Many regions will join the European Union after eastern enlargement with incomes far below the EU average. This book attempts to show that in the catching up of these regions to the EU, average income cannot be achieved by market forces alone. Rather, successful regional development is a complex process involving actors and institutions on the regional, national, and international levels. Thus, regional growth will not only depend on the governance capacities of regions, but also on institutional frameworks set by the nation state and the EU as well as investment decisions of multinational...

Sustainable development, climate policy, biodiversity conservation - all these represent flash points at the intersection of environmental science, economics, and public policy. This volume offers a snapshot of environmental economic research on a range of policy-relevant problems. Academic contributions are complemented by the views of policy makers on environmental policy priorities, the usefulness of academic research for decision making, and the future of applied research.

Doris Buhler-Niederberger, Johanna Mierendorff, Andreas Lange Debatten um soziale Problemlagen konzentrieren sich seit geraumer Zeit v- starkt auf die nachwachsende Generation, insbesondere auf Kinder. Neue - mut, Arbeitsmarktentwicklungen und deren Folgen, neue Formen privaten - bens, Wandel der Geschlechterrollen, Migration und kulturelle Vielfalt oder aber die angenommenen sozialen Folgen des demographischen Wandels - alles das wird in seinen Auswirkungen auf Kinder und Kindheit diskutiert, bekommt damit als "Zukunft der Gesellschaft" eine besondere Dramatik und verlangt Reaktionen. In...