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Insufficiently flexible labour markets combined with high welfare costs are often thought to be the main cause of unsatisfactory growth in Europe. This paper uses the OECD data on regulation of the product and labour market to confirm the difference in the extent of regulation between US and Europe in labour and product market regulation. However, there are at least two other explanations for European underperformance during the nineties: insufficient investment in long run determinants of growth and macroeconomic policy. We first show that European policy differed from that of the US in all three areas. The extent of the differences is decreasing for labour market regulation, but increasing for macroeconomic policy and for investment into future growth. Then we exploit performance differences between European countries to assess the relative importance of labour market reforms versus investment into long-run growth. The best performing European countries did fine tune incentives in labour and product markets, without dismantling the welfare regime and with little deregulation for regular labour contracts. The largest continental economies - Germany, France and Italy - did not reform their institutions to the same extent. However the main difference between the top 3 and the big 3 countries is the increasing investment of the successful countries into the determinants of long run growth. This indicates that labour market regulation may be an important condition for growth, while investment into research, innovation and new technologies is the sufficient condition.

The economic performance of European countries was in general disappointing in the nineties. However, country difference increased, as it was that in some European countries economic growth and productivity accelerated or could match US rates. This paper uses a broad set of performance indicators - plus some deliberate choices - to carve out a group of successful countries and to compare their economic strategy to that of the low performing large European economies. The analysis shows that these successful countries used a policy mixture of cost cutting, improving institutions, and investing in future growth. We consider the first two strategy elements as preconditions, the investment in growth drivers as the sufficient condition for longrun growth. The difference between top and low performers is the largest for investments into determinants of future growth such as research, education and the diffusion of new technologies. The top countries surpassed the large European countries in research outlays in 1988 and are steadily increasing their lead since that time. The top performers are welfare states with a comprehensive social net, which they maintained in principle, while improving the incentive structure and the inner workings of their institutions. The results are not in line with the usual twin hypotheses that high welfare costs and insufficient labour market flexibility are responsible for European underperformance.

There is a consensus that within the European Union, Germany is presently the country lagging farthest behind in terms of economic dynamics. Most researchers blame rising wages, welfare costs, and overregulated labour markets for this poor position. Some add that as a result of membership in the European Monetary Union, Germany lost the advantage of having low interest rates. To a certain extent, all view German unification as a prime culprit. This article acknowledges that although these factors have contributed to the recent underperformance of Germany, another major reason has been overlooked. A problem was brewing in Germany long before unification, namely the danger of being a high wage country specialised in medium technologies. We show that Germany neither increased its investment into research and education, nor did it embrace ICT technology. Germany lost its position as the European leader in research expenditures relative to GDP. For a set of 16 growth drivers, the dynamics of investment into research, education and information technology during the nineties were the slowest of all EU countries, and according to a quantitative indicator of total investment into the future Germany ranked second to last. Investment into future growth is specifically crucial when costs are high and markets are strictly regulated. Comparing the three potential reasons for low growth, namely underinvestment into growth drivers, rising costs and strict regulation, we find the first one to be the most important growth blocker and the least acknowledged in the German debate.

Austria is a country with a historically strong intervention of government. Specifically a large part of the manufacturing sector and electricity had been nationalized after world war II, combined with public ownership in telecommunication, transport and banking this created one of the largest public sectors in Europe. This articles describes experiments of privatization performed in the last decade ranging from the transfer of ownership, corporatisation, liberalization to activities promoting efficiency and competition within the government. We specifically focus on the institutional framework needed for a successful privatization, stressing the role of a professional privatization agent, who monitors the privatization process.

There are several reasons why it has become important to rethink economic policy. Out of the European perspective it is the new currency, the enlargement towards Central and Eastern European countries, the sluggish growth and the end of productivity convergence towards the USA and the insufficient creation of employment. From the transatlantic perspective increasing differences in the economic policy and the potential rise of conflicts between Europe and the USA, for example, in trade, competition and health issues are important. The current volume touches most, but not all of these topics. It starts with the overview by Joseph Stiglitz on policy issues. Then macroeconomics policy is discussed, followed by the problem of an ageing society and European enlargement. Differences between Europe and the USA are large in taxation and in the role of public finance. The relative competitiveness of countries as well as of Europe will be decided by investments into new technologies and progression towards the Science Based Economy. In the final section the role of economists in shaping the economic agenda and giving policy advice is discussed

Social and political sciences use the term 'identity' in describing a wide range of phenomena, whether these be personal explanations of self-understanding, descriptions of common interests or the shared experiences of a larger group. It has been used in the recent analyses of countries or larger communities, but also in the historical studies of very different societies in developing or industrialized countries. To make the concept more operational and open to empirical research, we dichotomize it into an inclusive versus an exclusive type. This enables us to carve out the different policy conclusions associated with each type. We then apply the concepts for analysing the emergence of European identity over the past decades, as well as its limits and recent headwinds. We present survey data on national and supranational identity and country differences concerning trust in national and European institutions. As a counter-strategy to populism and the exclusive type of identity, political observers, from scientists to members of the media, are split into suggesting either a "cordon sanitaire" to discourage voting for such ideas versus an embracement strategy by including their representatives into government, thereby controlling them or revealing their incompetence. This paper, in contrast, ventures a proactive strategy of four steps to localize the root causes of the success of populism, offering an inclusive vision for the long run, policy instruments for economic improvements and a new narrative.

Europe is less dynamic than other areas in the world. The European Union will lose its position as the largest economic region, with the share in world output decreasing to less than 15% in 2050. This article designs a strategy based on which Europe can increase its internal dynamics, connect with its dynamic neighborhood and stabilize its eastern and southern regions. These regions are currently searching for development paths different from those in the US and China. The envisaged strategy learns from past errors, counteracts "my country first calls", balances uneven trade and investment pacts, and prevents land and resource grabbing. A new partnership strategy with neighbors in Eurasia, the Middle East and Africa will enable Europe to overcome its growth fatigue. It could help to reshape globalization and convert the current "ring of fire" into a "ring of friends". Then, together with its neighbors, Europe could still be an important economic region in 2050, on par with China and larger than the US plus its neighbors.

Political opposition to globalisation has risen in industrialized countries, although the positive overall effects on the growth of the world economy and the alleviation of poverty are empirically verifiable. However, the effects of globalisation vary according to regions, professional groups, and education. In the period of intensive globalisation, unemployment and inequality have risen, and people feel their lives to be determined by forces they cannot influence. Since the many new challenges, such as climate protection, can be better solved by worldwide efforts, it is indispensable to avoid new national barriers and to strengthen the endorsement of globalisation and the concomitant welfare effects. However, it is also necessary to respect cultural differences in preferences and to view globalisation as a search and learning process. Instruments for the implementation of such a strategy may vary according to regional specifics. Social and ecological goals - gaining higher importance with rising per capita incomes - are well-represented in the European model, but for worldwide solutions other socio-economic models will offer preferences and solutions. Apart from the announced partial withdrawal of the United States from globalisation and the upcoming dominance of China in world affairs and large scale investment, Europe would be well-advised to take a greater responsibility if not the lead in determining the rules of globalisation. Based on an opinion-forming process within Europe, responsible globalisation can significantly improve the quality of life in Europe and its partners worldwide.