We investigate the determinants of public support for EU membership using a panel of fifteen countries over the 1974 - 2008 period. The results indicate that increases in inflation and unemployment rate generate a decrease in support for EU membership, while growth of GDP growth increases...

Fostering the emergence of a "European identity" was one of the declared goals of the euro adoption. Now, years after the physical introduction of the common currency, we investigate whether there has been an effect on a shared European identity. We use two different datasets in order to assess...

Preferences about the vertical distribution of power in federal systems are not well understood. I argue that negative historical experiences with higher-level governments can plausibly raise demands for exit strategies and a devolution of power. But integration, for instance delegating power...

In many organizations, decisions are taken by unanimity giving each member veto power. We analyze a model of an organization in which members with heterogenous productivity privately contribute to a common good. Under unanimity, the least efficient member imposes her preferred effort choice on...

This paper provides a methodology to study coalition formation problems with externalities and heterogeneous players, when some subset of the players can act as “coalition developers” over time. The framework provided here allows to explicitly predict the timing of admission to coalitions,...

Studies of voting patterns in the Council of the European Union (EU) have increased since voting records in this institution have become more readily available. This paper builds on earlier work and explores coalition-formation and voting in the Council of the EU for the EU-15 (i.e., between...