Owing to their low bargaining power and high negotiation costs, microstates face severe disadvantages when dealing with the outside world. Forming a group with neighboring nations might be an effective instrument to address this problem. This paper presents a model in which the decision to form,...

Labor market integration raises welfare in the absence of distortions. This paper examines labor and goods market integration in a general-equilibrium model with social capital. The findings are: (i) labor market integration has an ambiguous impact on welfare, and raises it if the goods and...