Monthly Report No. 11/2019
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Vasily Astrov, Mahdi Ghodsi, Mario Holzner, David Pichler and Leon Podkaminer
wiiw Monthly Report No. 11, November 2019
44 pages including 1 Table and 27 Figures
- Chart of the month: No convergence despite higher growth
by Vasily Astrov and Leon Podkaminer
- Opinion Corner: What can be done to help workers in the poorest countries in Europe?
by Vasily Astrov and Mario Holzner
The situation for workers in the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine remains difficult. Unless domestic conditions improve, the region will continue to record strong outward migration in the foreseeable future. A turnaround of this situation will require a credible EU accession anchor for the Western Balkans, better EU-Russia relations (important for Moldova and Ukraine), and more socially-oriented policies in the countries in question.
- The impact of global robot adoption on employment growth in CESEE
by Mahdi Ghodsi
The global economy is currently facing a new wave of technological change especially in (but not limited to) the realm of artificial intelligence and robotics. Taking into account higher robotisation in a given sector, higher robotisation in domestic and international suppliers of a given sector and higher robotisation in domestic and international customers of a given sector, we find a positive impact on employment growth in CESEE.
- Digitisation as a Future Growth Engine for CESEE
by David Pichler
The speed of economic convergence of CESEE with Western European countries has decelerated and even EU Member States in the region have failed to break through the middle-income ceiling. This article argues that digitisation provides a window of opportunities to diversify economies and enable them to become less dependent on international investors and knowledge transfer and to generate high-income jobs. Policies in education, infrastructure and business climate for fostering the digitisation process would not only boost convergence but may also partly alleviate the region’s demographic challenges.
- Monthly and quarterly statistics for Central, East and Southeast Europe
Reference to wiiw databases: wiiw Annual Database, wiiw Monthly Database
Keywords: wages, price deflators, purchasing power parity, unemployment, outward migration, social partnership, robot adoption, employment, global value chains, digitisation, income convergence, ICT technology
Countries covered: Austria, CESEE, European Union, Moldova, Ukraine, Western Balkans
Research Areas: Macroeconomic Analysis and Policy, Labour, Migration and Income Distribution, International Trade, Competitiveness and FDI