The paper takes into account both the concerns of the EU, arguing that convergence is incomplete, and the demands from accession countries, claiming that monetary integration is optimal. Indicators are developed which measure convergence and optimality in comparison with a reference group of the...

As the refugee crisis deepens and more migrants and refugees arrive each day, political policies and economic discussion becomes more complex and relevant to states' local and national agendas. Compounding the practical difficulties associated with this influx, terrorist attacks in Paris,...

EU enlargements have given new EU member states access to the European Single Market. While tariff liberalisation was already completed at the time of enlargement, technical regulations were subject to different sectoral approaches, including harmonisation and mutual recognition. We employ a...

Ten of the post-communist countries managed to integrate into EU. Which are the subjective outcomes of socio-economic transformations in these countries? Did they manage to increase their citizens’ happiness in this process? To give an answer to these questions I used data from Candidate...

The time distance methodology used offers a new perspective to the problem, an additional statistical measure, and a presentation tool for policy analysis and debate readily understood by policy makers, media and general public. Disparity between the analysed transition economies and EU...

Tax systems have become increasingly complex in recent decades. There is no such thing as a single tax. There are individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, sometimes local income taxes. There are a variety of indirect taxes, such as the value added tax (VAT), various kinds of excise...

This paper studies the productivity effects of integration deepening. The identification strategy exploits the 1995 European Union (EU) enlargement, when all candidate countries joined the Single Market but one â Norway â did not join the EU. Our synthetic difference-in-differences estimates...

In the course of integrating Eastern Europe into the EU the accession countries will have a good opportunity to attract industries from Western Europe and elsewhere and to catch up in per capita income. However, the catching up of the accession countries will be accompanied by an increase in...

The extent to which international high-skilled mobility channels are forming is a question of great importance in an increasingly global knowledge-based economy. One factor facilitating the growth of high-skilled labor markets is the standardization of certifiable degrees meriting international...

In a referendum held in the UK on 23 June 2016, 51.9% of the participating electorate voted to leave the European Union. The number of legal questions raised by the referendum are breathtaking. This article tackles two of them: it discusses questions of UK constitutional law involved in deciding...