European countries are becoming increasingly politically integrated and the process of integration has accelerated in recent years. But how much social integration is there within the Community? This article supplies a definition of European social integration, and thereby lays down the...

Die Gemeinschaftsaufgabe „Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur“ (GRW) ist das zentrale wirtschaftspolitische Instrument zur Förderung entwicklungsschwacher Regionen in Deutschland seit Ende der 1960er Jahre. Seit der deutschen Wiedervereinigung kommt es zudem flächendeckend in...

"This paper discusses free immigration to regulated labour markets (as in Europe) and to unregulated labour markets (as in the US), and explores the implications for migration flows of collective agreements, employment protection laws, product market regulations etc. It is argued that the...

"Western Europe has welcomed its new members by shutting the door in the face of the workers coming from the East and making their road to EMU more difficult. Two years down the road of enlargement, some countries are now liberalizing worker flows. Indeed, as shown in this paper, these...

"The European Social Model (ESM) is increasingly becoming a model of integration policy. The idea is based on a combination of economic efficiency, in the sense of high productivity, competition and economic growth, and a high level of employment on the one hand together with social cohesion on...

"Since the fall of the iron curtain in 1989, the migration deficit of the Eastern part of Germany has accumulated to 1.8 million people, which is over 10 percent of its initial population. Depending on their human capital endowment, these migrants might either - in the case of low-skilled...

"The paper shows that the distribution of regional unemployment rates in Germany exhibits strong persistent behaviour. Furthermore, panel unit root tests and autoregressive fixed effects models indicate that regional unemployment rates display conditional rather than unconditional convergence....

Rodriguez-Pose A. and Fratesi U. (2004) Between development and social policies: the impact of European Structural Funds in Objective 1 regions, Reg. Studies 38, 97-113. European regional support has grown in parallel with European integration. The funds targeted at achieving greater economic...