Europe's innovation bottleneck increasingly manifests in the difficulty of scaling promising startups into globally competitive firms. Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE) is particularly exposed to this due to limited finance and local acquirers, which lead to serious risks of relocation...

A credible EU enlargement policy remains necessary from a geopolitical perspective, but can only succeed through a more pragmatic and gradual integration approach. New members amplify the existing challenges to EU decision making, rule-of-law conditionality and political cohesion, particularly...

Digital skills are becoming increasingly more important in the labor market as demand for them is increasing in all sectors. This paper explores the determinants of digital skill acquisition and estimates the impact of digital skills on wages in developing countries by using the latest round of...

This working paper investigates the tension between market forces and welfare policies by applying Karl Polanyi's "double movement" study to pre- and posttransformation Poland. The analysis aims at providing a comprehensive perspective on how poverty relief policies impacted and have been...

Transition to renewable energy leads to assumed economic diversification; however, the institutional risks for hydrocarbon-dependent economies remain high. This paper identifies the conditions under which transitioning economies enter a novel dependency during the renewable transition. Our...

This report analyzes and compares the financing structures of non-financial corporations (NFCs) in eleven CESEE economies (CESEE EU-MS) against the background of the recent COVID-19 and energy crises. It also puts developments across the region in a broader EU context. In addition, this report...

The Serbian case illustrates the complex interplay between post-socialist transformations, market liberalisation, and the retreat of the state from housing provision. Despite a comprehensive legal framework, social housing (redefined in 2016 as "housing support") remains marginal, representing...

This report takes stock of gender equality in ECA, with a particular focus on women’s access to economic opportunities and jobs, alongside the urgent challenge of VAWG. It highlights the World Bank Group–supported initiatives across the region, illustrating both the range of solutions being...

This 11th edition of the EU Regular Economic Report looks at how innovation can drive growth in CEE countries. The Draghi and Letta reports set a compass for the EU overall, but the bloc is far from homogenous. This report focuses on the growth models and innovation ecosystems of four CEE...

This chapter revisits the scholarship on life satisfaction in Eastern Europe. We first look at the broader drivers of life satisfaction identified in the literature. Then, we discuss the 'happiness gap' in Eastern Europe - the observed difference between the self-declared happiness of residents...

The process of transition and growth in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) provides interesting insights, considering the countries' historical relationship with the Soviet Union. The 20 years after the Eastern enlargement of the European Union show an integrative power within the Single Market....

Understanding the structural change in catching-up regions and the spatial distribution of economic sectors is essential for designing comprehensive policy strategies to promote balanced economic development. This study examines the economic restructuring of the 11 central and eastern European...

As countries rapidly urbanize, settlements are expanding into hazardous flood zones. This analysis considers spatial urbanization patterns and the evolution of flood exposure between 1985 and 2020 in 55 countries in the Europe and Central Asia region. The evidence in this report suggests that...

We study the labour market impact of immigration to the United Kingdom, focusing on the large inflows following the 2004 EU enlargement. Using the Lifetime Labour Market Database (LLMDB) - a longitudinal 1% sample of National Insurance records - we provide the first analysis of immigration's...

Inequality of opportunity is a critical issue that significantly impacts the socioeconomic landscape. Understanding the variations in income and educational attainment has become increasingly important, as these disparities are often shaped by social determinants such as individual effort and...

EU countries are often compared with each other. However, it can sometimes be misleading to contrast small countries like Luxembourg or Malta with larger ones such as Germany, France or Italy. Analysing regional data can highlight disparities either across the EU or within individual countries,...

This paper assesses the green tourism readiness of six EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe - Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania - using a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model. As tourism sectors face increasing pressure to align with the...

We investigate the broad economic impact of accession in the case of 13 countries who joined the European Union starting with 2004, by comparing them with both EU and non-EU countries. Using 25 years of data, we document significant post-accession improvements in productivity and/or GDP per...

Over a quarter of the world’s population lives in countries that have undertaken transitions from central planning to some form of market-based coordination. These transitions entail far-reaching and complex economic and institutional changes and have had widely divergent trajectories....

This Guidance document accompanies the 25 Sector Fiches and the supporting Excel files developed under the project Credible Climate Law-aligned Transition Plans implemented by ICF and CLIMACT. This project was contracted by the European Commission with the objective to develop a set of sector...

The objective of providing European Climate Law-aligned pathways and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) underpinning them is to offer a reference that companies can draw on to prepare their transition plans. By addressing an intermediate level between companies and the EU's economy-wide...

This working paper explores strategies and interventions that LTC systems in ECA could adopt to strengthen the climate resilience of people with functional limitations and their caregivers. After a short section on methodology and conceptual framing, the paper introduces the IPCC climate risk...

Economic growth in Europe and Central Asia eased to 2.4 percent in 2025, reflecting a sharp slowdown in the Russian Federation. Outside Russia, growth momentum remains broadly resilient, supported by private consumption, infrastructure spending, and a gradual recovery in trade. While a modest...

Europe and Central Asia (ECA) is at a turning point. After a period of convergence and reform-driven growth during the first decade of the 2000s, the region's productivity engine has lost momentum. Total factor productivity growth has halved since the global financial crisis, and the gains from...

This study identifies the minimum economic and institutional conditions that candidate countries must meet to ensure macroeconomic stability, sustainable growth, and effective integration into the EU, under a politically accelerated enlargement process. In the area of external accounts,...

In this paper, cointegration and causality relationship among human development (HDI), financial development (FDI) and sustainable development (ESG) for five CEECs are investigated. In the study covering the period 1990-2022, Hatemi-J (2008) test was used to investigate cointegration...

This paper has investigated the role that universities may play in shaping a sustainability-oriented professional identity of accountants, which represents an essential contribution of the paper. A sample of 713 answers collected via an online questionnaire-based survey from prospective...

Grasping the complex interplay between digital innovation and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices is vital for policymakers and businesses seeking to promote sustainable economic growth while complying with global sustainability standards. In this context, our paper analysed...

In 1991, the average labor productivity of the then-new federal states (plus West Berlin) only reached nearly half of the total national productivity level. Since then, the average labor productivity of these states has climbed up to nearly 90 percent. However, the ranking of the individual...

This paper examines the relationship between militarization, and income inequality in Eastern Bloc European countries from 1990 to 2023 - a period marked by post-socialist transition, economic upheaval, and political instability. The region's unique geopolitical position and complex...

This paper introduces a novel application of Growth-at-Risk (GaR) as an early warning system (EWS) for predicting recessions. By transforming GaR into a classification model, we assess its ability to signal economic downturns across 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies from 2005 to...

We examine the corporate criminal records of 18,187 firms operating in 17 European emerging markets and empirically analyze the effects of board composition and national institutions on crime deterrence. Our analysis reveals that 872 firms (about 5 % of the sample) committed 1734 crimes over...

Uzbekistan has made significant progress in its transition to a market economy since 2017, achieving advancements in macroeconomic stabilization, trade and exchange rate liberalization, price liberalization, and small-scale privatization. Despite these successes, challenges remain in reforming...

This Special Eurobarometer 564 report is a comprehensive study commissioned by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood (DG ENEST) and conducted between February and March 2025. This report delves into various aspects of EU enlargement, providing...