Two issues stand out in this conversation. The first concerns the unfinished business of the global fight against the scourge of poverty, which impacts one region more than most: Africa. At the same time, a key pre-requisite for economic performance - affordable and efficient public...

This paper presents an alternative regional integration approach to join less developed countries and developing countries into a single trade bloc. According to our research the free trade is not enough to generate successful regional integration between less developed countries and developing...

This paper examines new trends in regional integration of developing countries. They are a transition from the policy of old regionalism to the policy of new regionalism with the predominance of the model of "industrial regionalism"; preferential notification within the WTO in accordance with...

The aim of the present contribution is two-fold. First, we are going to briefly overview the theoretical arguments suggesting that regional economic integration may enhance the process of real economic convergence or catching up by less-advanced members of integration arrangements towards the...

In November 2002, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) committed itself to the creation of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), in which goods, services, capital, and skilled labor would flow freely by the year 2020, or possibly even 2015. Hence, the AEC will guide the ASEAN...

This paper examines the relationship between mega-regional trade Agreements and diet-related health given that such Agreements aim to liberalize “substantially all trade and investment” that could potentially impact on health through tariff elimination and stronger intellectual property...

Increasingly, developing countries embrace foreign direct investment (FDI) and simultaneously pursue economic integration with developed countries. Foreign investment is subject to sovereign risk and it has been suggested that free trade agreements may serve as a commitment mechanism in order to...

Income convergence refers to the idea that poor countries grow more quickly than rich ones and catch up in terms of per capita income; as a result, the per capita income of integrated nations eventually converges. Beta convergence suggests that less developed nations grow more quickly than more...

This paper explores the effects of economic integration on intensive and extensive export margins of Nigeria's trade with ECOWAS and other African countries. Multiple indices of economic integration and the margins of exports are computed. Fractional Logit model is used to estimate the intensive...

The analysis of business cycle synchronization levels has become a key point in the discussion of the processes of international economic integration. Economists show a particular interest in analyzing the frequency of processes of business cycle convergence and divergence (decoupling) in the...