This paper looks at the experience of South East Europe which – for the purposes of this paper – includes the former states of Yugoslavia except for Slovenia (i.e. Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia), Albania, and the two EU candidate countries, Bulgaria and...

It is argued in this paper that the lack of regional cooperation can be remedied by the speed up of the process of EU integration. That is reinforced by the considerations based on the theory of optimal currency areas. Though the current Stabilisation and Association process (SAP) may produce...

This paper seeks to analyse the state of rail and road transport infrastructure in the Southeast European Countries (SEECs). The paper is structured in four parts. Part one summarises theoretical findings and international empirical evidence on the theory of the ‘Big Push', on the issues of...

Based on the theoretical foundations as described in Bhagwati (1974), illegal trade can be defined to consist of faked invoicing on the one hand and smuggling on the other hand. While in the first case at least one of the trading partner countries has recorded a trade flow either as an export or...

Conceptual and theoretical issues of foreign aid in post-conflict, transition region are discussed. Two examples are presented in an informal manner. The first is about the incoherence of aid for reconstruction and policies of transition. The second is about the role of expected institutional...

The provision of public services is an important way for weak states to build legitimacy, as long as the public regards the allocation of resources as impartial and fair. However, in societies where resources have long been distributed according to particularist and informal ties, it may be...

How to deal with significant external imbalances due to persistent cross-border financial flows which eventually dry out while accumulated foreign debts need to be financed from increased exports? Keynes and Ohlin, primarily, debated an apparently more specific issue of unilateral transfers in...