Is Europe an Optimal Political Area?

NBER Working Paper No. 23325

Issued in April 2017

NBER Program(s):Political Economy



Employing a wide range of individual-level surveys, we study the extent of cultural and institutional heterogeneity within the EU and how this changed between 1980 and 2008. We present several novel empirical regularities that paint a complex picture. While Europe has experienced both systematic economic convergence and an increased coordination across national and subnational business cycles since 1980, this was not accompanied by cultural nor institutional convergence. Such persistent heterogeneity does not necessarily spell doom for further political integration, however. Compared to observed heterogeneity within member states themselves, or in well functioning federations such as the US, cultural diversity across EU members is a similar order of magnitude. The main stumbling block on the road to further political integration is not heterogeneity of tastes or of cultural traits, but other cleavages, such as national identities.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w23325

Published: Alberto Alesina & Guido Tabellini & Francesco Trebbi, 2017. "Is Europe an Optimal Political Area?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, vol 2017(1), pages 169-234. citation courtesy of

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