a 'Big Push' in infrastructure investments in greater Europe. We propose the building of a European Silk Road, which connects the industrial centres in the west with the populous, but less developed regions in the east of the continent and thereby is meant to generate...

In this paper we do a detailed analysis of Austrian gross export data at the industry level in order to detect potential trade specialisation lock-in effects vis-à-vis the countries from Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE). In addition we analyse Austrian global value added export...

Based on a panel data set for 38 European countries over the period 1995-2014 and by using the definition of 'foundational competitiveness', which we operationalise as GDP per working-age individual at PPP, this paper analyses how much trading partners matter for the national competitiveness of...

This study discusses the challenges that economic policy-makers in Europe have to cope with, in order to ensure an economically prosperous and institutionally stable community of Member States of the European Union (EU). At the analytical level, we not only document a process of...

This paper analyses how Italy's decades-long decline turned the country into the euro area's Achilles heel, the most vulnerable spot in the common currency. We use a structuralist framework to synthesise different (competing) supply-side and demand-side explanations, accounting for long-term...