The paper takes into account both the concerns of the EU, arguing that convergence is incomplete, and the demands from accession countries, claiming that monetary integration is optimal. Indicators are developed which measure convergence and optimality in comparison with a reference group of the...

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...

This paper analyses potential internal and external determinants of 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 2005. We show that natural resources and capital inflows exert an...

Institutional development in new and potential member countries determines the success of both the catching-up of developing European countries and the deepening of the European integration process. This paper argues that the timing of future enlargement should depend on institutional...

In order to identify convergence patterns among the group of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) we analyze clusters of traditional OECD countries, i.e. EU-15 plus Norway and Switzerland, Anglo-Saxon non-EU countries plus Japan, and CEECs based on macro data on government regulation...

Among ENP countries, Azerbaijan is outstanding because it leans on its resource base and sees the EU at the receiving end of bilateral relations. At the other extreme, Ukraine depends on EU cooperation, especially with respect to trade. We develop a comprehensive theoretical concept for...

This paper provides a computable general equilibrium analysis of the medium to long-run impact of FDI inflows on poverty and income distribution in Bolivia. The CGE analysis addresses several important transmission channels which have been neglected in the empirical literature by (i)...

Improvements of firms' environmental performance crucially determine the speed of a country's green economic transformation. In this paper, we investigate whether firms with foreign ownership are more likely to adopt 'green' management practices, which determine the capability to monitor and...

China’s lending boom to developing countries is morphing into defaults and debt distress. Given the secrecy surrounding China’s loans, also the associated defaults remain “hidden”, as missed payments and restructuring details are not disclosed. We construct an encompassing dataset of...

Compared with China's dominance in world trade, its expanding role in global finance is poorly documented and understood. Over the past decades, China has exported record amounts of capital to the rest of the world. Many of these financial flows are not reported to the IMF, the BIS or the World...