Some recent studies have shown that specialisation of countries has tended to increase, while regional concentration of countries has tended to decrease. This seems to be counterintuitive at first glance. In this paper, we use the entropy index - as the indicator of structural change with the...

In 1999, eleven European countries formed the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU); they abandoned their national currencies and adopted a new common currency, the euro. Several recent papers argue that the introduction of the euro has led (by itself) to a sizable and statistically significant...

This paper reviews the rationale for co-ordination of macroeconomic policies in the euro area. It makes clear what co-ordination can do and what it cannot do in European practice. It concludes that with the Pact for Stability and Growth, the framework for co-ordination of fiscal policies has by...

Why do some countries join the EU earlier than others, why do others wait? In order to answer this question we apply the theory of investment under uncertainty (Dixit and Pindyck, 1994) to the decision on EU-membership. We develop a simplified model of two periods to study how the value of...

This paper examines the transition process within Eastern Europe and the integration process with the EU and shows that the requirements for the transition towards a market economy overlap with the requirements for EU accession. Furthermore, the economic situation of the candidate countries is...

On October 21, 2005, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) held a high-level workshop labeled “The European Integration Process — A Changing Environment for National Central Banks” for an international audience. The workshop provided an overview of the changing role that national...

This Paper examines the changing relationships between the G7 countries through VAR models for the quarterly growth rates, estimated both over sub-periods and using a rolling data window. Six trivariate models are estimated, all of which include the US and a European (E15) aggregate. In relative...

Nicholas Kaldor and Kazimierz Łaski have been two very prominent exponents of Keynesian thinking. They both contributed to the debate on European economic integration, one (Nicholas Kaldor) in the early 1970s, when there were fierce debates about the United Kingdom's entry to the European...

Why do some countries join the EU earlier than others, why do others wait? Inorder to answer this question we apply the theory of investment under uncertainty (Dixit andPindyck, 1994) to the decision on EU-membership. We develop a simplified model of twoperiods to study how the value of waiting...