Looking at the Integration of Nations through the Lens of the Merger of Populations: Preliminary Superadditivity and Impossibility Results

This paper looks at the integration of regions and nations through the prism of the merger of populations. The paper employs a particular index of social dismay. It presents examples of two of the main results arising from the study of the merger of two populations: that the social dismay of an integrated population is greater than the sum of the social dismay of the constituent populations when apart, and that a self-contained, non-publicly financed policy aimed at retaining the levels of wellbeing of individuals at their pre-merger magnitudes cannot be implemented: there is not enough of a gain to compensate for the loss.