Human capital is now widely acknowledged as one of the key determinants of economic growth. Research on how human skills accumulate and evolve through time has grown rapidly in recent years. This paper surveys it with a specific focus on Europe in the period 1830s–1930s. Our contribution is...

Strengthening Europe’s sovereignty has become a much-debated policy goal. This paper adds three arguments to ongoing discussions. First, it is no coincidence that recent years have witnessed increasing debate around how to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty. The Maastricht-EU, Europe’s...

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,...

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,...

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...

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...

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate income tax rates (CITR) and firm-level productivity growth using AMADEUS data of 304,410 observations from 79,842 European firms from 2006 to 2019. The results imply a robust non-linear relationship: higher CITRs are positively...

• 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 aims to study the self-perceived social exclusion of EU citizens during the COVID-19 emergency, taking into account their socio-demographic characteristics and the specific contexts of their countries of residence. To this end, we draw on data from the third round of the electronic...

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...

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...

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...

The evolving geopolitical landscape has placed South Africa at a crossroads, torn between its historical ties to the West and its growing relationships with BRICS+ nations, particularly China and Russia. The country's recent political shift, marked by the African National Congress (ANC) losing...

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...

The discussion on Artificial Intelligence (AI) often centers around its impact on productivity, but macroeconomic evidence for Europe remains scarce. Using the Acemoglu (2024) approach we simulate the medium-term impact of AI adoption on total factor productivity for 31 European countries. We...

Conventional wisdom holds that American material superiority leaves Europe with little room for manoeuvre. We dispute this. Raw power is not leverage. Leverage arises from asymmetric dependencies—the capacity to impose costs without incurring proportionate harm. Examining macroeconomic ties,...

This paper examines the existence and extent to which the "Baumol cost disease" could have affected aggregate growth in Europe. This would arise if lower productivity sectors began to account for an increasing share of output which would then put downward pressure on the prospective growth rate...

Football referees possess substantial discretion in allocating stoppage time, a decision that is comparatively opaque yet potentially consequential for match outcomes. This paper examines whether stoppage time allocation contributes to home advantage in contemporary European professional...

The relationship between Credit Default Swaps (CDS) and cash bonds plays a pivotal role in providing market participants with important information which directly affects investment and risk management strategies. Particularly relevant is the CDS-Bond basis, defined as the difference in basis...

In recent decades, European housing systems have faced significant challenges, including rising socioeconomic inequalities, demographic shifts, welfare cuts, the financialization of housing markets, and ongoing affordability crises. The Delivering Safe and Social Housing (DASH) project, carried...

In recent decades, European housing systems have faced significant challenges, including rising socioeconomic inequalities, demographic shifts, welfare cuts, the financialization of housing markets, and ongoing affordability crises. The Delivering Safe and Social Housing (DASH) project, carried...

This article analyses patterns in total factor productivity (TFP) in the EU in comparison with the US using the EU-KLEMS dataset. TFP growth in both regions has been largely driven by a few key sectors. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis (2013-2019), services played a major role in...

ue to Trump Administration policies, Europe faces a new economic geography. In essence, European economies have lost insurance of various types previously provided by the U.S. The European Union has more agency to shape its new environment and more opportunities for gains than is commonly...

The return of trade policy as an instrument of geopolitics has raised concerns about the future of the global trading system. But Trump's tariffs of 2025 have not led to a collapse of global trade. The key reason for this resilience is that Trump's tariffs are discriminatory, i.e. the US has a...

Over the past decades, a growing body of research has examined the structural and behavioral barriers that hinder firms from adopting cost-effective technologies to improve energy efficiency. In this paper, we draw on firm-level data from the EIB Investment Survey combined with energy efficiency...

Conventional wisdom holds that American material superiority leaves Europe with little room for manoeuvre. We dispute this. Raw power is not leverage. Leverage arises from asymmetric dependencies-the capacity to impose costs without incurring proportionate harm. Examining macroeconomic ties,...

This study examines eight seasons of professional football matches in the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and Spanish La Liga. The focus is on the existence of non-transitive triads in match outcomes in terms of points, the quality of performance as indicated by...

A longstanding debate in finance concerns the impact of social responsibility actions on firms' long-term profitability. This study provides a broad analysis on the relationship between ESG, its components, and stock returns. Using a dataset that spans from December 2014 to December 2023, this...

The evolving geopolitical landscape has placed South Africa at a crossroads, torn between its historical ties to the West and its growing relationships with BRICS+ nations, particularly China and Russia. The country's recent political shift, marked by the African National Congress (ANC) losing...

This paper applies network analysis to examine the impact of non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) and financial market stress on contagion risk within the interbank network. Using network-based simulations on euro area banks’ supervisory data, we find that banks’ strong capital and...

We provide initial estimates of the additional weapons and troops Europe will need to defend itself, assuming an effective US withdrawal from Europe. Russia's military production has ramped up: In 2024, Russia produced and refurbished an estimated 1,550 tanks, 5,700 armoured vehicles and 450...

Wir liefern erste Schätzungen über die zusätzlichen Waffen und Truppen, die Europa zur Selbstverteidigung benötigen würde, falls sich die USA aus Europa zurückziehen. Die russische Militärproduktion wurde hochgefahren: Es wurden schätzungsweise 1.550 Panzer, 5.700 gepanzerte Fahrzeuge...

We study how Europe could replace US support for Ukraine both (i) financially, in terms of the fiscal effort required, and (ii) militarily, in terms of weapon production. Financial effort: The financial challenge of replacing US aid is limited. Currently, European governments are spending just...

Europa muss seine Militärausgaben deutlich erhöhen, aber wie? Diese Frage beantworten wir mit einem Blick in die Geschichte. Wie haben Regierungen in der Vergangenheit in ähnlichen Situationen reagiert? Wie wurden Aufrüstung und Kriege typischerweise finanziert - durch Schulden, Steuern oder...

Europe must rapidly increase its military spending, but how? We collect 150 years of data to study what governments in similar situations have done. How were past military buildups financed? What was the relative importance of debt financing, budget cuts, and taxes? Our main finding is that...

In this paper we analyze the effects of investment screening on cross-border venture capital investments in Europe between 2007 and 2022. The data we work with is originally based on PRISM data which has been extended by Eichenauer and Wang and which we combine with deal data from Preqin to...