International economic integration is a topic upon which both academics
and policy-makers are focusing a great deal of attention. This has
perhaps been most marked in western Europe, given the establishing of
the inter- nal market and the prospects for an economic and monetary
union. In parallel with the movement toward widening and deeping of
western European economic integration, we find an increased integration
of eastern Europe to world trade and finance as well as regional
integration in North America and in East Asia. The book on hand provides
a collection of recent research by leading scholars and practicians in
this field. It is divided into three parts. The first part deals with
some theoretical aspects of international integration, the second and
the third part attend to implications of concrete forms of international
integration inside and outside Europe. Part I starts with a neoclassical
analysis of the impacts of factor-market integration by Franz Peter
Lang. He investigates the effects on production level, production
structure, demand level and structure of external trade of a "small
integration area". Lang shows that the specific welfare effects of
factor-market integration can only be realized if and only if external
trade (between the integration area and the rest of the world) is
increased too.