Central and Eastern European countries have experienced a rapid transformation of their economic, political and welfare regime(s). From a state-paternalist welfare state, post-communist countries are now moving towards something new. A shift in the main social policy paradigm is, in fact, taking...

This paper discusses the emergence of a new model of welfare and social assistance in Central and Eastern Europe. It starts by briefly summarizing the most recent social policy developments occurring in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia...

This paper provides a brief description of the main systemic problems (strukturprobleme) of post-communist capitalism(s), as well as exploring the main changes occurring in the social structure and the subsequent new social risks and welfare state responses emerging. It shows that post communist...

This article explores the post-communist worlds of welfare capitalism in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, including the successor states of the former Soviet Union. It discusses recent developments, whilst offering some additional theoretical reflections on the key factors that have...

This article asks whether Central and Eastern European societies should be seen as fully consolidated democracies or whether they should still be considered as democracies at risk. Using the concept of embedded democracy developed by Wolfgang Merkel and the members of the project on Defective...

This paper investigates the reasons, the transformative processes and the social mechanisms involved in the establishment of the European economic and monetary union (EMU). Contrary to commonly accepted theories and approaches used to explain institutional change, it argues that the...

This paper aims at exploring the relationship between Europeanization, Enlargement andsocial policy developments in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, it examines theimportance of ideas, interests and institutions in the making of contemporary public andsocial policies, as well as...

In explaining economic phenomena, economic analysis concentrates on selected influences and fixes the host of other factors under a ceteris paribus clause. This view, which goes back to Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), is developed in the first part of the book. Aggregation is viewed as a particular...

Life annuities provide a guaranteed income for the remainder of the recipient’s lifetime, and therefore, annuitization presents an important option when choosing an adequate investment strategy for the retirement ages. While there are numerous research articles studying annuities from a...

Even 50 years after Modigliani/Miller’s irrelevance theorem, the basic question of how firms choose their capital structure remains unclear. This survey paper aims at summarizing and discussing corresponding recent developments in empirical capital structure research, which, in our view, are...