This dissertation investigates the influence of economic integration through trade on several aspects of economic activity. The aim is to obtain empirical evidence on whether and how trade integration affects economic activity, and to provide theoretical frameworks to organise and understand the empirical findings. Since trade liberalization and regional integration agreements are the main tools through which the extent of integration can be influenced by policy makers, they are of particular interest throughout the analysis. In the first substantive chapter, I analyse the role of proximity to product markets in explaining the variation of regional per capita income in the European Union. Using a New Economic Geography model, I derive an econometric specification relating income levels to a trade cost and price index weighted sum of the surrounding locations' GDP. I estimate this specification for a sample of 193 EU regions for 1975-1997 and find an important role for market access. However, its main benefits seem to come from increased incentives for physical and human capital accumulation and not through direct trade cost savings. In the second chapter, I extend the analysis of the importance of geographic position and the extent of market integration to the developing world. In particular, I point out that economic geography plays an important role in explaining levels of industrialization in developing countries. First, good access to developed countries' product markets seems to be beneficial for industrialization. Second, geographic position also plays an important role in determining a country's comparative advantage and thus its sectoral specialization. Finally, the last chapter shifts the focus of analysis from the macro-to the micro-level by analysing the impact of trade liberalization on firm-level behaviour. Specifically, I use the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1989 as a natural experiment to show that trade liberalization leads to an increase in mergers and acquisitions activity. I also provide evidence that resources are transferred from less to more productive firms in the process and that the magnitude of the overall transfer is quantitatively important.

The thesis investigates the impact of implementation of the Structural Funds (SF), EU cohesion policy’s main financial instrument, on the patterns of governance, policy-making styles and practices of sub-national actors involved in the delivery of regional development policy in Poland. In fact, the SF not only offer unprecedented opportunities for funding developmental projects, but also constitute a powerful driver for institutional and policy change, as they impose a set of norms and principles regarding, for instance, involvement of stakeholders in decision-making, multi-level cooperation or multi-annual strategic planning. The study draws on the concept of Europeanisation, understood as a process of diffusion and institutionalisation of EU policy rules and practices within the member states’ domestic policy arenas. The thesis adds to the literature by examining the patterns of influence of the SF on the Polish regional actors and also by shedding new light on the mechanisms of post-accession Europeanisation. In particular, it looks into the policy actors’ strategies, perceptions and attitudes in order to assess whether adoption and diffusion of EU-imported norms and practices is driven by rational choice or sociological mechanisms. Moreover, the study emphasises the impact of EU cohesion policy’s partnership principle requiring close cooperation between the different levels of government and inclusion of regional stakeholders in administration of the SF. By doing so the study adds to the scholarly debate on the ‘New Regionalism’ and the issue of transferability of policy measures aimed at nurturing cooperation between regional actors to Central and Eastern European member states of the EU characterised by a lack of traditions of cooperative policy-making. The research provides evidence of a significant impact of the SF in three key areas: changes in organisational practices improving administrative capacity; diffusion of a strategic approach to regional and local development based on multi-annual planning; and diffusion of new forms of cooperation between the regional actors based on multilevel and inclusive governance as a result of introduction of EU cohesion policy’s partnership principle. Furthermore, the study reveals that rationalist and sociological mechanisms of Europeanisation can be intertwined. Adoption of the SF-related norms initially tends to be stimulated by cost/benefit calculation or constraint, thus by rationalist mechanisms, which may involve ‘shallow’ Europeanisation. However, over time, provided that the EU-imported norms are in line with the actors’ preferences, sociological mechanisms of Europeanisation become more prominent thanks to processes of social learning and horizontal diffusion of what is considered by the actors as ‘good practice.’ Finally, the study reveals that the impact of EU cohesion policy on the Polish regional policy actors is limited by a set of factors, which are mainly linked with the Polish political and administrative traditions. These include high turnover of staff in administration, clientelism and politicisation of regional institutions involved in distribution of the SF as well as the differentiated capacity of local authorities to participate in SF programmes, which may limit their exposure to the EU-imported norms and practices

