This paper quantifies the impact of incentives related to potential membership on institutional change as measured by the World Bank Governance Indicators (WBGI). Based on a panel of 25 transition countries for the period from 1996 to 2008 we show that pre-accession incentives provided by EU and...

Institutional development in new and potential member countries determines the success of deepening European integration. This papers argues that the timing of future enlargement should depend on institutional convergence between the EU and potential accession candidates. It therefore looks at...