The Process of European Economic Integration (Since 1945)

1) The process of institutional integration
- Defining integration: negative vs positive
- Theory of Regional Economic Associations; enlargements and domino effects
- Stages and turning points: from the EEC to the UE
- Constitutional treaties and principles: Rome 1957, Maastricht 1992, Lisbon 2007
- Creeping competences and the subsidiarity principle: does the EU do what it should?
- Historical evolution of common policies and the budget: how the EU spends its resources
- Historical evolution of decision rules: measuring power and forming coalitions; is EU decision making efficient?

2) The process of economic integration
- Liberalization, customs union and single market
- Making the single market: the removal of frictional barriers
- Factor market integration: labor and capital
- Single market and scale economies: the defragmentation of the European market in the 1980s-90s
- Growth effects of European economic integration: theory and facts
- Consequence of integration for European specialization and economic geography

3) The process of monetary integration
- Exchange rate regimes and economic policy: the "trilemma" or "impossible trinity"
- Costs and benefits of a single currency: the theory of Optimum Currency Areas
- Creating a European area of macroeconomic and exchange rate stability: from the Bretton Woods system (1946-73) to the Monetary Snake (1973-79) and the European Monetary System (1979-1998)
- Rules and interpretations of the EMS: the German anchor; cooperation vs discipline
- Currency crises: first, second and third generation models
- The EMS crisis 1992-93
- The Stability Pact and the transition to the single currency
- Is Europe an optimum currency area?
- Eurozone's architecture and the European crisis 2008-15