This study examines the triangular relationship between fundamental rights, democracy and the rule of law in the EU and the challenges that arise in reflecting on ways to strengthen EU competences in these terrains. It analyses the current ‘state of play’ and provides a map of EU-level...

This is the report of a conference held in Lisbon on 8-9 November 2007, organised by the Foundation in cooperation with the European Commission Leader+ Observatory, the Leader+ Network in Portugal and the Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries (Ministério da...

This paper presents new evidence on the social returns to education within a macroeconomic growth regression framework. I use improved schooling data and a macro version of the Mincer relationship between education and wages for individual workers. The results suggest that an increase by one...

This paper investigates the average impact of government debt on per-capita GDP growth in twelve euro area countries over a period of about 40 years starting in 1970. It finds a non-linear impact of debt on growth with a turning point—beyond which the government debt-to-GDP ratio has a...

The number of variables related to long-run economic growth is large compared with the number of countries. Bayesian model averaging is often used to impose parsimony in the cross-country growth regression. The underlying prior is that many of the considered variables need to be excluded from...

We explore a view of the crisis as a shock to investor sentiment that led to the collapse of a bubble or pyramid scheme in financial markets. We embed this view in a standard model of the financial accelerator and explore its empirical and policy implications. In particular, we show how the...

When people share risk in financial markets, intermediaries provide costly enforcement for most trades and, hence, are an integral part of financial marketsu0092 organization. We assess the degree of risk sharing that can be achieved through financial markets when enforcement is based on the...

The purpose of the evaluation is to provide a comprehensive and independent assessment of the European Union (EU)’s past and present cooperation in Ivory Coast, in order to draw key lessons and make recommendations for the future, including within the context of joint programming between the...