Galvanized by the devastation of the Second World War, European countries achieved a historically unprecedented and unparalleled level of regional economic integration in the postwar period. Intensive cooperation between the two biggest powers of continental Western Europe, France, and Germany,...

For a very long time, the areas available for continuous long-distance trade were limited to territories the size of Braudel's Mediterranée (1949). Whatever the commercial organizations (merchants in the Roman or the Fatimid Empires, the Hanseatic League, the Florentine Companies), their trade...

"One Belt, One Road" is an extensive and complex initiative whose potential effect and influence are still currently pending for answers. This paper addresses the following research question: What is the effect of the New Silk Road intercontinental railways on the trade between China and its...

This paper gives an overview of the role of the IMF in the European debt crisis. It describes the rescue packages and the involvement of the IMF. The main part discusses the pros and cons of the participation of the IMF in elaborating and monitoring the economic adjustment programs for the...

Professor Patrick Messerlin gave the 2007 Richard Snape Lecture, "Economic and Regulatory Reforms in Europe: Past Experiences and Future Challenges", at the Productivity Commission's office in Melbourne, on 30 October 2007.Patrick Messerlin is Professor of Economics at the Institute d'Etudes...

Defeat of a proposed constitution for the European Union by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005 should have provided an opportunity to reflect on a broader range of alternative political and economic futures for Europe. But it did not. For the Lisbon Treaty, which became effective in...

New Europe has never had it so good. Its income, quality of life and level of happiness have never been closer to that of the developed countries in Western Europe. With its per capita income at an all-time high and the quality of life almost indistinguishable from developed countries, the...