This volume was prepared by Thomas Steinwachs while he was working at the ifo Center for International Economics. It was completed in September 2018 and accepted as a doctoral dissertation by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich (LMU). It is a collection of four self-contained...

We provide an early assessment of the Juncker Commission's contributions to the ongoing reform of the euro area. In doing so, we present a chronological summary of the reform process up to 2014. At the time, the euro area architecture had undergone many changes. These were mainly focused on risk...

Fostering the emergence of a "European identity" was one of the declared goals of the euro adoption. Now, years after the physical introduction of the common currency, we investigate whether there has been an effect on a shared European identity. We use two different datasets in order to assess...

The Capital Markets Union (CMU) is a flagship project of the European Commission that promotes a deepening of the financial markets. It aims at opening up new sources of funding for SMEs, as well as improving the matching between savers and borrowers. Additionally, CMU is supposed to increase...

This study examines whether the CEECs' financial market development can explain the EU FDI in the CEECs during 1994-2012. The higher bank credit flows had a positive effect on the FDI in 2005-2012. This can be attributed to the major banking sector reforms undertaken before the CEECs' EU...