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....

Der Begriff der europäischen Integration findet in wissenschaftlichen Beiträgen und politi-schen Debatten zwar große Verwendung, eine einheitliche Definition existiert jedoch nicht. Hierdurch sind Integrationsschritte oder -prozesse kaum quantifizierbar. Auch wird selten darauf eingegangen,...

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...