Through a comparison with dispute resolution procedures in NAFTAÕs Side Agreements, this paper demonstrates that three of the ECJÕs most important decisions Ð Van Gend en Loos, Costa v Enel, and Commission v Luxembourg and Belgium Ð should be understood as combining to reorganize general...

As the ECJÕs two most famous decisions, Van Gend en Loos and Costa v. ENEL, which established the direct effect and supremacy of European law, are commemorated on their fiftieth anniversaries, attention has also turned to another of the ECJÕs early decisions. On 13th November 1964, in...

The member states of the European Union obey the obligations of the European treaties in a manner resembling states or provinces under a federal constitution. Existing explanations for this extraordinary obedience to international law should be rejected because they assume, incorrectly, that...

A state’s concern for its reputation is widely considered the most powerful mechanism for inducing rational egoist states to comply with costly commitments. A state with a diversity of interests will accept costs on organised groups in the expectation of future benefits derived from a...

This paper uses the concept of the ‘encompassing group’ to set out a collective action theory based explanation for the maintenance of open international markets to add to existing explanations for stable international market regimes, hegemonic stability and tit-for-tat specific reciprocity....

We assess whether two classes of bubbles occur in the spot price of gold, rational speculative and periodically bursting bubbles, using gold's' lease rates for the first time in the literature as a measures of its fundamental value. This question is of particular significance as these are the...

We explore whether financial development reduces external investment financing constraints for firms. Within-country provincial measures of financial development are linked to investment usingdata from the Vietnamese enterprise survey (VES). We focus on three main aspects of...

Until recently, government procurement bidding processes have generally favored domestic firms by awarding the contract to a domestic firm even if a foreign firm tenders a lower bid, so long as the difference between the two is sufficiently small. This has been replaced by an agreement...

Political independence is usually associated with an attempt to reduce economic dependency on the dominant or former colonial power. For most of the early period since Irish independence the attempt to reduce exposure to the UK was implemented through tariff protection and restrictions on...

Ireland's net external liability position expanded in dramatic fashion during 2008-2010, despite relatively small net financial flows during this period. Understanding the the source and persistence of this negative shock is critically important in assessing the future path for the Irish...