The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies – wiiw – is one of the principle centres for research on Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe with more than 35 years of experience. Over the years, we have broadened our expertise, increasing our regional coverage and the research areas we work on. At present, our work is focused on issues of European integration, structural change and international economics, as well as on selected issues related to the process of globalization. wiiw is an independent, non-profit institution. Our staff serves the public and clients alike, delivering economic analyses and research, forecasts, statistical data and policy advice. A package of our services is available for subscription (membership service).

We have a team of 43 highly skilled professionals, most of whom are multilingual and have an intimate knowledge of the region. Our 22 economists and 7 statisticians are often native to and permanently in close contact with institutions, reseachers and policy makers in the countries they cover. Our economists closely follow developments in their respective countries and regions and are frequently involved in local policy debates. Our greatest strength lies in the application of comparative regional and cross-country analyses.

The institute is uniquely positioned thanks to its wide range of statistical databases and expertise in dealing with complex or ‘difficult’ datasets and data collection. Our analyses are based on primary sources and data obtained directly from the countries we cover. Our databases are updated in a timely manner and crosschecked with international databases. Our experience enables us to make educated judgements in solving issues as breaks in time-series and cross-country comparability problems, ultimately leading to consistent, comparable and reliable series of indicators. The high quality of our data enables us to perform long-term analyses that may also serve as a basis for assessments of future trends.

We believe in teamwork and the exchange of information as the optimal means of securing outstanding analyses and forecasts. Close cooperation with an international network of academics helps us to challenge our views and ensures that our research orientation and methodologies are state-of-the-art.

The institute has a board of directors drawn from a broad range of stakeholders. The board takes strategic decisions and supervises management activities.

Ferdinand	Lacina	former Minister of Finance; consultant	Unicredit
Ewald	Nowotny	Governor	Austrian National Bank
Renate	Brauner	Vice-Mayor	City of Vienna
Thomas	Wieser	Director General	Ministry of Finance
Karl	Aiginger	Director	Austrian Institute of Economic Research
Brigitte	Ederer	Member of the Managing Board	Siemens AG
Ingrid	Gazzari	former Director	wiiw
Karl	Hartleb	Deputy Director	Austrian Chamber of Commerce
Franz	Fischler	former EU Commissioner; consultant	FF Consult
Marianne	Kager	Executive Director	MK CEBA GmbH
Edith	Kitzmantel	former Director	EU Commission
Dionys	Lehner	CEO	Linz Textil AG
Josef	Mayer	Director General	Ministry of Economics and Labour
Sepp	Rieder	former Vice-Mayor	City of Vienna
Hans	Seidel	Consultant	Austrian Institute of Economic Research
Herbert	Tumpel	President	Chamber of Labour

Our international advisory board supports our researchers and challenges our work.

Rumen	Dobrinsky	Economic Analysis Division	UN ECE
Barry	Eichengreen	University of California	Berkeley
Elhanan	Helpman	Harvard University
Dani	Rodrik	Harvard University
Dariusz	Rosati	Member of the European Parliament
Robert E.	Rowthorn	University of Cambridge
André	Sapir	University of Brussels	European Commission
Alan	Winters	World Bank and University of Sussex
Charles	Wyplosz	Graduate Institute of International Studies	Geneva

Elisabeth Hagen Executive Director e-mail: hagen@wiiw.ac.at Phone: (+43-1) 533 66 10-10

Michael Landesmann Director of Research e-mail: landesmann@wiiw.ac.at Phone: (+43-1) 533 66 10-10 East-West economic integration, structural change, economic growth, general topics in international economic relations; EU-USA relations, globalization and labour markets, migration

Peter Havlik Deputy Director e-mail: havlik@wiiw.ac.at Phone: (+43-1) 533 66 10-10 Russia, EU-Russia relations, intra-CIS relations; East-West economic integration; foreign trade, exchange rate policies, competitiveness; statistics and databases

Robert Stehrer Deputy Director of Research e-mail: stehrer@wiiw.ac.at Phone: (+43-1) 533 66 10-10 Labour markets; wage, productivity and trade structures; catching-up processes in the global economy