Tourism is one of the major drivers of the Greek economy. The contribution of tourism to the Greek economy has proved especially relevant during the period of the credit and euro crises with a high budgetary and balance of payment deficits. From that perspective, this study examines the impact of the socio-economic and geographical determinants of foreign tourism demand in Greece. For the empirical analysis, a panel dataset of 31 countries is used over the period [2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010]. The panel data estimation indicates that distance and trade have more explanatory power than relative prices and other determinants such as transport infrastructure. Income is statistically significant in three out of the eight specifications. Also, political stability seems to play an important role in tourism demand. The results are mixed for the competitive prices between Greece and its main tourism competitors. An interesting finding is that the Olympic Games of 2004 seem to have had a negative impact on international tourist arrivals in Greece in that year.

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Between 1982 and 2000, the Netherlands experienced a remarkable economie recovery. Labour participation rose from a European low of 52 percent to the European average of 65 percent. Unemployment decreased from a high of 14 percent to a present-day low of 2% percent, while govemment finances and social security were reorganised. This paper aims to demonstrate how the Dutch culture of consensus, reflected in the Dutch institutional consultation structure, was one of the main driving forces of this recovery. The trust enhancing effects of the institutional framework, in which government, unions, employer organisations, centra1 bank and advisory bodies meet each other fiequently in forma1 and informal atmospheres, produced an environment of mutual trust and co-operation that was capable of effectively dealing with the problems. Two decades of wage moderation and increased labour market flexibility have led to economie prosperity without significant social unrest. It is an example of an institutional fiamework that transforms trust between persons and organisations at the micro leve1 to positive macroeconomic effects.

This paper examines the demand for money in the EEC countries and is focus& on live issues. First it starts from a commcn economic framework, which allows for shifts from I+4 2 to nonmoney assets and vice uersa. Second, speciaf attention is given to the dyna;nic structure of the statistical model in order to obtain meaningful conclusions on, e.g., the s@ of adjustment of actual to optimal money holdings. Third, the study is entirely based on a uniform set of quarterly data for the eight countries concerned. Fourth, the paper presents a careful examination of the residuals and, finally, analyses the predictive behaviour of the estimated models, For all countries we found long-run income elasticities greater than unity and interest rate elasticities clustered around -0.20. The impact of inflation and the business cycle variable appeared to be sign&ant in the majority of countries considered.

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