Economic globalization causes an increasing international fragmentation (disintegration) of value-added chains, whereby firms outsource components of production to foreign markets. There is a high level of concern about unwelcome distributional effects. This paper provides a theoretical...

This paper explores the relationship between the rhetoric of the Lisbon Goal of the EU and key insights from trade theory and growth theory. It argues that the policy initiative as such is valid, but the paradigm of international competitiveness is potentially misleading. The focus should,...

EU--US trade disputes have recently caught much attention, because they have involved lasting non-compliance coupled with WTO-authorized retaliation. A recent paper by Breuss (2004) shows that the outcome in most cases has probably involved economic damage on both sides. Does this testify to a...

This paper takes a welfare-view on eastern enlargement of the EU, focusing on incumbent countries. Enlargement is decomposed into three elements: Single-market integration on commodity markets, budgetary costs from EU-expenditure policies, and single market- induced migration from new to present...

Will the incentives to pursue strategically motivated trade or industrial policies rise of rall if countries integrate? Economists have emphasized that one of the principal channels for welfare gains of Europe 1992 is a reduction of intra-European real trade coosts. This paper identifies the...