The extent of social and economic issues has an impact on current society, and ways of solving them reflect not only on social policy but also on results of economic policies. The paper aims to evaluate the effects of social protection expenditures/benefits in relation to selected socio-economic...

The paper finds that the post-pandemic inflation surge and subsequent decline from 2021 to 2024 had no significant impact on public support for the Euro for the EA-19 and for most individual member states of the EA-19. From 2021 to 2024, net public support for the euro remained remarkably stable...

The use of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, or smart devices will go hand in hand with higher productivity, higher product quality, and lower trade costs. Therefore, it can be expected to be positively related to export activities. This paper uses firm level data for...

The circular economy (CE) is increasingly recognized as a financially material dimension of corporate sustainability, complementing and in some respects surpassing traditional Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics. Building on prior evidence of a negative relationship between...

The rapid digitalization of financial services in the European Union (EU) has not only enhanced convenience and inclusion but also increased exposure to sophisticated online financial fraud. Digital financial literacy (DFL) is widely promoted as a key tool for empowering consumers and reducing...

Space capabilities are a core element of any modern defence arsenal. In Europe, how­ever, military space capabilities are limited and dependence on the United States remains high. Europe must develop its capabilities in order to reduce dependencies and enhance its capacity to act on its own,...

The paper examines the European Union's efforts to promote economic and social integration. Despite significant convergence across EU member states, regional inequalities persist, particularly between urban centers and lagging rural areas, fueling Euroscepticism and political polarization. To...

This year, the Subnational B-READY series covers 66 cities across six EU Member States (Czechia, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Spain), spanning 64 NUTS2 regions. The primary objective of the Subnational B-READY studies is to identify and address regional disparities in regulatory...

Entrepreneurs are often at the forefront of developing green technologies, circular economy models, and social enterprises. In addition, the European Union Regulation on sustainable investment aims to redirect capital flows toward environmentally sustainable activities. This paper aims to...

Technological sovereignty is Europe's foundation for competitiveness and democracy. Europe must lead - not follow - in key industrial technologies. Strategic autonomy requires shared European investment and scaling. Industrial policy must balance resilience with open innovation. Governance of...

The semiconductor industry comprises two distinct sectors: advanced chips for smartphones or data centers and less advanced ones for cars. While political and media attention focuses on advanced chips, European industry does not use them. NVIDIA and TSMC dominate the supply of the most advanced...

R&D in the semiconductor industry is concentrated in a few countries: Japan, Korea, China, the United States, and Taiwan. European countries' R&D cooperation centers around Europe and the US, with relatively little cooperation with Asia. Diversifying R&D partnerships may secure access to R&D...

Since inheritances and their concentration are growing, inheritance taxes have been attracting increasing interest recently. Inheritance taxes are relatively widespread in Europe, being levied in 17 EU member states and a further ten European countries. Behavioral responses, tax design, and...

Public administrations continue to adopt open data initiatives. These initiatives involve creating, releasing, and re-using data sets on political, social, and economic aspects, which are published in machine-readable, interoperable formats and under open licenses. Yet, many open data...

The use of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, or smart devices will go hand in hand with higher productivity, higher product quality, and lower trade costs. Therefore, it can be expected to be positively related to export activities. This paper uses firm level data for...

This paper provides new evidence on how the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) affects productivity and employment in Europe. Using matched EIBIS-ORBIS data on more than 12,000 non-financial firms in the European Union (EU) and United States (US), we instrument the adoption of AI by EU...

• Europe must urgently strengthen its defence capabilities and secure strategic autonomy to avoid vulnerability to external pressures. • The proposal outlines a European Future of Defence Architecture focusing on next generation military technologies and strategic enablers (like AI, cyber,...

This paper documents the labour market position of artists across Europe and examines how it co-varies with public cultural spending. Using EU-LFS micro-data for 2009-2023, we compare artists to non-artists using harmonised measures of wage rank, employment, and non-standard work. Using...

Die Diskussion über die Wiederbelebung der Vermögensteuer in Deutschland hat in den vergangenen Monaten Fahrt aufgenommen. Mit Verweis auf Ungleichheit bei der Verteilung von Vermögen und den steigenden staatlichen Finanzierungsbedarf fordern Parteien und NGOs eine stärkere Besteuerung...

How would fundamental political change in Iran, leading to a democratic system with a free and rulesbased economic order, affect Germany and the EU economically? In the event of change, sanctions could be scaled back, allowing Iran to rejoin the global economy. This study quantifies the economic...

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has triggered profound structural changes in the country's economy, reshaping patterns of foreign trade, foreign direct investment and sectoral specialisation. This paper analyses the shifts in Ukraine's trade and investment structures...

The European football (soccer) market increasingly funnels rents to superstar players and intermediaries while weakening competitive balance. We trace this dynamic to two forces: (a) technological innovation that globalized broadcasting and magnified superstar returns, and (b) legal rulings...

We examine the changing attention that ECB Governing Council members pay to different policy objectives by analysing more than 4,600 speeches given between the establishment of the ECB and the summer of 2024. Alongside the primary objective of price stability, we consider the following potential...

Using information from the ECB's Bank Lending Survey, we examine how the implementation of borrower-based macroprudential measures (BBMs) between 2009-Q1 and 2023-Q3 affected mortgage lending standards in a sample of 15 euro area countries. We find that banks generally tightened credit standards...

Financial Conditions Indices (FCIs) are a widely used tool for assessing the broader monetary policy stance beyond the central bank's direct control. This paper presents a novel vector autoregressive (VAR) model that includes key macroeconomic variables and maps financial variables into a single...

We provide new evidence on the effects of fiscal consolidation measures on output, unemployment, income inequality and consumer price inflation. To identify causal impacts, we use a narrative-based instrumental variable strategy drawing on historical records of exogenous fiscal changes motivated...

This paper investigates the relationship between institutional and regulatory quality, and high-tech sector investment. Using data from 25 European Union (EU) countries from 2004 to 2019 (extended to 2023 for artificial intelligence-specific analyses), the study examines how institutional...

African governments are entering the geopolitical competition over critical raw materials with a growing sense of strategic confidence. While the AU-EU Summit in Luanda in November 2025 reaffirmed political commitments on both sides, European initiatives continue to lose ground. It is true that...

The acquisition of Greenland has repeatedly been a topic of discussion within US government circles since the 19th century. That is because of the island’s strategic loca­tion and its resources. In the summer of 2019, US President Donald Trump made his first bid to purchase Greenland from the...

US defence policy is characterised by contradictions that are on display once again in the Trump administration’s latest strategy documents. The reasons for this go far beyond the president’s erratic behaviour. At the core lies the unanswered question of how the United States should deal...

We use CPI micro data for nine euro area countries to document new evidence on consumer price stickiness in the euro area during the 2021-2024 inflation cycle. In 2022, the monthly frequency of price changes reached 12%, compared with an average of 8% over 2010-2019, roughly a...