Annual Report 2024 Highlights

In April and June 2024, wiiw continued its specialised media training sessions for selected colleagues. Conducted by a renowned former TV journalist from Austria’s public broadcaster, ORF, these sessions commenced in late 2023; by the end of 2024, 11 colleagues had completed the training, leading to a marked improvement in their media performance.

Ingrid Gazzari (co-founder of wiiw and Executive Director from 1991 to 2006) and Michael Landesmann (Scientific Director from 1996 to 2016) were awarded one of the highest distinctions in the City of Vienna’s honours system: the Decoration of Honour in Silver.

In a one-page interview with the renowned Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, wiiw Deputy Director Richard Grieveson looked back on the EU’s ‘big bang’ enlargement of 2004, when it expanded to include the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. His assessment: it has been a tremendous success for both Western and Eastern Europeans.

May saw the Spring Seminar 2024, co-hosted by wiiw, Austria’s Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs and the Austrian National Bank. Dumitru Alaiba, Moldova’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Digitalisation until March 2025, delivered an inspirational keynote speech on his country’s astonishing economic development and its potential in such sectors as IT, industry and agriculture – despite the country’s proximity to war-torn Ukraine.

In June, Birgit Buschbom was appointed Deputy Executive Director of wiiw. In her new role, she supports Executive Director Mario Holzner. She now oversees the coordination of the institute’s commercial and administrative activities. Additionally, she is responsible for the project management and human resources departments.

In June, wiiw launched its new Executive Network for companies investing in Central, East and Southeast Europe. Five events have now been held in Vienna, Warsaw and Prague, featuring 250 companies.

The Executive Network updates wiiw’s standard membership package to meet the needs of modern international business. Events include a presentation of wiiw’s regional outlook, benchmarking surveys and panel discussions on such topics as AI, hiring, change management and supply chains.

In June, wiiw participated in a joint conference in Vienna on tobacco taxation, alongside the World Bank and Johns Hopkins University. This important event followed the launch in late 2023 of wiiw’s Taxes for Health Initiative, an international research network on tobacco and other health-related taxes in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2024, the initiative focused on seven countries (Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine); in 2025 it will be expanded to include Kosovo.

As part of a joint research project for the German Ministry for Economic Affairs in Berlin, wiiw – in cooperation with the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the ifo Institute in Munich and the Austrian Institute of Economic Research – developed an online dashboard on Russia’s economy and the impact of sanctions. In July the initial conclusions were published: up to that point, the Western sanctions had had a very limited impact on Russia’s ability to wage war in Ukraine.

Deputy Director Richard Grieveson took part in the European Forum Alpbach – a high-level gathering of leading scholars, thinkers, policy makers and civil society actors to discuss and shape the future of Europe that was held in the mountain village of Alpbach in the Austrian state of Tyrol. He presented wiiw research into the economic impact of Ukraine’s possible accession to the EU.

The Austrian newspaper Die Presse launched a new podcast featuring our Russia expert, Vasily Astrov. Every second Wednesday, he joins veteran Russia correspondent Eduard Steiner to discuss the state of Russia’s economy, its development since the invasion of Ukraine – and why much is not as it might seem. All episodes are available here.

The Chief Economist of the World Trade Organization, Ralph Ossa, delivered the 2024 Global Economy Lecture, organised jointly by wiiw and the Austrian National Bank. He explained how a global carbon tax could encourage countries to produce and export those goods in which they enjoy an environmental comparative advantage, effectively reducing global CO₂ emissions.

In November, Philipp Heimberger, head of the research group on macroeconomics, gained his post-doctoral (habilitation) qualification in economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. His thesis was based on 17 peer-reviewed journal articles in empirical macroeconomics. The topic of his habilitation presentation was ‘P-hacking and Publication Bias in Macroeconomics’, in which he discussed methods to detect and correct the selective reporting of research findings.

December saw the launch of a new digital database that offers a unique insight into the previously obscure economics of the countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) – an organisation of the communist countries of Eastern Europe that operated from 1949 to 1991 under the leadership of the Soviet Union. Covering the period 1944-1993, the database also includes data on the non-COMECON countries of Albania and Yugoslavia.

With 79 research projects ongoing in 2024 (compared to 67 in 2023) – of which 48 were completed – the institute set a new record for the number of scientific research projects conducted. The number of publications also increased sharply – to 162 research papers, articles and book chapters published in 2024 (compared to 121 the year before).