The 2004 EU enlargement will most likely yield major benefits to the new member countries in the long run. The new members will be able to capture gains from trade in goods and services and will moreover benefit from a continued inflow of financial and real capital. Without doubt, these...

The paper examines the determinants of location choices of French multinational firms in eastern and western Europe. The sample includes 1,843 location choices in 19 countries over the years 1980-1999. The results suggest there might be important differences between the two regions of Europe...

This paper analyses regional growth in eastern Europe in the second half of the 1990s, when regional disparities sharply increased. It aims to identify the factors behind growth and to investigate in particular the role of (foreign) investment, education and innovation as well as geographical...

The paper analyses the evolution of the trade specialisation pattern in the ten countries which will join the EU in 2004, by studying the dynamics of their comparative advantages over the period 1993-2000. The study finds that, although some countries are still broadly relying on natural...

We quantify the degree of persistence in unemployment rates of transition countries using a variety of methods benchmarked against the EU. In part of the paper, we work with the concept of linear u0093Hysteresisu0094 as described by the presence of unit roots in unemployment. Since this is...

This report provides an overview of the state of air quality in 13 central and eastern European countries involved in the European Union's Phare Programme. Based on EUROAIRNET monitoring network data for 1997 as reported by these countries, it also provides information on emission sources and...

The paper extends the standard intertemporal model of the current account to include two important stylised facts: (1) the persistence of current account positions and (2) the relevance of the fiscal balance. Specifically, the paper derives a closed form solution for consumption in the presence...

This paper deals with the discussion in Germany about job exports to the low-cost Eastern European members of the EU. It states that the critics of EU enlargement in Germany have overlooked that Eastern and Western Europe strongly differ in their capital formation and productivity levels. The...