By Yuanyan Sophia Zhang |  International Monetary Fund Wage rises have remained stubbornly low in advanced Europe in recent years, but, at the same time, newer EU members are experiencing rapid wage acceleration. This paper investigates the drivers of this wage divergence. Econometric analysis using error correction models suggests that wage growth responds more quickly to changes in unemployment in the newer EU members than in advanced Europe, where wages are more closely related to inflation and inflation expectations in the...

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Governments worldwide provide more than USD 500 billion in often ineffective and trade distorting support to farmers each year, and efforts to reform these policies have largely stalled, according to a new OECD report. Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2019 shows that farm policies in the 53 countries studied in the report – all OECD and EU countries, plus 12 key emerging economies – provided on average USD 528 billion (EUR 465 billion) per-year of direct support to farmers during the...

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The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation to assess whether Amazon's use of sensitive data from independent retailers who sell on its marketplace is in breach of EU competition rules. Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: "European consumers are increasingly shopping online. E-commerce has boosted retail competition and brought more choice and better prices. We need to ensure that large online platforms don't eliminate these benefits through anti-competitive behaviour. I have therefore decided to take a very...

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