This contribution develops a theory on the impact of differentiation on integration and unity among EU member states and discusses empirical evidence from four policy areas. According to the theory, the centripetal effects of closer cooperation among willing EU members on initially unwilling...

Globalization has attained a prominent place on the sociological agenda, and stratification scholars have implicated globalization in the increased income inequality observed in many advanced capitalist countries. But sociologists have given much less attention to a different but increasingly...

Im November 2007 hat Prof. Dr. Wim Kösters sein 65. Lebensjahr vollendet. Dieses Ereignis ist Anlass, ihm die vorliegende Festschrift zu widmen. Wim Kösters wurde am 26. November 1942 in Greven / Kreis Steinfurt geboren. Er studierte von 1963 bis 1968 Volkswirtschaftslehre an der...

We investigate the key factors underlying business cycle synchronisation in the euro area applying the extreme-bounds analysis. We examine both traditional determinants and new, EMU-specific policy and structural indicators over the past 25 years. Our evidence seems to support the endogeneity...

In this paper, we present a set of specific measures to quantify the state and evolution of financial integration in the euro area. Five key markets are considered, namely the money, corporate bond, government bond, credit and equity markets. Building upon the law of one price, we developed two...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the various challenges facing European integration and the EU institutional architecture as result of the global financial crisis. The European integration process is not yet complete, both in terms of its content and geographical coverage. It can be...