Austria’s economy weathered the crisis well, but now risks falling behind

Austria was one of the few countries in the Eurozone to emerge relatively unscathed from the financial crisis. As part of our on-going series on the economies of Europe, Klaus Weyerstrass assesses how the country’s economy has developed since. He writes that while Austria still ranks highly on GDP per capita (PPP), it has lost ground to comparable countries such as Switzerland and Germany in recent years. He argues that the key to maintaining its current economic position will be to increase spending on research and development, not least to compensate for the negative effect of a shrinking working-age population on economic growth.