Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/111550 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9098
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper investigates whether joint economic and political integration leads to larger economic benefits than just economic integration. The identification strategy rests on the fact that Norway, at the time of the 1995 Enlargement of the European Union (EU), had successfully completed negotiations and fulfilled all accession requirements, taken membership in the European Economic Area (with full access to the Single Market), but decided in a referendum to reject full-fledged EU membership. Using the differences-in-differences and synthetic control methods with regional data, we find substantial politically driven economic benefits from EU membership: if Norway had joined the EU in 1995, productivity levels between 1995 and 2001 would have been 6% higher on average.
Subjects: 
political economy benefits
European Union
labor productivity
synthetic counterfactual method
regional data
JEL: 
C33
F15
F43
O52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
1.37 MB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.