This paper compares main European countries and the euro area specialization patterns. The analysis, that covers the period 1988-1997 and is based on a detailed sectoral breakdown, provides evidence to assess the degree of structural differences and convergence among European countries, which...

The ratification process of the constitutional treaty of the European Union needs to be started from a local level. The collected studies and statements of this paper have been presented in February 2005 and focus the different pro and contras, the opportunities and risks of the treaty in the...

Three industrial organization (IO) models suggested by Dornbusch (1987) are here adapted to study the labor-cost effects on relative prices of tradable goods between the regions of a monetary union. The assumption of imperfect and segmented goods and labor markets makes the analysis best suited...

This paper examines regional inflation divergence within the European EMU aiming at characterizing the properties of inflation differentials. The empirical evidence suggests that a process of price level convergence in the EMU is well on its way.