Agreements (FTAs) on trade flows. In this paper we focus on FTAs (also called European agreements) between the European Union (EU … with the EU was signed exceeded trade growth of the control group of countries which did not become members. -- Trade …

between the two imbalances for each country for the period 1970-2007, and for different EU and OECD country groupings. The … balances. -- Budget balance ; external balance ; EU ; panel cointegration …

, we study the causality between government spending and revenue for the EU in the period 1960-2006. We find spend … Finland and the UK, and for several EU New Member States. Moreover, in the run-up to EMU there was some shifting away from a … spend-and-tax strategy, implying adjustments of fiscal behaviour. -- panel causality ; fiscal policy ; EU …

period 1970-2007, for different EU and OECD country groupings. We use the panel-data approach of Kónya (2006), which is based … budget deficits to current account deficits for several EU countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France … deficit ; external imbalance ; real exchange rates ; EU ; OECD …

We model EU countries' bank ratings using financial variables and allowing for intercept and slope heterogeneity. Our … aim is to assess whether "old" and "new" EU countries are rated differently and to determine whether "new" ones are … intercepts) are a crucial determinant of ratings. Whilst "new" EU countries typically have lower ratings than "old" ones, after …