D78; J38 </AbstractSection> Copyright Bertola; licensee Springer. 2014

Economic integration theory goes through two development stages each of which addresses the relevant for its time political and economic context The first stage is regarded as classic theory or static analysis and includes the traditional theories of economic integration that explain the...

If efficient economic activity requires appropriate public goods, then changes in the volume and flow of trade will induce changes in the demand for these public goods. In general, if people disagree over their preferred levels of public goods, the expansion of trade may affect the structure of...

Are there systematic forces such that countries of different sizes participating in a free trade bloc gain differently from the entry of new members? If economies of scale imply that firms located in large countries enjoy lower costs, then the gains from enlarging the bloc will fall...

International posting of workers and mobility of self-employed service suppliers lie between outright migration and trade in goods: their regulation, for both distributional and market-correcting purposes, is not as difficult to harmonize as that of labour markets, but personal mobility is more...

The current debate in Western Europe centres on the relationship between economic and political integration. To address this problem, we construct a simple general equilibrium model in which the returns to trading are directly affected by the availability of a public good. In our model...

We document significant and robust empirical relationships in cross-country panel data between government size or social expenditure on the one hand, and trade and financial development indicators on the other. Across countries, deeper economic integration is associated with more intense...

State and government leaders of the African Union are strongly committed to adopt and implement decisions for regional integration, seen as a common strategy for the development of the continent. The major objective at continental level is the establishment of the African Economic Community as...

State and government leaders of the African Union adopt and implement efforts for regional integration as a common strategy for the development of the continent. The objective at continental level is the establishment of the African Economic Community as the last of six consecutive stages,...

The dissertation is dedicated to specific processes of regional economic integration in Africa. The main goal is to assess systematically the development and potential of regional economic communities in Africa through: - systematization of factors that influence the motivation of developing...