The topic of this report is the effort of EU and Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) to improve trade relations and to use the momentum of induced economic growth to achieve goals of common interest that go beyond improving the flow of goods. It explores the state of...

After decades of successful growth, economic unions have recently become the focus of heightened political controversy. We argue that this is partly due to the growth of trade between countries that are increasingly dissimilar. We develop a theoretical framework to study the effects on trade,...

This paper explores price differences in the European Union (EU) pharmaceutical market, the EU's fifth largest industry. With the aim of enhancing quality of life along with industry competitiveness and R&D capability, many EU directives have been adopted to achieve a single EU-wide...

We investigate the relationship between financial integration and output volatility at micro and macro levels. Using a very large firm-level dataset from EU countries over time, we construct a measure of "deep" financial integration at the regional level based on foreign ownership at the firm...

We investigate the degree of financial integration within and between European countries. We construct two measures of de-facto integration across European regions to capture "diversification" and "development" finance in the language of Obstfeld and Taylor (2004). We find evidence that capital...

The imbalance between the costs and benefits of DCFTAs is a call to the EU to display greater thoughtfulness and pragmatism if it does not want to lose support for reforms in its neighbourhood. What has to happen so that their potential can be more beneficial? The Policy Brief written by Amat...

Despite the recent inroads made by models of interregional trade based on external" economies, the analysis of the long-run trends in U.S. regional specialization in agriculture manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, services, and all economic activities indicate that" these trends are...