The three essays of this dissertation contribute to the measurement of European economic integration and investigate the welfare effects of the European countries. The first study presents a newly developed index – the EU Index – which measures the extent of economic integration into the...

The past decade has dramatically shaped the European economic landscape. After the global financial and economic crisis of 2008/09 hit the continent, the southern European periphery exemplified by Greece experienced a strongly diverging economic development. As capital inflows from the North...