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This article presents an overview of this issue in relation to the periodical's twentieth anniversary. The author discusses the organization of a anniversary panel in London, England to mark the occasion, and to review articles from the history of the periodical focusing on economic-policy development during these 20 years. The article also provides an introduction to other articles presented in this issue, including one concerning the evolution of exchange-rate management, the effects of government debts on interest rates, and higher education reform in Europe.

The aim of the paper is to establish the future intervention priorities in building a new programme that would target the economic development in the research area. The used methodology included an adapted A'WOT analysis - an initial SWOT analysis and a prioritization of the items through an expert questionnaire. In the present paper we analyze the experts' opinions and the areas where intervention is needed for the optimum strategies for the 2014-2020 financial frame. These should rely on the strengths in the Guidelines for Applicants, the rules for projects implementation and the institutional system, it should consider changes on the weak points concerning the programme objectives, the Guidelines for Applicants and the beneficiaries consultations, it should make use of opportunities coming from the crossborder status, European Union frame and economic opportunities and overcome the differences coming from crossborder status, membership of two different supranational structures and the economic gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies methodologies and strategies appropriate for the development of indicators of well-being at the level of subnational regions, thus contributing towards the incorporation of the subnational dimension into public policy making. Considerations in adapting and augmenting country-level indicators for application at the regional level are discussed. Special technical procedures involved in this process are described. These include consolidation of measures defined with reference to different poverty line thresholds in the income distribution, cumulation of data or measures over multiple survey waves and use of small area estimation methods. Empirical illustrations using comparable survey data from European Union countries are provided, to the extent possible with the available microdata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In general, the economic performance of European countries was disappointing in the 1990s. However, country differences increased, and in some European countries economic growth matched US rates. This paper uses a set of performance indicators to carve out a group of successful European countries and to compare their economic strategies to those of the more poorly performing, big continental economies. The analysis shows that the successful countries implemented a policy mixture of cost cutting, improving institutions, and investing in future growth. We consider the first two strategy elements to be preconditions, while investment in growth drivers such as research, education and technology diffusion is the sufficient condition for long-run growth. The difference between top and low performers is larger with respect to the dynamics of future investment than in cost cutting. In research expenditures, the top countries surpassed the big continental European countries in 1987, and have been increasing their lead steadily since that time. They are welfare states with a comprehensive social net, which they have maintained in principle, while improving institutions and incentive structures. The results are not in line with the usual twin hypotheses that high welfare costs and insufficient labour market flexibility are the main culprits in European underperformance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper analyzes the relationship between economic performance and institutional development in several Central and Eastern European Countries. Our meta-argument is that the structural transformations at the levels of the quantitative variables and mechanisms are only a part of the transition processes. In order to view the big picture, the qualitative aspects related to public policies and institutions should also be considered. We test the linkages between the quality of public policies and institutions for seven Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania) for a time span between 2001 and 2011. These countries are displaying a certain degree of heterogeneity in terms of economic performances and the design and implementation of public policies. We use for our analysis the World Bank indicators from World Wide Governance Indicators. In order to deal with the potential reverse causality issues, we employ Generalized Method of Moments Framework (GMM) by using the lagged variables as instruments. The impact of governance indicators is statistically significant even if we use several control variables: exchange rate, unemployment, current account deficit, taxes burden and price stability. The corresponding Sargan and Arellano-Bond test for zero autocorrelation in first-differenced errors tests shows that the results display a corresponding robustness. The main policy implications for our findings may be synthesized by the thesis, according to which a proper design of public policies, a high degree of their effectiveness and accountability, a stable social and political environment together with the rule of law and efficient anticorruption mechanisms are critical determinants of economic growth even in emerging markets. The impact of the government "size , economic structure and markets" mechanisms , monetary policy and price stability , ownership structure and legal rights , international exchange, freedom of exchange in capital and financial markets on economic growth is far from being negligible. Hence, the Central and Eastern European countries joining the EU should implement policies strength their institutions and to improve the quality of public decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé. Les données de six vagues d'enquětes du Panel européen des ménages (1996-2001) collectées dans onze pays indiquent que les travailleurs à bas salaire de l'Europe du Sud sont, contrairement à ceux de l'Europe du Nord, nettement moins satisfaits de leur emploi que les travailleurs à salaire élevé. En calculant par approximation la satisfaction au travail pour évaluer la qualité de l'emploi, les auteurs montrent que, si bas salaire ne rime pas nécessairement avec emploi de mauvaise qualité, les travailleurs de certains pays sont néanmoins doublement pénalisés: ils sont mal rémunérés et ont un travail de mauvaise qualité. Selon les auteurs, ce dualisme des marchés du travail en Europe correspond à des approches différentes au niveau national du compromis entre flexibilité et sécurité, cette dernière devant ětre privilégiée au plan politique pour améliorer la qualité de l'emploi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates to what extent business cycles co-move in the four largest euro area economies, using a large-scale database of nonstationary series for the euro area over the 1980:Q1 to 2003:Q4 period. We apply the methodology proposed by Bai (2004) and Bai and Ng (2004) to construct a coincident indicator of the euro area business cycle, based on the first common factor estimated from a dynamic factor analysis on the level of the variables. The indicator appears to be significantly close, from a statistical point of view, to the level of the euro area GDP in the most recent period. We also show that national developments are increasingly correlated to the indicator at the business cycle frequencies. We finally suggest a decomposition of GDP growth along the different stationary and nonstationary factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world economy grew strongly again in the first half of the year 2000. Up to the summer, economic activity was not noticeably dampened by the sharp increase in the price of oil since the beginning of 1999. In particular, the upturn in the USA persisted. Demand and output also expanded significantly in western Europe, while Japan showed marked production growth once again. World trade grew dynamically in the course of the significant upturn in the world economy. However, growth now appears to have passed its peak. A number of early indicators suggest that the dampening effects of a tighter monetary policy and the significantly higher oil price are now gaining the upper hand. The increase in oil prices continued this year, in contrast to the expectations of the Institutes this spring. After the price per barrel had risen from around 10 US-dollars at the beginning of 1999 to approximately 25 US-dollars in spring 2000, it rose again to up to 35 US-dollars this autumn. The increased price of oil imports in Japan has been alleviated by the appreciation of the yen, and the increase in the oil bill is similar to that in the USA. The industrial sector is hit harder in Japan than private households, because private petroleum consumption is lower in Japan than in the other industrialised countries.

The article provides information on conferences related to economic developments in Europe. A conference on Sustainable Resource Use and Economic Dynamics on June 5-8, 2006 which was organized by The Institute of Economic Research at ETH Zurich and Center of Tiburg will be held at Ascona, Switzerland. The International Association for Impact Assessment(IAIA) 26th Annual Conference on May 23-26, 2006 in Stavanger Norway. A conference on International Disaster Reduction aims to address the complex threats to today's society on risk management will be on August 27-September 1, 2006 at Davos, Switzerland.