Bulletin n. 3/2011
February 2012
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • André Sapir
    European Integration at the Crossroads: A Review Essay on the 50th Anniversary of Bela Balassa's Theory of Economic Integration
    in Journal of Economic Literature , Vol. 49, No. 4 ,  2011 ,  1200–1229
    Bela Balassa's Theory of Economic Integration, published fifty years ago, is a remarkable, yet little known book. This essay reviews developments in the economic literature and in the process of European integration since the book's publication, showing that it was incredibly prescient. It anticipated by more than twenty years the modern literature on economic integration that emphasizes scale economies, imperfect competition, and economic geography. It also predicted that monetary union cannot function properly without political unification, a condition well illustrated by the recent euro-debt crisis that is likely to be a watershed in the history of European integration.
    ©2001 - 2020 - Centro Studi sul Federalismo - P. IVA 94067130016