The paper discusses the relevance of past concerns about trade and foreign direct investment diversion to the detriment of Asian suppliers and hosts as a result of EU integration deepening and widening in the nineties. Based on recent empirical evidence, these concerns are rejected. As concerns...

This paper examines the transition process within Eastern Europe and the integration process with the EU and shows that the requirements for the transition towards a market economy overlap with the requirements for EU accession. Furthermore, the economic situation of the candidate countries is...

The Eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) is likely to give a further boost to trade and capital flows, yet empirical evidence on the possible magnitudes is still scarce. This paper uses four different datasets to estimate the determinants of international asset holdings and trade...

The paper discusses the decisions on the CAP in the context of the Berlin summit. In a rather broad perspective the agricultural sectoral and related objectives are analyzed for their consistency and compatability with higher ranking societal objectives. The policies' allocational and...

This paper revisits Political Budget Cycles (PBCs) in the enlarged European Union (EU). Based on a panel of 25 current EU member states from 1996 to 2012, we show that governments frequently fiscally stimulate the economy prior to elections; a phenomenon that is seemingly not only an ‘Eastern...

With twelve new members the decision making in the European Union via intergovernmental cooperation will become ineffective. In order to avoid a Stagno-Europe the EU has a choice: Either it looks for the very essentials in the common institutional frame or the member states agree in ceding...

The analysis of Baltic regional trade patterns reveals that during the nineties the Baltic states made significant progress to integrate into the Western European division of labour although a significant share of (transit) trade with Russia remained. In view of this development, history seems...

This paper analyses potential internal and external determinants of institutional change as measured by the World Bank Governance Indicators (WBGI) based on a panel of 25 transition countries for the period from 1996 to 2005. We show that natural resources and capital inflows exert an...