Elements in Economics of European Integration – serie

Having stagnated for decades in the shadow of the UK, the Irish economy's performance improved after it joined the European Union (EEC) in 1973. This Element shows how the challenge of EU membership gave focus and direction to Irish economic policy. No longer dependent on low value-added agricultural exports to Britain, within the EU Ireland became a hub for multinational corporations in IT and pharmaceutical products. This export success required and facilitated a strengthening of education and social policy infrastructures, and underpinned the achievement of high average living standards. EU membership has also brought challenges, and several severe setbacks have resulted from Irish policy mistakes. But the European flavour of Ireland's structural policies (leavened with exposure to US experience) has helped it navigate the hazards of hyper-globalization with fewer political tensions than seen elsewhere.

There is now a Happiness Revolution to go along with the earlier Industrial and Demographic Revolutions. The Happiness Revolution is captured using people's happiness scores, as reported in public surveys, whereas the earlier revolutions are reflected by economic production (such as GDP) and life expectancy. Increases in happiness are chiefly due to social-science welfare policies that alleviate people's foremost concerns - those centering on family life, health, and jobs. This Element traces the course of the Happiness Revolution throughout Europe since the 1980s when comprehensive and comparable data on people's happiness first become available. Which countries lead and which lag? How is happiness distributed - are the rich happier than the poor, men than women, old than young, native than foreign born, city than countryfolk? How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted happiness? These are among the questions addressed in this Element. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

There is now a Happiness Revolution to go along with the earlier Industrial and Demographic Revolutions. The Happiness Revolution is captured using people's happiness scores, as reported in public surveys, whereas the earlier revolutions are reflected by economic production (such as GDP) and life expectancy. Increases in happiness are chiefly due to social-science welfare policies that alleviate people's foremost concerns - those centering on family life, health, and jobs. This Element traces the course of the Happiness Revolution throughout Europe since the 1980s when comprehensive and comparable data on people's happiness first become available. Which countries lead and which lag? How is happiness distributed - are the rich happier than the poor, men than women, old than young, native than foreign born, city than countryfolk? How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted happiness? These are among the questions addressed in this Element. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The Element identifies the logic of how the European Union (EU) has developed both in terms of the way the organization works and the way it has expanded to include new member states. It combines insights from the economic theories related to clubs and common-pool resources. The argument is that the EU may have started as a club, where members agreed to lose arrangements to generate and govern non-rivalrous goods from which only they could benefit, but it quickly evolved into a system of common-pool resources, where members have to manage rivalrous goods, the access to which cannot easily be refused to outsiders. That evolution was necessary to avoid the depletion of the goods EU member states depend on. The argument is illustrated through the evolution of the single market, the single currency, the single financial space, and security. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The Element identifies the logic of how the European Union (EU) has developed both in terms of the way the organization works and the way it has expanded to include new member states. It combines insights from the economic theories related to clubs and common-pool resources. The argument is that the EU may have started as a club, where members agreed to lose arrangements to generate and govern non-rivalrous goods from which only they could benefit, but it quickly evolved into a system of common-pool resources, where members have to manage rivalrous goods, the access to which cannot easily be refused to outsiders. That evolution was necessary to avoid the depletion of the goods EU member states depend on. The argument is illustrated through the evolution of the single market, the single currency, the single financial space, and security. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The Road to Monetary Union analyses in non-technical language the process leading to adoption of a common currency for the European Union. The monetary union process involved different issues at different times and the contemporary global background mattered. The Element explains why monetary union was attempted and failed in the 1970s, and why the process was restarted in 1979, accelerated after 1992 and completed for a core group of EU members in 1999. It analyzes connections between eurozone membership and Greece's sovereign debt crisis. It concludes with analysis of how the eurozone works today and with discussion of its prospects for the 2020s. The approach is primarily economic, while acknowledging the role of politics (timing) and history (path dependence). A theme is to challenge simplistic ideas (e.g. that the euro has failed) with fuller analysis of competing pressures to shape the nature of monetary union.