Economic determinants of economic integration agreements (EIAs) have received ample attention in the economic literature. Political motivations for such agreements have been mostly studied as functions of domestic politics or in the context of conflict. In this paper I suggest a different...

The paper discusses the pros and cons of a Transatlantic free trade area (TAFTA) against the concept of an informal trade-facilitating marketplace between Europe and the US. It finds considerably more cons expecially since TAFTA would be expected to have ever more discriminatory effects to the...

Anfang Februar 2015 startete in Brüssel die achte Verhandlungsrunde zur Transatlantischen Handels- und Investitionspartnerschaft (TTIP). Ziel der Initiative ist der Abbau von Handels und Investitionshemmnissen, um sowohl den Vereinigten Staaten als auch den Ländern der Europäischen Union...

In this paper, we analyse effects of EU integration on Asian countries. Since the early 1990s, it is especially the trade creation effect of monetary integration (so-called Rose effect) which is heavily debated in the literature. Recent papers seem to indicate that the Rose effect seems to be...

Regional integration is often considered a means to improve member countries’ attractiveness to foreign direct investment (FDI). But regional integration agreements (RIAs) as well as FDI are too diverse to allow for generalized verdicts. Our case studies on Mercosur in Latin America, ASEAN and...

Russia and China are assumed to challenge democratization and to promote autocracy. In a first step, we analyze Central Asia as the most-likely case, considering both Russia and China as relevant external actors. We develop a concept for our analysis based on the different strategies of Russia...