For years, the alleged success of the European
economic integration has been the subject of a
vigorous debate. Re-challenging the approaches
commonly implemented and using suitable estimation
techniques, this book aims at to shed additional
light in understanding the remaining hindrances to
that European integration process. The focus is
concentrated on the transaction costs by using
evidence from trade volumes as well as from prices
of traded goods. By presenting pragmatic results,
the book discusses the effects of transaction costs
with the various attempts to integrate these effects
in a global explanation of the failure of products
market integration. The findings underscore the
still effective important negative impact of
transaction costs on the market integration process
and highlight the impacts of the country- and sector-
specific patterns on the EU economic integration.
For instance, as expected from the theoretical
prediction, the results suggest that trade partners
with lower transaction costs should experience more
intense trade relationships in sectors featured by
imperfect competition and increasing returns.
economic integration has been the subject of a
vigorous debate. Re-challenging the approaches
commonly implemented and using suitable estimation
techniques, this book aims at to shed additional
light in understanding the remaining hindrances to
that European integration process. The focus is
concentrated on the transaction costs by using
evidence from trade volumes as well as from prices
of traded goods. By presenting pragmatic results,
the book discusses the effects of transaction costs
with the various attempts to integrate these effects
in a global explanation of the failure of products
market integration. The findings underscore the
still effective important negative impact of
transaction costs on the market integration process
and highlight the impacts of the country- and sector-
specific patterns on the EU economic integration.
For instance, as expected from the theoretical
prediction, the results suggest that trade partners
with lower transaction costs should experience more
intense trade relationships in sectors featured by
imperfect competition and increasing returns.