In this paper we argue that strong political economy forces explain the rush of the EU to expand eastwards. We use a … model of vertical product differentiation in order to claim that technologically- advanced EU firms (residing in high …

Following Turkey's application for EU membership in 1987, a Customs Union (CU) between Turkey and the EU, mainly … asymmetric changes in the trade volumes of the incumbent countries of the EU as a result of the EU-Turkey CU. By examining … disaggregated trade data we find that the technologically sophisticated EU countries (e.g., mainly the Northern European countries …