Summary Inequality is a multidimensional phenomenon though it is often discussed along a single dimension such as income. This is also the case for the various decomposition approaches of inequality indices by recipients or income sources. In this paper we study one- and multidimensional indices...

For about a decade, GDP growth in Central European countries has been consistently faster than in the 'old' EU-15. As a first approximation, one can expect a growth differential of about 2 percentage points to prevail also in the future. This practical rule-of-thumb is broadly consistent with...

This paper analyses the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry in the CEE candidate countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) with special emphasis on trade with the European Union during the second half of the...

This paper discusses the evolution of competitiveness, industrial and trade specialization of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs). It is shown that the paths taken by the different CEECs have been quite diverse and we attempt to show that a combination of a catching-up plus trade...

This paper introduces a model for forecasting changes in employment levels and structures by sectors, occupational categories and educational attainment levels which is then applied to the new EU member states (NMS) and Bulgaria and Romania. The model is based on the following ideas As these...

In this paper we attempt to quantify the incidence of different types of technical barriers to trade (TBTs) on trade structures between seven Central and Eastern European countries (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania) and the European Union at the...

There is evidence that the skilled to unskilled wage rates were rising in the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s. This can potentially be explained by a Heckscher-Ohlin framework where economic integration implies that the advanced countries specialize in skilled-labour-intensive industries...

This paper develops a Schumpeterian model of international specialization and catching-up. In a previous version of the model we looked at the impact on international trade specialization when different patterns of technological catching-up are followed. One of these is a Gerschenkron pattern at...

Although there exists a vast literature on convergence and divergence of income levels across countries or regions at the aggregate level, there is only little work on convergence and / or divergence processes of productivity and wage levels at the more disaggregated industrial level. These are...

This paper uses data on consumption expenditure and price levels from the European Comparison Project (ECP) 1996 for the analysis of demand structures in a cross-section of 52 countries. The paper describes the patterns of consumption expenditures, price levels and relative prices for four...