Europe’s Internal Market at Fifty: Over the Hill?

For more than half a century, members of the European Union (EU) have pursued policies aimed at reducing the cost of cross-border transactions. Using a closed-form solution for the non-linear gravity system of Anderson and Van Wincoop (2003) we find that Internal Market policies have created trade between EU members, while diversion of trade with non members has been limited. Around 1995, 18 percent of total trade by EU15 countries can be attributed to the Internal Market. In the second half of the 1990’s the European advantage started to deteriorate relative to other trade flows: in 2005 the contribution of the Internal Market was just 9 percent. Most enlargements of the EU have had a positive impact on trade.