The Economic Impact of European Integration

54 Pages Posted: 12 Jun 2008

See all articles by Andrea Boltho

Andrea Boltho

University of Oxford - Magdalen College

Barry Eichengreen

University of California, Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Date Written: May 2008

Abstract

Economic integration, from the European Payments Union and the European Coal and Steel Community to the Common Market, the European Monetary System, the Single Market, and the euro, is one of the most visible, controversial and commented-upon aspects of Europe's development since the end of World War II. It is hard to imagine that Europe's economy would have developed the same way without it. Or is it? We see how far we can push the argument that European living standards, growth rates, and economic structure would have been little different in the absence of the institutions and processes that have culminated in today's European Union. We adopt the methodology applied by Fogel to the railroads: suspecting that the results are small, wherever possible we adopt assumptions that bias upward the estimated impact. We conclude that European incomes would have been roughly 5 per cent lower today in the absence of the EU.

Keywords: European integration, European Union

JEL Classification: F0

Suggested Citation

Boltho, Andrea and Eichengreen, Barry, The Economic Impact of European Integration (May 2008). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP6820, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1143183

Andrea Boltho (Contact Author)

University of Oxford - Magdalen College ( email )

Magdalen College
Oxford, OX1 4AU
United Kingdom

Barry Eichengreen

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

310 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

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