The thesis examines whether differentiated integration works as an instrument to maintain the deepening process of European integration. To this end we discuss three questions. Why is an EU policy differentiated? Does differentiated integration advance the policy and satisfy the goals of the participating member states? Does differentiation advance the European integration process in general? With the help of these three questions we analyse two sets of EU policies: the Schengen cooperation and EMU that have been differentiated in the past; nine first pillar policies that could be differentiated in future. We develop three arguments showing that differentiation does indeed work. Firstly, differentiation works because most EU policies are susceptible to temporal or functional differentiation. Secondly, differentiation works because it advances EU policies by circumventing obstacles to their development and because it is only used if it satisfies the interests of the participating member states. Finally, differentiation works because it advances the EU by attracting the non-participants and influencing new solutions adopted by all member states. Differentiation is therefore not only useful in selected cases but as an alternative method of European integration for the future

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the debate surrounding Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the question of whether Britain should join dominated the political agenda. Public opinion was characterised by widespread opposition to closer integration with Europe. This thesis investigates the social psychological processes underlying the dynamics of public attitudes towards the euro during this period. It focuses on three factors, shown in previous research to be particularly useful in explaining variation in support for EMU: the nature of information about the issue circulated by the media, variation in public involvement in the issue and the strength of people's attachment to British national identity. The empirical studies undertaken draw on a number of theoretical approaches but two in particular play a central part in the thesis: the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986) and Self-Categorisation Theory (Turner, 1987). Together, they provide a social psychological framework for understanding the role of information, involvement and identity in attitude formation and change. Four empirical studies were undertaken. The first two focus on the media. Study A looks at how much press coverage of the single currency issue the public was exposed to over the course of the debate. Study B looks at the content of this coverage, particularly in relation to forms of persuasive argument employed by press outlets of differing political outlooks. The next two studies focus on the role of involvement and identity in persuasion. Study C is an analysis of data from a public opinion field experiment - a Deliberative Poll - and study D reports an experiment especially designed to test the postulates of the ELM in relation to public attitudes towards the euro. The final chapter contains a summary of the thesis, some conclusions and a discussion of some of the emerging issues.

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This thesis explores the potential for external actors to promote regional cohesion in post-Soviet Central Asia through a study of the requisite factors, internal to the region, for regional integration to proceed. Specifically, the thesis explores the potential benefits from economic integration, through a study of trade potentials, and the absence or presence of demand for and supply of regional integration pol-icies. The study finds that Central Asian republics may benefit from economic integration through increased intra-regional trade potential as well by pursuing, jointly, trade facilitation with external partners. The study also finds that demand for market enlargement through regional integration from the Central Asian busi-ness community is limited owing to the scarcity of growth-oriented businesses. This dearth stems from under-appreciation of free market business models and lack of business skills, as well as business environments, which discourage busi-ness growth. Regional economic integration policies are pursued by some Central Asian governments, namely the Kazakh and Kyrgyz governments, though this takes the form of a wider Eurasian integration, not Central Asian regionalism. To the extent integration policies are pursued, they are a reflection of government preferences not bottom-up driven demands by the business community. The thesis further finds that the pursuit of Eurasian integration is detrimental to the development of Central Asian regionalism, as the prominent role of Russia in the Eurasian framework, discourages participation of other Central Asian repub-lics. The Kazakh pursuit of regional leadership through promotion of Eurasian integration, therefore, contributes to regional fragmentation. Similarly, Uzbeki-stan’s protectionist policies cause fragmentation, for instance by encouraging the Kyrgyz government’s pursuit of Eurasian integration. Moreover, the political structures of the Central Asian republics are found to be detrimental to trade facil-itation and regional integration policies as powerful elites have vested interest in the status quo. Consequently, attempts to promote regional cohesion in Central Asia by actors external to the region are deemed to be premature.

No description available.

This research examines European financial and economic integration to see whether this is part of or additional to a global phenomenon. It expands previous research by examining how financial, economic and monetary indicators of European Union countries separately and as a block correlate with those of the U.S. and Japan, and whether effects differ between large and small markets within the E.U .. The results generally give evidence that stock market integration reflects other measures of economic and monetary integration, namely interest rates, exchange rates and trade. The findings confirm a strong increase over time in the intra European correlations for financial and economic variables against generally smaller changes in E.U. connections with Japan and the U.S. and between Japan and the U.S .. The results show that financial, economic and monetary European integration is a regional phenomenon more than a reflection of a global trend toward integration. Globally countries within European Union are shown to be closer financially, economically and monetarily with themselves than with U.S. or Japan. The study also measures the impact of economic and monetary European integration in terms of the effects on the theoretical optimal European portfolios for representative European Union resident investors. The research focuses on European and national risk and on the consistency, level and changes in optimal European weights under European integration using Markowitz mean/variance efficiency and the Sharpe ratio. The research shows that there is a trend towards a higher European influence on risk and a concentration on a smaller number of markets at anyone time with increasing focus on E.U. markets offering the highest returns. The study also indicates an increase in the level of concentration of optimal weights in the theoretical optimal portfolio as European markets raising concerns about overshooting as investment funds move dramatically between markets. There are also some practical concerns about the liquidity of small national markets under integration raising problems of their viability in an integrated Europe.

