The South-Eastern European Monetary History Network (SEEMHN) brings together the central banks of seven countries in this region (Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Turkey, Serbia and Albania) to shed light on their respective monetary histories. This book includes presentations made at the 2016 conference of this network, and will appeal to central bankers, members of academia and researchers interested in European economic history with a focus on South-Eastern Europe. The contributions here put the spotlight on economic and financial developments, links between economic crises, and the gaps between Europe’s core and peripheral economies.

Emerging Europe has undergone a major economic transformation over the past 25 years. Most countries experienced initial drops in output during transition, followed by recovery in the second half of the 1990s. The path of transition in the Western Balkans has however been particularly uneven. The effects of transition also seem to have been more traumatic and persistent in the Western Balkans, and nostalgia for the past appears to be more prevalent here than in other former communist regions. Such dissatisfaction has important implications for the political economy of further reforms. This paper aims to inform policy by complementing the analysis of standard macro-level measures of inequality and poverty with a household-level analysis of subjective perceptions of poverty. We find that many more people appear to feel poor than are classified as such using purely income-based measures. Uncertainty, in particular related to expectations of future income and vulnerability to shocks, appears to be a key driver behind this discrepancy.

This open access book explores the most recent trends in the EU in terms of development, progress, and performance. Ten years after the 2008 economic crisis, and amidst a digital revolution that is intensifying the development race, the European Union, and especially Central and Eastern Europe, are ardently searching for their development priorities. Against this background, by relying on a cross-national perspective, the authors reflect upon the developmental challenges of the moment, such as sustainable development, reducing inequality, ensuring social cohesion, and driving the digital revolution. They particularly focus on the relation between the less-developed Eastern part of the EU and its more developed Western counterpart, and discuss the consequences of this development gap in detail. Lastly, the book presents a range of case studies from different areas of governance, such as economy and commerce, health services, education, migration and public opinion in order to investigate the trends most likely to impact the European Union's medium and long-term development.

In this new work, Pascariu and Duarte, along with an international group of acclaimed scholars, delve into key challenges currently facing the European Union. They Analyze the effect of peripherality across the EU regions which will be of great interest to those countries and regions facing a process of integration

This volume sheds new light on economic developments in several countries of Southeast Europe. The European Union and especially the eurozone continue to experience rhythms of fiscal crisis, as can most clearly be seen in the debt crisis in the South Periphery. Despite the fact that several measures and decisions have been taken to deal with the crisis (banking union, liquidity support from the European Central Bank), proposals to reform Europe’s strategic policy in order to find a way out of the crisis have been put forward. This book explores the respective roles that specific sectors, e.g. the agricultural sector, social capital, tax policies and labour immigration, can play in this regard. The importance of international economic relations (exports, imports, FDI, exchange rates) is analysed, in order to illustrate the nature of the economic developments and the major economic difficulties these countries face.

The global financial and economic crisis has brought about many effects that are still difficult to interpret univocally. This book studies the consequences of the crisis on Europe by examining the effects on the European institutional setup, governance and architecture and by studying in detail the different member countries.

Mapping the class divisions that run throughout Europe Over the last ten years - especially with the 'no' votes in the French and Dutch referendums in 2010, and the victory for Brexit in 2016 - the issue of Europe has been placed at the centre of major political conflicts. Each of these crises has revealed profound splits in society, which are represented in terms of an opposition between those countries on the losing and those on the winning sides of globalisation. Inequalities beyond those between nations are critically absent from the debate. Based on major European statistical surveys, the new research in this work presents a map of social classes inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. It reveals the common features of the working class, the intermediate class and the privileged class in Europe. National features combine with social inequalities, through an account of the social distance between specific groups in nations in the North and in the countries of the South and East of Europe. The book ends with a reflection on the conditions that would be required for the emergence of a Europe-wide social movement.

Focusing scholarly attention on a little known area of Europe, the book brings together analysts with an insider's view to examine the short and long-term challenges facing the region, the intricate relationship between politics and economics and the irrelevance of quick fixes in the postwar reform of Southeast Europe.