The CAP reforms that the EU accepted in June 2003 will partially decouple direct income payments to farmers from production and make these payments conditional on cross-compliance. The reforms are driven by enlargement of EU membership, budgetary constraints, mounting pressures from diverse...

There are both empirical and theoretical arguments for the thesis that external factors have an impact on domestic institutional quality. Consequently, external factors may have large effects on domestic income via local institutions. This paper investigates the role of external factors by...

This paper tests the question whether the integration process in the EU has contributed to the often-observed growing dispersion of income over the regions of the EU, in the presence of convergence between the member states. We do this by introducing price convergence as an indicator of...

The respect for human rights follows strong spatial patterns among countries. However, to understand and predict the spatial effects of policies and interventions, it is imperative to know whether these spatial patterns stem from countries’ interactions and spillovers, or from common deep...

In this paper we explore the nature and effects of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and groups of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. We argue that the direct economic effects from reciprocal trade liberalization - both positive and negative – may be...