Since its emergence from a turbulent post-communist transition, Albania has achieved remarkable progress in economic and social development. Governance improvements, especially in the effectiveness of public administration, have been instrumental to the country's impressive economic performance...

For Croatia, the challenge is to create conditions that will attract investment and produce growth. These conditions can broadly be categorized as (a) stable, progressive and predictable laws and institutions; (b) efficient labor and financial markets; (c) macroeconomic and financial stability;...

For Croatia, the challenge is to create conditions that will attract investment and produce growth. These conditions can broadly be categorized as (a) stable, progressive and predictable laws and institutions; (b) efficient labor and financial markets; (c) macroeconomic and financial stability;...

Processes of regional economic integration have been shaping the economic relations between countries significantly during the last decades. In addition, an increasing integration of the national economies into the global economy has affected these economic relations, too. In an effort to...

The effectiveness of NATO conditionality for institutional reforms is highly controversial. Some papers argue that any effect this conditionality might have had may be due to endogeneity effects, i.e. NATO may have picked the winners. We argue that this is not the case. First, NATO-Mazedonia...

International activities of commercial banks are a potential source for the transmission of shocks across countries. In Europe, bank finance plays a relatively important role, and efforts have been made at creating a level playing field for financial institutions. This paper reviews the stylized...

With twelve new members the decision making in the European Union via intergovernmental cooperation will become ineffective. In order to avoid a Stagno-Europe the EU has a choice: Either it looks for the very essentials in the common institutional frame or the member states agree in ceding...

This paper examines the transition process within Eastern Europe and the integration process with the EU and shows that the requirements for the transition towards a market economy overlap with the requirements for EU accession. Furthermore, the economic situation of the candidate countries is...

The process of European integration has gained considerable momentum during the past couple of years. This paper provides an assessment of the degree of integration of both the accession states of central and eastern Europe and of the pre-ins for monetary union with respect to Germany. Using...

Germany has about the same proportion of foreigners in its population as the United States, it is an immigration country. In a way, Germany has let immigration happen, but it did not really have an explicit immigration policy in the past. Now it has to make up its mind on its immigration policy...