Asymmetric economic integration refers to integration between partners of different sizes. This thesis asks the question: are the welfare implications of economic integration dependent on the size of economies? To assist in answering this question, the relationship between size and the characteristics of economies is examined and the relationship between trade costs and the size classification of economies is observed. Countries are classified by a size index that includes the app lied measures of size as well as a theoretical measure of sub-optimality. Relative trade costs are calculated for each size classification and the results are compared. Cross-section and panel data analyses of the welfare effects of PTAs for countries according to the size classifications are carried. An econometric gravity analysis is implemented to estimate the trade diversion and trade creation effects with respect to the size classification. The welfare effects of economic integration are calculated using a general equilibrium model where the calculations are again made according to size classification of countries. The conclusion is that ex post analysis of the effects of economic integration agreements is asymmetric between the size of nations and according to the size classification used in this study; small countries are the biggest gainers ex post from economic integration agreements. To estimate the effects of PTAs on trade flows, two econometric methods are used. A cross-section analysis is used to capture the temporal evaluation of the impact of PTAs on trade flows and a panel data analysis to capture the impact of PT As over a longer time period. Both of these methods are used to estimate tile effects of PTAs on tile country size classification. Tile findings confirm that the impact of PTAs on trade flows is asymmetric between countries of different sizes. The results indicate that the effects of PT As are lowest on the trade flows, imports and exports of large countries and the exports of micro countries. The effects of PTAs are greatest on the trade flows, imports and exports of small countries. Two general equilibrium models are constructed with different assumptions regarding market structure to estimate the effects of PTAs, ex ante, on welfare according to country's size classification. Tile results of the general equilibrium analysis are that the welfare gains are asymmetric between the sizes of countries; they further confirm that small countries are the largest relative gainers from economic integration, followed by medium-sized countries.

This thesis has two primary objectives; analysing Turkey's bilateral trade flows to assess the allocation effects of the Customs Union (CU) between Turkey and the EU and analysing Turkey's patterns of export specialisation vis-a.-vis the EU15 a. la revealed comparative advantage (RCA). Chapter 2 investigates the trade creating and trade diverting effects of the CU by employing a gravity model of trade framework that stems from-the New Trade Theory. The main finding of this chapter is, although the CU is estimated to not have created trade with member states at the expense of non-member states, it is estimated to have increased Turkey's imports, on average, more than Turkey's exports, notwithstanding that these results heavily depend on the employed estimator. On the other hand, the general economic factors, such as the economic space, relative-factor endowments and similarity in economic size, are estimated to have a statistically significant and greater impact on Turkey's trade flows, compared to the Customs Union. Furthermore, these effects are greater for Turkey's import flows compared to Turkey's export flows and are robust to the employed estimators. Chapter 3 then investigates stability, specialisation and divergence in manufacturing industries' export patterns for Turkey vis-a.-vis the EU15 at both the industry level and country level analogous to literature on convergence-divergence on growth. The main finding of this chapter is, although Turkey fits to the average EU15 behaviour, it is statistically significantly different. Turkey is revealed to have a sticky export specialisation pattern suggesting ,B-de-specialisation, which broadened for exports to rest of the world indicating a-de-specialisation while nan-owed for exports to EU15 indicating a -specialisation. Building on Chapter 3, Chapter 4 investigates the evolution of export specialisation patterns for Turkey. The main finding of this chapter is , Turkey's exports to EU15 show greater mobility than to its exports to the rest of the world. While Turkey preserved its degree of specialisation in industries with high RCA for its exports to EU15, her degree of specialisation decreased in all industries consideling its exports to rest of the world. These correspond to an increasing (a decreasing) polarisation in Turkey's exports patterns to EU15 (rest of the world) .