Suchergebnisse

My thesis analyzes various types of economic integration over about half a century. It consists of four parts. Chapter 2 strives to separate the 'treatment effect' of national border demarcation. Earlier research into prices and trade has presented robust evidence that political borders divert trade beyond explicit border costs. Price data show that political borders correlate with deviations from the law of one price. Trade data indicate lower than expected exchange of goods across borders. Although research has made progress since Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000) have declared border effects one of the six major puzzles in international economics, they are not well understood and their actual extent remains unclear. To this end, I determine the actual 'treatment effect' of borders by considering the new German-Polish border in 1919/1921 as natural experiment. In the spirit of Alesina et al. (2000) such treatment effects of borders can be interpreted as the economic costs of new demarcation incurred by new nation states. Put differently, the higher treatment effects are, the more economically costly is political disintegration. Chapter 3 applies the approach elaborated in chapter 2, to trade integration in all of Central Europe after the peace treaty of Versailles in 1919 in order to evaluate the economic impact of border drawing. Appendix A introduces a new data set of regional trade in Europe between 1885-1933, which is analyzed in chapter 2 and chapter 3. War, the sowing the seeds of hatred, the massive destruction of infrastructure, and the foundation of many new nation states in Central Europe did certainly not foster trade integration. Moreover, trade conflicts disturbed the European and later the whole Atlantic economy, while the USSR pursued a strategy to become economically autark from the rest of the world after the New Economic Policy implemented in the early 1920s. Because chapter 2 indicates that the treatment effect of new political borders depends on the extent of prewar integration, chapter 3 examines ...

This new edition of International Economic Integration, has been fully revised and updated to reflect current developments in this increasingly important area. New features include: * Completely new introduction and conclusion * Chapter added on integration schemes which includes discussion of the East and the enlargement of the European Union * Chapter on the Common Market expanded to include new developments in capital mobility and industrial policy * new real life examples, quanitative studies and statistical material * Treatment of issues even more accessible following feedback from firs