The European Union used to make decisions by unanimity or near unanimity. After a series of extensions, with 27 member states the present decision making mechanisms have become very slow and assigned power to the members in an arbitrary way. The new decision rules accepted as part of the Lisbon...

The possible exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union will have profound economic and political effects. Here we look at a particular aspect, the power distribution in the Council of the European Union. Since the Lisbon treaty the exit does not require new negotiations as the success...

The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union has had profound economic and political effects. Here, we look at a particular aspect, the power distribution in the Council of the European Union. Using the Shapley-Shubik power index, we calculate the member states' powers with and without...

Debates on an EU-leaving referendum arose in several member states after Brexit. We want to highlight how the exit of an additional country affects the power distribution in the Council of the European Union. We inspect the power indices of the member states both with and without the country...

This paper explores the influence of the economic cycle on labour mobility within the EU, focusing on the likely impact of the present economic crisis. To do so, we use an econometrically calibrated simulation and a case study of Ireland. We find that, in the short run, the crisis is likely to...

This paper tests new implications of the asymmetric tax competition model on diesel excise taxes in the European Union (EU). I extend the standard tax competition model by replacing the unit demand assumption with iso-elastic demand. As a result, not only the level of the equilibrium tax but...

In light of the importance of immigrants' labour market integration in the host countries, this study examines the employment convergence between foreign-born and native-born in the European Union (EU), by gender and broad region of origin - distinguishing between immigrants born within and...

Our paper explores, on a theoretical level, the reason for frequent failures of rural development policies and identifies some potential improvements in rural policy making in Europe. Our approach to des/integration concerns actors, resources, institutions, knowledge, the fundamental logic of...