Time is the essence
We are going through the biggest crisis in the world economy since the Great Depression. There is immense pressure on policy makers everywhere in the world to come up with measures that can mitigate the negative social and economic consequences of this crisis. Looking ahead, the relative positions of countries and regions in the world economy will depend on how they address the new challenges of the post-crisis period. So not surprisingly, the premium on the timeliness of policy-oriented research has increased significantly. DG ECFIN is no exception. Right now, we are devoting most of our resources to finding the answers to the economic challenges that Europe is facing.
The content of this issue of the EERL reflects this race against time. The article on this year’s Public Finance Report highlights our research on the short- to medium term implications of the crisis on public budgets, while the piece on the Ageing Report summarises our work on the longer-term budgetary implications, with special emphasis on the underlying population projections. In an interview with DG ECFIN, Professor Axel Borsch-Supan, one of the most distinguished researchers in this field, points out that ageing should be seen as a gift for mankind rather than a problem. While these contributions focus on the EU as a whole, the articles on ongoing work in ECFIN on the Baltic countries and the EU’s eastern neighbour countries zoom in on selected regions. The final article continues our series on ECFIN’s databases, describing MACMIC, the database for simulation exercises on structural reform.
No doubt, our focus will remain on crisis-relate issues in the period ahead. This year’s DG ECFIN Annual Research Conference on 15-16 October will concentrate on Crisis and Reform. You will find the programme, together with information on how to register for this event, on the back page of this issue. We shall report on the presentations and discussions in our next issue, as well as on our work on the impact of the crisis on potential growth in Europe and the necessary reforms to restore the EU’s growth potential. Hopefully, by that time there will be more green shoots in the European economy.