In the past decade, we observed an acceleration of Western European integration, while the transition countries of Central Eastern Europe have not become members of the EU. In this paper, we conduct numerical simulations on the consequences of such a kind of differential integration within the...

The recent financial crisis was caused by a combination of asset price bubbles, mainly in the real estate sector, and a credit bubble that led to excessive leverage. A recurrent theme of this paper is that an appropriate assessment of the crisis should be made in light of the bubble that...