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This paper examines the effect of economic complexity on economic growth in the context of the EU countries. Our results suggest that a group of countries in the EU whose economic complexity exceeds a certain threshold tend to converge to levels of income corresponding to their measured complexity. On the other hand, the interaction of the current account deficit with economic complexity has important effects on growth for a second group of countries with lower levels of complexity. Since we also find that income convergence is faster within the first group, we argue that convergence is much faster for countries whose economic complexity exceeds a certain threshold. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: In this paper we study a model for endogenous growth based on technology diffusion across European countries with respect to the major foreign partners. To that aim we disentangle the dynamics of such a problem by considering the single contribution to growth of each country, arising from every other individual country and for every strategic variable of the model. Among those, business services play a leading role for the link supported between innovations and production. Moreover technology growth itself fosters the off-shoring process of business services. Our calculations are an outcome of a program we settled for a continuous time estimation which is, in its nature, suitable for the study of the dynamic systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study examines the economic freedom and economic growth nexus in a panel of 28 European Union countries. We investigate the relationship between growth and different components of economic freedom, measured in five major areas of the Economic Freedom of the World index. The aim of the article is to assess which aspects of economic freedom – and to what extent – contribute to economic growth in the EU. Our empirical analyses suggest that the results are sensitive to the method of estimation. Using the Generalized Method of Moments estimator which allows addressing endogeneity, we found a positive relationship between economic growth and four of the five aspects of economic freedom: security of property rights, quality of monetary policy, freedom to trade and regulatory policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The euro crisis and a new debate about immigration in Europe have undermined support for the EU while the unsolved Greek debt problems as well as the ECB's quantitative easing policy have raised new crucial policy issues. It is necessary to identify the key issues of Eurozone stabilization and to clarify the economic benefits from monetary integration. As regards the economic welfare analysis of the euro, the new model presented shows the benefits of the euro's reserve currency position, namely in the framework of a neoclassical growth model with seigniorage based on international reserve holdings. Discounted benefits are about 10,000 € per capita in a stable Euro area. Thus the benefits are bigger than often considered, at the same time one may raise the question of whether the existing institutional setting of the Eurozone is sufficient for achieving long-term stability and prosperity. As regards the envisaged third rescue package for Greece it is emphasized that a haircut of public creditors along with adoption of a Greek capital levy plus privatization efforts are required to achieve debt sustainability and growth. The traditional interpretation of subsidiarity in the EU is found to be misleading and the vertical division of politics is destabilizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]