The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), launched in 2004, is a unified European Union (EU) policy framework towards the EU neighboring (ENP) countries. The objective of the ENP is to strengthen the prosperity, stability and security of the (enlarged) EU countries and the ENP countries. Even...

The last decades have witnessed the rise of a new wave of economic regionalism, the most remarkable example of which is the European Union. Regional economic integration is generally interpreted either as an attempt to resist the centrifugal forces of globalisation by strenghtening economic ties...

I investigate the effect of changing language skills on trade using an unique panel data set on spoken language. It tracks over thirty, mostly European, countries from the mid-90s to the beginning of the 2010s. In this period, European countries have witnessed an advancing trade integration and...

This paper claims that distance alone is a poor proxy for international transport costs in gravity equations. We develop a theoretical framework with a manufacturing and a transport sector, where the level of manufacturing exports determines the demand for transport. Above a certain threshold,...

This paper reconsiders the economic explanation of EU regional policy from an evolution- ary perspective. It contrasts the neoclassical equilibrium notions of market and government failure with the prevalent evolutionary neo-Schumpeterian and Austrian-Hayekian perceptions. Based on this...

The paper evaluates the impact of the EU Eastern enlargement 2004 on the economic performance of border regions located at the frontier to the new member states in the East. These regions were assumed to be particularly affected by the enlargement because of their geographic proximity to the new...

Benefits of federation are in more flexible use of the social and economic potential of its subjects at wide inter-regional competition. The federal system allows to use effects of either greater economic space or more complete considering of local conditions and interests. Specificity of modern...

It is widely acknowledged that young ventures and fast growing firms have a strong impact on economic growth and employment creation. It is not only entrepreneurial dynamics associated to entry and exit of new ventures, but also the ability of firms to survive and grow, that is important for...

The distance puzzle has been wildly discussed in the literature since Leamer and Levinsohn (1995) shed the light on it. This puzzle simply says that "the world is not getting smaller": distance still matters to account for trade. This is reflected in a decreasing distance of trade (DOT), or in a...