The paper adresses the need for more flexibility in the integration process of the European Union after its recent eastward enlargement. Due to the increasing number of decision-makers and the increasing heterogeneity of economic structures, financial constraints, societal preferences, and...

Das vorliegende Buch ist eine anspruchsvolle Sammlung von Beiträgen zum Thema "Internationale Wirtschaftsbeziehungen", die sowohl in aktuelle Fragestellungen als auch in den State of the Art dieses Forschungsgebietes Einblicke gewährt. Die Autoren wollen mit diesem Werk dem Ökonomen Dieter...

In the light of the current economic debt crisis within the Euro zone, the heterogeneity of EU members has becoming increasingly apparent. This heterogeneity is evident not only in some single macroeconomic variables but also in the level of economic integration with the other EU members....

The three essays of this dissertation contribute to the measurement of European economic integration and investigate the welfare effects of the European countries. The first study presents a newly developed index – the EU Index – which measures the extent of economic integration into the...