The central notion of the natural trading partner hypothesis is that a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will be welfare enhancing for members if there is a strong level of bilateral trade complementarity among their trade structures. This paper presents an empirical examination of this issue with...

Regional integration has the potential to promote economic development in member countries irrespective of size and the level of growth. This potential can be exploited only through deeper cooperation. However, there are a number of challenges which restrict this region to tap its potential. As...

State and Government leaders of the African Union adopt and implement efforts for regional integration as a common strategy for the development of the continent. The objective at continental level is the establishment of the African Economic Community as the last of six consecutive stages,...

This study provides an ex-ante computable general equilibrium (CGE) assessment of the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement between the member states of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community. The CGE approach...

Economic integration affects economic development through two main channels: growth and localization of the economic activities. The theories of endogenous growth and economic geography enable us to understand these mechanisms. We study in this paper their similarities and specificities before...

The paper considers the interaction of regional economic integration within the post-Soviet space and integration projects in Asia. It provides a detailed account of existing structures and institutions, looks at possible complementarities and substitute relations between these two groups of...

We use a model of combined endogenous growth and economic geography to study the impact of regional economic integration on the member and non-member countries of a regional union. Regional integration affects growth through interregional technology diffusion symbolized by knowledge spillovers...

This paper contributes to the empirical literature by providing a quantitative measurement of the influence of regional trade integration on productivity. For this purpose we address the link between trade and productivity thanks to knowledge spillovers in a multi-country model. The...

Thanks to a level of growth in foreign investment, the gap is narrowing between Romania and other East European countries like the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, countries normally considered the preferred choice of foreign investors. In the last years, Romania has become a more appealing...

The present analysis deals with the relationship of the EU budget and its resources with the Lisbon process. The EU Commission speaks for many years about a lack of transparency in financial relations between Member States and the EU. It even says that the current system fulfils very well the...