This paper highlights the economic meaning of the size of the state for members of the European Union, thereby making the economic success of EU states statistically tangible. Firstly, we show in descriptive illustrations that the theoretically expected characteristics of small countries clearly...

Does trade openness cause higher GDP per capita? Since the seminal instrumental variables (IV) estimates of Frankel and Romer [F&R](1999) important doubts have surfaced. Is the correlation spurious and driven by omitted geographical and institutional variables? In this paper, we generalize F&R's...

This paper presents new estimates of the economic benefits from economic and political integration. Using the synthetic counterfactuals method, we estimate how GDP per capita and labour productivity would have behaved for the countries that joined the European Union (EU) in the 1973, 1980s, 1995...

This paper investigates how the European integration process of central eastern European countries, which has been taking place since the 1990's, affects their GDP growth. Based on an augmented Solow model, I estimate a convergence equation for a panel of ten countries over 16 years (1995-2010)....

This paper deals with the effects of European integration in the EC and EFTA on economic growth. Base regressions suggest that EC and EFTA memberships do in fact have a positive and significant effect on economic growth, and that there is no significant difference between EC and EFTA membership....

This paper presents new estimates of the economic benefits from economic and political integration. Using the synthetic counterfactuals method, we estimate how GDP per capita and labour productivity would have behaved for the countries that joined the European Union (EU) in the 1973, 1980s, 1995...

At the core of the formation of the European Union (EU) in 1993 was the economic goal to create a European Common Market to ensure freer trade and perhaps to create an egalitarian Europe. The post-1993 period saw the biggest enlargement of the EU to date from a meagre 3 member countries...

Economic convergence of the new member states (NMS) of the EU towards the old EU countries (EU-15), not only in terms of real income, but also in nominal terms, is of paramount importance for the whole of the EU. We build a dynamic CGE model, starting from the Balassa-Samuelson two-sector...

This paper integrates in a unified and tractable framework some of the key insights of the field of international trade and economic growth. It examines a sequence of theoretical models that share a common description of technology and preferences but differ on their assumptions about trade...