Economic Growth and Political Integration: Estimating the Benefits from Membership in the European Union Using the Synthetic Counterfactuals Method

Nauro Campos, Fabrizio Coricelli and Luigi Moretti

No 8162, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper presents new estimates of the economic benefits from economic and political integration. Using the synthetic counterfactuals method, we estimate how GDP per capita and labour productivity would have behaved for the countries that joined the European Union (EU) in the 1973, 1980s, 1995 and 2004 enlargements, if those countries had not joined the EU. We find large positive effects from EU membership but these differ across countries and over time (they are only negative for Greece). We calculate that without deep economic and political integration, per capita incomes would have been, on average, approximately 12 percent lower.

Keywords: European Union; synthetic counterfactuals; economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 F15 F43 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (113)

Published - published as 'Institutional integration and economic growth in Europe' in: Journal of Monetary Economics, 2019, 103, 88-104

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Related works:
Working Paper: Economic Growth and Political Integration: Estimating the Benefits from Membership in the European Union Using the Synthetic Counterfactuals Method (2016)
Working Paper: Economic Growth and Political Integration: Estimating the Benefits from Membership in the European Union Using the Synthetic Counterfactuals Method (2016)
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