Main description: Die seit Jahrzehnten weltweit stark wachsenden internationalen Handels- und Kapitalverflechtungen lassen die nationalen Wirtschaftsentwicklungen zunehmend interdependent werden. Welchen Herausforderungen ist unter diesen Umständen die nationale Wirtschaftspolitik ausgesetzt?...

This paper highlights the economic meaning of the size of the state for members of the European Union, thereby making the economic success of EU states statistically tangible. Firstly, we show in descriptive illustrations that the theoretically expected characteristics of small countries clearly...

In the light of the current economic debt crisis within the Euro zone, the heterogeneity of EU members has becoming increasingly apparent. This heterogeneity is evident not only in some single macroeconomic variables but also in the level of economic integration with the other EU members....

The concept of European integration is often investigated in scientific papers and political debates, a uniform definition of this concept does not exist, however. Thereby, different steps and processes of European integration are hardly quantifiable. Moreover, it is hardly ever discussed that...

This paper deals with the question of what impact membership of the European Monetary Union (EMU) has had on small European states. We will also analyze whether or to what extent a large number of small member states affect the EMU itself when they vastly outnumber the large countries. We...