The European Union (EU) provides grants to disadvantaged regions of member states to allow them to catch up with the EU … average. Under the Objective 1 scheme, NUTS2 regions with a GDP per capita level below 75% of the EU average qualify for … structural funds transfers from the central EU budget. This rule gives rise to a regression-discontinuity design that exploits …

This paper estimates the effects of the EU enlargements in the 2000s for trade in parts and components and trade in … EU and OECD countries. The estimation approach accounts for firm heterogeneity and selection bias in a panel …-data framework. We find a positive and significant effect of the EU-accession on CEECs trade in intermediate and final goods. The …

In a major setback for the EU, only two of four Eastern Partnership countries actually initialed Association Agreements … the EU, the paper shows that the Eastern Partnership countries, including Ukraine, by far the largest in the group, gain … significantly from free trade agreements with the EU, but gain little if anything from free trade agreements with Russia …

Eastern Partnership attempted to further political stability and economic development by liberalizing trade between the EU and … establishing political democracy and human rights in key countries. In response, the EU increased the emphasis in the ENP on … among the countries of the region as well as between each such country and the EU. Using a panel gravity model of trade …